Broken

The US TV industry’s growing willingness to showcase black talent and address black issues has led to some great drama in the last couple of years, with shows including Empire, Power, Roots, Atlanta and Queen Sugar.

Now HBO is adding to the oeuvre with a miniseries about the death of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was killed in Mississippi in 1955. His tragic death is generally regarded as a key trigger for the emergence of the civil rights movement in America.

The untitled miniseries comes with a very influential production team attached, namely Jay-Z, Will Smith, Casey Affleck and Aaron Kaplan. And as of this week, it also has a writer attached – namely Steven Caple Jr.

Unlike the illustrious production team, Caple Jr is a relative newcomer. His most recent credits include an online youth drama called Class (which he directed) and a feature film called The Land, which he wrote and directed.

It’s the latter that secured Caple Jr his HBO gig. Premiering at Sundance in January 2016, it tells the story of four teenage boys from Cleveland who want to be professional skateboarders. Along the way, they discover a huge stash of drugs, which they start selling. But before too long, they run into trouble with the gangsters who lost the drugs in the first place.

The film received mixed reviews but carries with it a youthfulness and energy that HBO and the producers presumably want to inject into Till’s story.

Caple Jr won’t go into the project unaided. His script will be based on the book Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked The World And Propelled The Civil Rights Movement, by Devery Anderson.

In contrast to the issues of race and poverty that Caple Jr has explored so far in his career, Jess Brittain (Skins) has created a series for BBC3 in the UK that looks at the other end of the social spectrum. Called Clique, the drama centres on two best friends – Holly and Georgia – drawn into an elite clique of alpha girls led by lecturer Jude McDermid in their first few weeks at university.

Brittain, who is writing the show with Kirstie Swain and Milly Thomas, said Clique is a seductive, intense drama about friendship tested to extremes: “It is about the different ways ambition plays out in young women at university. It’s a heightened version of a certain type of uni experience, pulled from my time at uni, then ramped up a few notches into a psychological thriller. Clique goes to some pretty dark places but returns, always, to the key female friendships of our characters.”

Filming on Clique has begun in Edinburgh this week. Produced for BBC3 by Balloon Entertainment, the series will be distributed by All3Media International.

BBC Studios executive producer Christopher Aird said: “Clique is drama for a new generation of viewers and starring a new generation of brilliant young actors. Jess Brittain has created truly authentic characters and propelled them into a seductive and by turns shocking story.”

There was a lot of criticism when the BBC took the decision to make youth channel BBC3 an online-only service. The channel’s ratings have certainly been dented – but it is still managing to carve out a decent niche in youth-oriented drama, and as a nursery slope for emerging writers.

Previously in DQ, for example, we’ve talked about Marnie Dickens and her drama Thirteen.

And set to launch next month is the much-anticipated Class (nothing to do with Caple Jr’s web series). The series is spin-off from Doctor Who and has been written by acclaimed youth-fiction novelist Patrick Ness, whose titles include The Knife of Never Letting Go, Monsters of Men and A Monster Calls. .

In a short interview just released on YouTube, Ness said the appeal of Class, which is set in a school, was “being able to look at the Doctor Who universe from a different perspective,” adding: “What effect does [a visit from Doctor Who] have on the people left behind? I think Class will be funny, moving, exciting, scary, sexy and true to what teens feel like their lives are.”

Among the week’s other interesting stories, Hulu is turning the Top Cow comic franchise Postal into a TV series, with the production handled by Matt Tolmach Productions and Legendary TV. The show is being written by Seth Hoffman, co-executive producer of The Walking Dead.

Hoffman’s other scripted TV credits include Prison Break, Flash Forward and House. Originally created by Matt Hawkins and Bryan Hill, Postal is set in a town populated and run by fugitive criminals with a secret past.

Progress is also being made on Jimmy McGovern’s new drama Broken (working title), with Anna Friel, Paula Malcolmson, Aisling Loftus and Adrian Dunbar joining Sean Bean in the cast.

