Tag Archives: Jed Mercurio

Thrill seeker

In production, , ,

Line of Duty and Bodyguard showrunner Jed Mercurio speaks to DQ about his latest project, Northern Irish crime thriller Bloodlands, and his ambitions for his recently launched production company.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK, the BBC’s Line of Duty was among the TV shows forced to suspend production, with filming on the hit crime thriller’s sixth season brought to an abrupt halt. Fortunately for showrunner Jed Mercurio, however, he was still able to continue working on another crime drama that wrapped filming the week before the country went into lockdown.

Bloodlands, created by Chris Brandon with Mercurio as an executive producer, opens when a car containing a possible suicide note – and no body – is pulled out of Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland. Detective Tom Brannick (James Nesbitt) quickly connects it to an infamous cold case with enormous personal significance.

The case relates to the investigation into a notorious and long-buried series of mysterious disappearances and Tom’s obsessive campaign to identify and unmask the semi-mythical figure behind these events, a person codenamed Goliath.

Jed Mercurio

The four-part series marks the first commission for HTM Television, the fledgling production company Mercurio launched with Hat Trick Productions (Flack, The Secret). But with the pandemic taking hold around the world, he admits “we were incredibly lucky to get [filming] in just under the wire.” For the past few months, post-production has taken place remotely ahead of the drama’s launch later this year.

“One of the effects of people working from home is we’ve got to extend our post-production strategy slightly, just because it takes a little bit longer for everyone to see the material, give notes and for those notes to be acted upon,” Mercurio explains.

“So much of post-production involves groups of people sitting together watching a cut, listening to a mix or watching a grade. Because those things aren’t possible, we’ve had to come up with solutions that involve a little bit more time being taken.”

With series like Unforgotten and Bancroft recently delving into unsolved murders, cold-case dramas have proved popular fare on the small screen of late. But what makes Bloodlands so distinctive, says Mercurio, is its Northern Irish setting and how the story plays into the country’s 30-year conflict known as The Troubles.

The cold case at the heart of the story takes Tom back to the run-up to the signing of 1998’s Good Friday Agreement, which led to the end of The Troubles. When a number of controversial figures from both sides of the struggle seemingly vanished into thin air, their cases were swept under the carpet and forgotten at a time when no one wanted to rock the peace process.

With a personal interest in the case – he believes his wife was a victim of Goliath – Tom sets off to uncover the truth about Goliath and find out what really happened.

“It’s a highly contemporary thriller, but it has got one foot in the past of Northern Ireland,” Mercurio says. “As people the world over know, there was political unrest in Northern Ireland until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which has transformed Northern Ireland now into a very prosperous and peaceful part of the world.

Bloodlands stars Northern Irish actor James Nesbitt

“The drama is looking at a case that potentially could disturb that fragile peace, and our protagonist, DCI Tom Brannick, has some knowledge of a particular set of mysterious disappearances that occurred in the lead-up to the Good Friday Agreement.

“It’s entirely set in the present. It’s very contemporary. And it addresses some very significant and thought-provoking issues entirely through how the police and the population in Northern Ireland have to wrestle with conflicts and unsolved crimes from before 1998.”

Mercurio continues: “One of the jobs of a police officer is to keep the peace, and the other job of the police officer is to investigate crime and seek justice. It’s a real tribute to Chris’s genius that he’s come up with something that encapsulates both of them in a nutshell. Basically, James Nesbitt’s character comes across a case, some of which is pre-1998 and some of which is post-1998, so he has to tread a fine line in seeking justice while keeping the peace.

“Some things are for the greater good of keeping the peace and allowing society to return to normal, but that also leaves some people behind. People who lost loved ones, people who feel they’ve experienced events they’ll never be able to get justice for are left in an emotionally very difficult position.

“One of the things we were very careful about was not to make it so detailed about local Northern Irish politics. It was critical that we concentrated on the universal theme – that in any country or any region that enters a process of truth and reconciliation, there is that balance that has to be found between justice and keeping the peace.”

Nesbitt plays Tom, a detective working on a cold case to which he has a personal connection

Filming took place in Belfast and Strangford Lough over 10 weeks between January and March this year, with the weather providing the cast and crew with their biggest challenge. “Northern Ireland is a beautiful part of the world but the weather is very changeable,” says Mercurio. “Weather systems blow in front of the Atlantic, so you can get four seasons in one day. That’s a real challenge for filming because if you start shooting a scene and it’s driving rain and then, halfway through, it is bright sunlight and dry as a bone, it certainly doesn’t work for continuity.

