JK Rowling's detective Cormoran Strike spotted in London as filming begins for new TV series

JK Rowling's detective Cormoran Stike has been seen for the first time on the streets of London as filming gets under way for the TV adaptation of the author's crime novels.

Actor Tom Burke stars as the private eye, with Holliday Grainger, playing his assistant Robin Ellacott.

Images show the British stars in character, with the pair standing outside Strike's favourite pub, The Tottenham.

Rowling, most famous for her Harry Potter novels, wrote the Strike series under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

The Cuckoo's Calling, the first book in the series, was published in 2013, but sold just 500 copies until it was accidentally revealed that the Harry Potter creator was behind it.

Rowling went on to publish two more Strike books and sales of the series rocketed to more than four million copies worldwide.

Burke, who has appeared in War and Peace and The Musketeers, plays Strike, a war veteran turned private detective, who has both physical and psychological scars from his time as military police investigator.

Grainger, whose credits also include Cinderella and Anna Karenina, is Ellacot, who starts off as Strike's temporary secretary but whose role soon develops.

The hotly anticipated series will air on BBC1.

It is being made by Bronte Film And Television, which also produced The Casual Vacancy, the adaptation of Rowling's first book for adults, starring Keeley Hawes, Michael Gambon and Rory Kinnear.

Filming of the Strike series continues until April.