The third season of Killing Eve will return to screens sooner than expected, the BBC has announced.

New episodes of the spy thriller, which stars Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer, will air in the US on April 12, then at 6am on April 13 on iPlayer in the UK.

It will be the first time there has not been a significant gap between the show premiering in the two territories.

Each episode will then air on a weekly basis, the BBC said, with the first episode getting a primetime slot on BBC One on April 19.

The rest of the series will follow weekly in the same 9pm slot, the BBC said.

Season three of Killing Eve had originally been supposed to arrive on April 26, but the BBC announced it had been brought forward on Friday.

The award-winning show stars Oh as a now-former MI5 agent who became obsessed with Comer’s Russian assassin Villanelle.

Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge adapted the show from a series of novels and served as an executive producer on the first season.

Emerald Fennell took over for the second season while Suzanne Heathcote will serve as showrunner for the third season.