“There were times when we couldn’t shoot things we wanted to because it was too windy or too wet. It just wasn’t feasible to get through the shooting day, so then we would relocate and shoot interiors. There was one day when it snowed, which really left us scratching our heads. We just had to stop for half a day until the snow melted.”

As “a proper thriller,” Bloodlands sits comfortably alongside the other series on which Mercurio has worked, complete with action sequences, jeopardy and mysteries that aren’t resolved until the very end. He first read the script a couple of years ago and says Brandon’s talent jumped off the page.

“I was really struck by Chris’s writing voice and his ability to weave characters and story together so well,” he says. Mercurio and Brandon then developed the series together until they reached a point where Cold Feet star Nesbitt, who comes from Northern Ireland, came aboard. They then secured the backing of the BBC for what would become HTM Television’s first production. The show is distributed by Hat Trick International.

“We’ve got a broad slate, but I always say we’ve got a focus on thrillers,” Mercurio says of his company. “It’s a genre I love and a genre I think the audience loves. But we are developing other things as well, and I’m confident that, over the next couple of years, we’ll see real diversity on our slate.”

L-R: Line of Duty’s Adrian Dunbar, newcomer Kelly Macdonald, Martin Compston and Vicky McClure

Launching the company gives Mercurio the chance to work with upcoming writers while also stepping back from the showrunner role he takes up on Line of Duty and Bodyguard, allowing producers and directors, as well as the scriptwriter, to take on creative decisions he would otherwise make himself.

“That was certainly the case with Bloodlands,” he says. “Chris Hall [The Durrells] is producing it, who I’ve worked with before [on medical drama Critical]. He’s a fantastic producer. Pete Travis [Omagh] is directing it – he’s a very experienced and very talented director.

“When I was around, what I was focusing on a good deal of the time was developing Chris Brandon’s producing skills. When we were both on set or on location, he was observing things and we were talking about them and I was encouraging him to get involved and talk to the director, the cast and the heads of department, so he developed the skill and experience that has allowed me to become a showrunner.”

HTM is also producing Trigger Point, which is written by Daniel Brierley and reunites Mercurio with Line of Duty star Vicky McClure, who plays a bomb-disposal operative pushed to breaking point during a terrorist campaign.

Filming on the sixth season of Line of Duty was suspended in March when the risk to the health and safety of cast and crew became too great. Mercurio says he has spent some of the downtime finishing the final scripts, but admits he will have to take stock of the real-world situation when production eventually resumes.

“Line of Duty is one of those series that attempts to be set in the real world, and often we refer to events in the past and dates in the past,” he adds. “Clearly anything that relates to the period of the pandemic may have an effect on what events could really have happened and how police may have gone about their work in this current climate. I think we may have to look at that.”

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Top of their game

SHOWRUNNER, , , , , , , ,

Serial showrunners Greg Berlanti and Jed Mercurio talk about the creative processes behind some of their biggest hit series, including You and Bodyguard.

Greg Berlanti is the undisputed king of television producers. With 18 series on air or commissioned in the US in 2019, he is dominating the schedules – and streaming platforms – with shows such as DC Comics adaptations The Flash, Supergirl and Doom Patrol, crime drama Blindspot, stalker hit You (pictured above) and Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Berlanti recently spoke at Israeli television festival INTV, where he shared the stage with British showrunner Jed Mercurio, whose credits include BBC thrillers Bodyguard and Line of Duty, which concluded its fifth season last month.

Here, DQ recaps some of their conversation, which covers topics such as making a hit series, where projects come from, production challenges and surviving in the era of ‘Peak TV.’

Jed Mercurio

You can never tell if a show is going to be a hit
Jed Mercurio: In the first instance when you’re working on a show, all you can do is work on the show. You can’t think about how it’s going to perform because there are so many variables. The best thing you can do is not guess how it’s going to perform. I was obviously thrilled by how the show [Bodyguard] performed, but there are so many variables – what night it goes out, how well it’s been promoted, whether the premise captures the audience’s imagination, and we were incredibly fortunate that a lot of stuff aligned for us. After that, as the show got bigger week on week, it became surreal.
I’m used to that situation sometimes when the ratings come out and the phone doesn’t ring because the ratings are bad and no-one wants to tell me, so when they are good, people want to tell me, so my phone was ringing earlier and earlier in the morning.

