Fact File: Borderline

Borderline executive producers Larry Bass and Steve November join series producer Mary Callery to tell DQ about this character drama about two mismatched detectives, set on the Irish border.

Coproduced by Shinawil and Further South for Germany’s ZDF in association with Lionsgate, Borderline is an investigative drama where character and story take precedence over procedure. Two detectives, Aoife Regan (Amy De Bhrún) and Philip Boyd (Eoin Macken), work in a community populated by idiosyncratic people typical of the Irish borderlands – an area steeped in history, tradition and long memories.

Here, Shinawil executive producer Larry Bass and series producer Mary Callery join Further South EP Steve November to reveal more about this series, which comprises three feature-length episodes with stories all impacted by the border and its history, present instability and uncertain future.

The Irish border is the United Kingdom’s only land border with the EU
For years, geographical borders have fascinated viewers. They beg so many questions: how does a border define its community in terms of family, friends, cultures and economies? What do people living on either side of a border have (or not have) in common? How do attitudes towards a border shift over years with differing political and judicial administrations?
The Irish border has always been a neglected ‘backwater,’ not least when it comes to TV drama. Many people outside of Ireland are unaware a border even exists. But creator and writer John Forte grew up with the border and travelled across it many times. He knows the area is a beautiful, idiosyncratic place with its rural landscape and chequered history of smuggling and violence, and he wanted to explore it more deeply and make it a character in a drama.

Each detective is a civilian in the other’s jurisdiction
Boyd, from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and Regan, from the Republic’s An Garda Síochàna, are forced by their superiors to work together on serious crimes. It’s a familiar trope – the mismatched cops – but in Borderline we have two very different police officers from two separate jurisdictions separated by a long-standing history of animosity and mistrust. Boyd and Regan are each a civilian in the other’s jurisdiction, so while criminals and crimes cross the border with relative impunity, it is much harder for our detectives.

Topical crimes addressing current social issues and cultural specificity
The characters and culture are very specific to Ireland and the border, and so are the crimes. The series aims to tells stories that could only happen in this setting. The third story, for example, takes us into the highly competitive and partisan world of Gaelic sports, and specifically hurling – which is little known outside Ireland and is the fastest field sport in the world.
The history of the two countries is also frequently alluded to and informs our characters. For example, DCI Boyd always checks for bombs underneath his car – a hangover from the Troubles, when police officers were often targets of dissident groups. The world inhabited by our characters is the real world of contemporary Ireland.

The show is shot where it is set
The production was based in Louth, a few miles south of the border, so the whole show is shot where the drama is supposed to take place, taking advantage of little-used and lesser-known landscapes.

Brexit
As the Troubles receded, so did the status of the border; it became a reminder of the past with little or no contemporary importance. But Brexit changed all that. Suddenly, the Irish border was back in the news, both nationally and internationally. This presented John Forte with the perfect opportunity to explore his long-held fascination with the border, its issues and stories and incorporate them into a contemporary, relevant drama.

Borderline is a UK-Irish coproduction in the English language with German and US financiers
The on-screen drama of international politics and cooperation is mirrored off-screen, as Borderline brings together a UK producer (Further South Productions) with an Irish producer (Shinawil) to make a drama in the English language for a German broadcaster (ZDF) and US distributor (Lionsgate). Thankfully, relations between production partners run more smoothly than the relations between Boyd and Regan.

tagged in: Borderline, Further South, Larry Bass, Lionsgate, Mary Callery, ShinAwil, Steve November, ZDF