Bean stars as Father Michael Kerrigan, a Catholic priest presiding over a northern urban parish. Modern, maverick and reassuringly flawed, Father Michael must be confidante, counsellor and confessor to a congregation struggling to reconcile its beliefs with the challenges of daily life in contemporary Britain.

Friel, who also stars in ITV’s Marcella, said: “The Street [McGovern’s BBC1 drama] gave me one of my most rewarding roles and afterwards I promised myself that I would collaborate with Jimmy McGovern again. When the chance came up to work on Broken, I jumped at it. Sean is a great actor, it’s a brave and truthful script from Jimmy and I’m back up North.”

tagged in: BBC3, Broken, Class, Clique, HBO, Hulu, Jess Brittain, Jimmy McGovern, Patrick Ness, Postal, Seth Hoffman, Steven Caple Jr

UK TV audiences enjoyed some great drama over the Christmas period. But while all the major broadcasters offered something of interest, the BBC’s scripted output was simply outstanding.

A key reason for this is the corporation’s excellent relationship with writing talent. The Sherlock Christmas Special’s slightly warped view of the suffragette movement may have had its critics, but the episode – titled The Abominable Bride – was still a brilliantly written piece of TV from Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss that was watched by 8.4 million viewers.

Equally enjoyable were the opening episodes of Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Tolstoy’s War & Peace and Sarah Phelps’ take on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. And not to be overlooked is Tony Jordan’s Dickensian, an inspired piece of TV that I watched out of idle curiosity and which thus far has more than exceeded my modest expectations. See this Telegraph review for a good summary.

Charles Dance in And Then There Were None

The strength of the BBC’s Christmas drama slate won’t have come as a surprise to those who have been following the broadcaster’s scripted output over the last year or two. Among numerous highlights have been Wolf Hall (adapted from the Hilary Mantel novel by Peter Straughan), The Honourable Woman (written by Hugo Blick), Banished (Jimmy McGovern), Happy Valley (Sally Wainwright) and Doctor Foster (Mike Bartlett). In each case, it has been the quality of the writing that has really shone through.

Coming into 2016, it looks like the BBC is sticking with the same successful formula. Announcing a new slate of 35 hours of drama, Polly Hill, controller of BBC drama commissioning, said: “I will continue to reinvent and broaden the range of drama on the BBC. It is because we make great drama for everyone that we can offer audiences and the creative community something unique and distinct. I want the BBC to be the best creative home for writers.”

Hugo Blick's The Honourable Woman — Hugo Blick’s The Honourable Woman

So what’s on offer? Well, Hugo Blick will be back with Black Earth Rising, a BBC2 thriller set in Africa. Blick describes the show as a “longform thriller which, through the prism of a black Anglo-American family, examines the West’s relationship with Africa by exploring issues of justice guilt, and self-determination.”

The series will be produced by Drama Republic and Eight Rooks Production. Drama Republic MD Greg Brenman, whose company also produced The Honourable Woman and Doctor Foster, said: “We are excited to be teaming up with Hugo once more. Black Earth Rising is ambitious, thought-provoking and searingly relevant – the hallmarks that are fast defining Hugo Blick.”

Also recalled for 2016 is Bartlett, whose Doctor Foster was the top-rated UK drama of 2015. With Bartlett already committed to writing a follow-up series, Hill revealed the writer will also be writing a six-hour serial called Press for BBC1. Press is set in the fast-changing world of newspapers.

The critically acclaimed Doctor Foster was written by Mike Bartlett

Explaining the premise, Bartlett said: “From exposing political corruption to splashing on celebrity scandal, editors and journalists have enormous influence over us, yet recent events have shown there’s high-stakes, life-changing drama going on in the news organisations themselves. I’m hugely excited to be working with the BBC to make Press, a behind-the-scenes story about a group of diverse and troubled people who shape the stories and headlines we read every day.”

Although Jimmy McGovern’s period drama Banished was not renewed, the programme was a tour de force – so it’s no surprise the BBC has commissioned McGovern to write a new show. Broken “plots the perspective of local catholic priest Father Michael Kerrigan and that of his congregation and their struggle with both Catholicism and contemporary Britain.”