Known for his superhero dramas, You marked a different direction for Berlanti
Greg Berlanti: I read the book You three or four years ago and sent it to [showrunner] Sara Gimble. I’d never done a thriller before, but given that this was a romantic story with the point of view of a stalker, I want to do it responsibly, with a female perspective. I couldn’t believe that I was so in this person’s head that I was actually kind of rooting for this relationship, the book was kind of a Rorschach test for our society and how invested we are in the relationships.

Greg Berlanti

We sold the show to Showtime, of all places. They wanted to make something that was slightly different from the book, and once they read the book they were really cool about saying you can take it somewhere else. Lifetime loved the book and the script and then we shot it and because of their launch cycle it sat in the can for a while, so it was two-and-a-half years old when they finally started to release it and it didn’t do very well. Very often in this business, the best thing you can be is an advocate, I just kept saying I really think people will enjoy the story as much as we enjoyed the book.
We were getting some [hype] but not as much as you would hope. You’ve got to be realistic and pragmatic, but at the same time it had been bought by Netflix for international distribution. By the time it had premiered in full on Lifetime, they knew they weren’t going to take it to season two, and Netflix swooped in and assured us they would do a second season. And then I started getting a flood of emails from people who knew the show had been on, and then I felt like people were really discovering the show.
I loved making the show, I love the team we put together. You want all your things to succeed. So many things I’ve done didn’t work, and it was nice that this one made the cut and survived long enough to get another chance at life; it makes me happy. Mostly you want to feel validated because you’ve been saying for so long that you really think this story should connect.

Mercurio viewed the BBC’s Bodyguard as a variation on a cop show

Bodyguard came from Mercurio’s desire to write a political series
Mercurio: Originally the idea was to do something within the political arena. The first conversations I had with the BBC was the fact they hadn’t had a political thriller for a good deal of time. I started to think about a way into that. And because of how much I like dynamic storytelling – I like real jeopardy – I didn’t want to do something about politicians rivalling for power. Once I’d worked on it a little more, I went back with the way into the story, which involved a protection officer. In the UK it’s a division of the Metropolitan Police in London who protect high-ranking politicians and diplomats, so I felt like it was a variant on a cop show, and beyond that it was about constructing the relationships, creating the tension between the bodyguard and the person he’s meant to protect and giving him a back story that potentially makes him unstable enough and vengeful enough to possibly be a threat to her.

But at the start of production, things weren’t quite going to plan
Mercurio: A couple of things happened to us that were actually quite damaging. We were all set to shoot the opening train sequence but at the end of business on the day before the shoot, they revoked the licence. [It was initially intended to be shot on a train leaving London’s Waterloo Station but permission was withrawn, leading the sequence to be shot on the Mid Norfolk Railway.] We ended up having a couple of days shutting down production. We had nothing to shoot, we had to reconceive that sequence. During shooting of the rest of the show I worked with the director on various concepts for how we would approach that when we got a suitable location. The only way we thought we could do it was not using a moving train so the whole sequence had to be rewritten, but the advantage was that we shot it at the end of the shoot. Richard Madden [who plays lead character Richard Budd] had spent months in character and felt great in character, so he wasn’t shooting it cold. We, as a unit, knew the series well, we could make decisions that were confident and well informed, which is essential when you’re up against the clock, and we were very fortunate that that particular bit of misfortune went in our favour.

Berlanti worked on DC Comics adaptations including Supergirl

Their motivation to work in multiple genres comes from the people they work with and the nature of what they want to watch on television themselves
Mercurio: For me, it’s making something that I would want to watch on TV. It’s that simple. If there’s an idea that I think, ‘I wouldn’t watch that show,’ I wouldn’t do it. Whatever it is that somehow sparks my interest is essential for two reasons. I need to be really excited by the idea, in order to spend the amount of time that I have to on it, and each season is up to two years of my life so you’ve really got to be very committed to the work. The other thing is making the assumption that if you like something, there have got to be people out there who will like it as well, and beyond that it’s trying to get an idea that has critical mass. When you start thinking about what happens at the beginning of the story is there enough of a chain reaction to take in all kinds of directions?
For the audience to connect with the premise in that first episode, they’ve got to sense that mass building, they’ve got to sense that can explode and carry them in any direction. They have to sense that something big is coming.

Berlanti: What’s allowed me to work in different genres is the people I’ve worked with. Most are experienced in different areas, but at the end of the day most of it comes down to character. What are you trying to say about that character? It can be an emotional fight two characters are having, or an action sequence. If that sequence isn’t revealing of character, it’s the first thing you can cut.

