Faced with a tricky Russian accent, British actors can be trusted to do one of two things: ham it up or dodge the issue entirely and proceed in plummy English tones.

BBC One’s new drama, McMafia, has taken a different approach. The casting team turned to Russia in search of talent after deciding that audiences are now “too sophisticated” to take cod foreign accents seriously.

McMafia’s international cast includes Maria Shukshina, an actress dubbed “the Meryl Streep of Russia”. Characters who hail from Georgia, Israel, the Czech Republic and India are played by actors from those countries.

James Norton stars as the London-raised son of Russian exiles, who finds himself drawn into a world of international crime. “We had no British actors doing dodgy Russian accents,” Norton said.

It is a marked departure from War and Peace, the BBC’s last big-budget drama to feature Russian characters - including Norton as Prince Andrei.