Set in Liverpool, the six-hour series will be produced by Colin McKeown and Donna Molloy of LA Productions. McGovern and McKeown said: “We are both proud and privileged to be producing this drama from our home city of Liverpool. The BBC is also the rightful home for this state-of-the-nation piece.”

Jimmy McGovern's Banished will not return — Jimmy McGovern’s Banished will not return

One writer joining the BBC fold for the first time is Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter/playwright Kenneth Lonergan, who has been tasked with adapting EM Forster’s Howards End for BBC1.

“I’m very proud to have been entrusted with this adaptation of Howards End,” he said. “The book belongs to millions of readers past and present; I only have the nerve to take it on at all because of the bottomless wealth and availability of its ideas, the richness of its characters and the imperishable strain of humanity running through every scene.

“The blissfully expansive miniseries format makes it possible to mine these materials with a freedom and fidelity that would be otherwise impossible. It’s a thrilling creative venture transporting the Schlegels, Wilcoxes and Basts from page to the screen. I hope audiences will enjoy spending time with them as much as I do.”

The show is being produced by Playground Entertainment, City Entertainment and KippSter Entertainment for the BBC. Rights to use the original novel as source material for the miniseries were acquired from Jonathan Sissons at Peters, Fraser & Dunlop, on behalf of the Forster estate.

Playground founder and CEO Colin Callender said: “At a time when there is a raging debate about the BBC licence fee, it is worth reminding ourselves that it is because this great institution is funded by a licence fee rather than advertising or subscription that it is able to bring to the British audience dramas that no one else in the UK would produce. The boldness of commissioning a playwright like Ken Lonergan to adapt this great literary classic and make it accessible and relevant to a modern audience is a testament to the BBC’s crucial and unique role in the broadcast landscape worldwide.”

Fiona Seres, who wrote The Lady Vanishes (pictured), is now working on Woman in White

Equally exciting is the prospect of Wilkie Collins’s Woman in White coming to BBC1. Made by Origin Pictures with BBC Northern Ireland Drama, the four-part adaptation will be written by Fiona Seres, who wrote a new version of The Lady Vanishes for BBC1 in 2013.

David Thompson and Ed Rubin, from Origin Pictures, said: “We are so excited to be bringing a bold new version of Wilkie Collins’ beloved Gothic classic to the screen. His gift for gripping, atmospheric storytelling is as thrilling for contemporary readers as it was for Victorians, and Fiona’s unique take brings out the intense psychological drama that has captivated so many.”

Other writers lined up include Joe Ahearne (for The Replacement), Conor McPherson (for Paula) and Kris Mrksa (Requiem). The decision to work with Mrksa, best known for titles such as The Slap and Underbelly, is interesting because he is Australian.

The BBC’s blurb for Requiem (which will be produced by New Pictures) says: “What if your parent died and you suddenly discovered that everything they’d said about themselves, and about you, was untrue? Requiem is part psychological thriller – the story of a young woman, who, in the wake of her mother’s death, sets out to learn the truth about herself, even to the point of unravelling her own identity. But it is also a subtle tale of the supernatural that avoids giving easy answers, playing instead on uncertainty, mystery and ambiguity.”

Mrksa calls it “a show I’ve always wanted to make. To be making it with the team at New Pictures (Indian Summers), and for the BBC, a network that I so greatly admire, really is a dream come true.”

Right now, that would probably be true for any TV writer.

tagged in: And Then There Were None, Banished, BBC, Black Earth Rising, Broken, Colin Callender, Colin McKeown, Conor McPherson, David Thompson, Dickensian, Drama Republic, Ed Rubin, Fiona Seres, Greg Brenman, Howards End, Hugo Blick, Jimmy McGovern, Joe Ahearne, Kenneth Lonergan, Kris Mrksa, LA Productions, Mark Gatiss, Mike Bartlett, Origin Pictures, Paula, Playground Entertainment, Polly Hill, Press, Requiem, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, Steven Moffat, The Replacement, Tony Jordan, War and Peace, Woman in White

Tag Archives: Broken

HBO civil rights drama gets writer

BBC heads in the write direction