Mercurio’s Line of Duty season five came to an end in May

Despite the amount of competition television shows now face, if it’s good enough, people will see it
Berlanti: Having seen so much change since I started in the business in terms of what people think might be popular or sell, it might be naïve of me to think this, but I really believe it is just more and more about execution and how well that story is told. You want to make sure as much as possible that it’s as good as it can be, so that it can survive as the climate gets more competitive.

Mercurio: One of the things that has changed that maybe isn’t talked about so much is the relationship between viewers and the shows. As a nerdy kid who watched every episode of his favourite shows, and knew all the characters and all the actors, that was rare back then. Today, people can re-watch old seasons and it’s now justifying more intensive detail in writing, more layers in writing plots and, more importantly, it’s convinced executives [to be more ambitious]. In the past, they said it would be very episodic and simple, that people have one chance to grab it and if you don’t make it very clear to them you have a problem. Now there are opportunities where people are encouraging you to be ambitious and complex and respect the devotion of the audience.

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On guard

ON LOCATION, , ,

Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio mixes politics and action in Bodyguard, a six-part thriller starring Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes. The showrunner and executive producer Simon Heath invite DQ to the set.

With the long-awaited fifth season of crime drama Line of Duty not due to air on BBC1 until 2019, two years after the fourth run, fans of the series could be forgiven for getting slightly impatient over the return of what has become one of Britain’s biggest dramas. To whet their appetite, however, series creator and showrunner Jed Mercurio will be back on the same channel this Sunday with a brand new series.

A six-part political thriller set within the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd, played by Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden, a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as an officer of the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch (RaSP) of London’s Metropolitan Police.

When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful home secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), whose politics stand for everything he despises, Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, is he actually her biggest threat?

Produced by Line of Duty’s World Productions and distributed by ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Bodyguard also stars Gina McKee, Vincent Franklin, Paul Ready, Sophie Rundle, Ash Tandon, Nicholas Gleaves, Nina Toussaint-White, Pippa Haywood and Stuart Bowman.

Bodyguard showrunner Jed Mercurio (in leather jacket) watches the action unfold on a monitor

Thomas Vincent directed block one of the production, while John Strickland took charge of block two, with Priscilla Parish producing.

It’s a gloomy January evening when DQ pitches up at an opulent apartment block overlooking Battersea Park in south-west London, in the shadow of the former power station currently undergoing an extensive redevelopment as it prepares to house Apple’s UK HQ. A luxury flat on the first floor is home to Hawes’ high-flying politician and, inside, Mercurio is sitting on a sofa in the living room, watching filming on a monitor while safely out of shot.

The cameras are focused on Madden as he climbs the staircase and lets himself into the pitch-black apartment, before making his way towards the bedrooms, clearly looking for someone or something. Owing to the fact this is a scene from episode five, DQ is left in the dark over any further plot details.

Tracing the origins of the series, Mercurio goes back to 2014, when Line of Duty aired its second season, then on BBC2. “We started having a conversation with the BBC about developing a thriller to work on BBC1,” he recalls. “That was the genesis of it, wanting to set something within the world of the police but within an area we hadn’t seen much of recently and possibly also combining it with a political thriller. So those were the initial thoughts. Then development took place on and off while Line of Duty continued. Then it was before season four of Line of Duty went out that this was greenlit into production – the plan was always to do this after season four.”

In the kitchen of the apartment are photos of Hawes’ character next to former British prime minister David Cameron. But with Cameron now out of office for more than two years, Mercurio notes that Bodyguard isn’t aiming to reflect contemporary headlines.

Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden plays protection officer David Budd

“I don’t think you can make something topical when you’re making a drama that’s not going to go out for six months after the last script is written,” he says. “There are certain things we know will be in place, like our system of government, so you can work around that. But it’s not meant to be topical about anything that’s happening on a week-by-week basis. Some of the themes in the show about a terrorist threat, our foreign policy and the relationship between politicians and how that threat is managed seem to have been present in our political system for a decade or more, so I think we’re on pretty safe ground in terms of it still feeling timely.”

Bodyguard, which packs each episode with stunts and action set pieces, reunites Mercurio with both Madden and Hawes, with whom he previously worked on Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Line of Duty respectively. Madden’s character David is an armed forces veteran turned police protection officer who is still struggling with the burden of his experiences, while Hawes’ Montague is a security-focused politician attempting to push through a bill to beef up security services’ powers to monitor communications.

“She’s a tough, kind of hawkish home secretary,” Mercurio explains. “The basic point of contention between them is he’s got experience of our foreign wars and she’s someone who has supported those ventures politically. His experience has been that those things have had a negative impact on our society.”

Hawes was one of the first names suggested to play the home secretary, according to executive producer Simon Heath, CEO and creative director of World Productions. “Richard I hadn’t worked with before, but Jed had, and I’d seen how good he was. It felt like a good thing to go for a younger actor in that role and create that interesting dynamic with Keeley. I think we’re fortunate to get them both.”

While Line of Duty now has continuing storylines to pick up, Bodyguard afforded Mercurio the chance to start a new story from scratch. “It involves more work in setting up the characters and the world, but it’s completely serial – six hours with a definite conclusion at the end of the six episodes.”

Director Thomas Vincent in discussion with Madden during a break from filming

Mercurio was also able to continue the showrunner role he has carved out for himself, a position still rarely seen in British television. “I’m very fortunate to be able to do that,” he admits.

Heath picks up: “I think it is still rare but Jed does it really well and really thoroughly. What it means is if you get locked into directing something you’ve written, it’s very hard to stand back and get an overview. But the position Jed takes is that he gets a fantastic overview of the whole thing taking the scripts to screen. That works brilliantly for Line of Duty and has worked brilliantly for this as well.”

Filming Bodyguard across London has posed the familiar challenges faced by dramas shooting in the English capital. Heath says it’s “not a particularly film-friendly city, in truth,” adding that Wales, Scotland, Birmingham and Belfast – where Line of Duty is made – offer an ease of production not available in London.

“It’s basic things like getting permissions to close roads to do stunts or trying to get access to locations or unit bases,” he explains. “For the general public, it’s dull stuff, but it’s absolutely essential in terms of servicing a production and it does make it incredibly challenging. We’ve been in the very centre of London and did big stunts round the back of Holborn. It looks fantastic on screen but it’s tough because we haven’t got unlimited resources. We haven’t got Hollywood budgets and we have to box clever to get this stuff in the can.”

Mercurio adds: “It’s easy to form the view that if a Hollywood production has got Tom Cruise running around then various London boroughs will roll over and give them the facilities they want, but if the national broadcaster is trying to make something here, it’s a bit harder.”

Keeley Hawes, who stars in ITV hit The Durrells, plays the home secretary

With the global trend for big-budget coproductions, Bodyguard stands out for using the traditional model of broadcaster, producer and distributor to build its budget. But as Heath admits, Bodyguard is at the “outer reaches” of that model in terms of financing a show with the scale of the BBC1 series.

“But it’s been a good thing because we haven’t had any other voices telling us what the show should be,” he says. “We’ve had a lot of support from the BBC but we’ve been allowed to get on with it. I like to think that model is still viable. Not everything has to be a huge coproduction.”

“We’ve just been really grateful for the BBC support on this,” Mercurio adds. “There’s no need to involve another broadcaster because they’ve backed us to the hilt. I’m not saying anything negative about other broadcasters, but if you’re in the position where you have one broadcaster, you’re delivering to one organisation, one channel, with one ambition in terms of what they want for their audience, it does make it a little bit easier editorially.”

If Bodyguard finds an audience, Mercurio says he would definitely like to return to the series. Until then, he is back in charge of Line of Duty, with season five set to begin production this autumn.

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Mercurio magic

IN FOCUS, ,

Line of Duty showrunner Jed Mercurio and actor Adrian Dunbar discuss making the hit BBC crime drama, which is set to return to screens for a fifth season in 2019.

Just like an ambitious cop has to work their way up the ranks of police hierarchy, British crime drama Line of Duty has earned its stripes in the world of television across four seasons.

Jed Mercurio

The show, produced by ITV-backed World Productions and distributed by Kew Media, began on BBC2 in 2012 but moved to flagship channel BBC1 after proving popular among viewers. It was renewed for seasons five and six earlier this year and will return in 2019, with filming set to resume in Northern Ireland next month.

With its focus on corruption, Line of Duty stands apart from most police series, and writer Jed Mercurio says he has learnt a lot since initially sitting down to pen the first episode. Noting that he and World had been discussing a police series for some time before the idea of incorporating corruption came up, Mercurio says: “I would describe it as being a process; there wasn’t a point where it was something that just arrived. There was a big idea of it being serialised, an idea of having a guest lead, having the investigators return – all those things and more were part of the process.”

The show has come a long way since its inception and fans are eagerly awaiting the return of AC-12 – the anti-corruption unit at the drama’s centre – next year. With characters including Superintendent Ted Hastings, played by Adrian Dunbar, DS Kate Fleming (Vicky McLure) and DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston), the drama has engrossed viewers while often throwing up complex moral dilemmas.

Broadly speaking, each season sees AC-12 investigating a police officer, usually played by a guest star, across six episodes. The series is also notable for Mercurio’s skill at building incredible tension through police interview scenes.

“The idea that the first so-called antagonist would be the first allegedly corrupt officer, DCI Tony Gates [Lennie James], meant that he was someone who had good and bad about him,” explains the writer. “He was in a moral grey area and then the same applied to the investigators, they weren’t holier-than-thou either.”

Line of Duty’s returning actors include (L-R) Martin Compston, Adrian Dunbar and Vicky McClure

In addition to the presence of advisors on set, Mercurio’s research into the way police work has helped make the show as authentic as possible – and the writer admits he has made some eye-opening discoveries in the process:  “What tends to surprise is the slackness. In season four we had a sequence where a police officer tampered with evidence. I had assumed the evidence room had security cameras so coppers can’t fiddle with anything but, seriously, there are none because they are entitled to privacy.”

Dunbar’s Hastings, a fiery Northern Irishman with something of a cult following among the Line of Duty faithful, is one man who doesn’t get much privacy in the show, with endless heated scenes shot unfolding in the superintendent’s office. The actor clearly relishes playing his part: “It’s been a great trip because he is that character in the middle of it all, that person a lot of people are bouncing their understanding of what’s happening off of and it’s great to play that, it’s exciting.”

But after four seasons of wearing Hastings’ uniform, does Dunbar think his character has changed? “I think he’s become more of what he is,” he responds. “You get to a point where you realise that what audiences are interested in essentially is performance and also to see someone going through something because they’re going through something.”

The most recent season of the show starred Thandie Newton

And while many characters have met their end since the show’s launch, Dunbar isn’t worried about his own position in the next two seasons – suggesting there’s plenty more of Hastings for fans to enjoy for now.

Outside of the UK, Line of Duty has been sold to streamer Hulu but hasn’t quite taken off in the US as yet. The American way of making television has certainly helped its success in the UK, however, with Mercurio’s hands-on role keeping his interest high.

“I only direct a little bit, I’m more of a showrunner,” he says of his presence on set. “I’m an executive producer who is in creative charge of the production during the production, so I’m working with the directors, the cast and with the edit department and we’re having ongoing dialogue, which sometimes then feeds back to the production company and the broadcaster. That’s my customary role.”

Lennie James was under investigation in season one

With the show returning next year to the BBC, AC-12 will soon be hit with a host of new trials and tribulations. So as he goes back to a fresh page in hope of bringing more quality drama to the screen, has being involved with the show changed Mercurio’s view of the police in real life?

“No. Fundamentally, the evidence is exactly what we all know, which is that the vast majority of police officers are dedicated public servants who are in it for the right reasons,” he replies. “They want to protect the public and see justice but there is a very small proportion who are corrupt in different ways.”

As for whether Line of Duty will return beyond seasons five and six, Mercurio says he is grateful for the success thus far and that concentrating on the work will mean AC-12 can continue its investigations for many seasons to come.

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On Duty

DQ TV, SHOWRUNNER,

With credits including medical dramas Cardiac Arrest, Bodies and Critical, Jed Mercurio is best known for his thrilling police drama Line of Duty.

As the series returns for a fourth season on BBC1, Mercurio tells DQ why the show isn’t a typical police drama, why he prefers to be its sole writer and how he constructs its trademark interrogation scenes.

He also reveals how his role as a showrunner grew from a feeling that writers were marginalised from the rest of the creative process.

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A busy August in Edinburgh

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Aidan Turner of Poldark fame was among And Then There Were None's star-studded cast
Aidan Turner of Poldark fame was among And Then There Were None’s star-studded cast

It’s been a busy end to August in terms of commissions and acquisitions. In the UK, the BBC has been especially active, taking advantage of the Edinburgh International Television Festival (EITF) as a platform for announcing or discussing new developments.

One of its most high-profile announcements is a deal with Agatha Christie Productions that will see seven Agatha Christie novels adapted for TV over the next four years. This follows an earlier announcement that it would be making The Witness for the Prosecution, with a cast led by Toby Jones, Andrea Riseborough, Kim Cattrall, David Haig, Billy Howle and Monica Dolan.

The first of the novels to be adapted under the seven-book deal will be Ordeal by Innocence. Other titles so far confirmed include Death Comes as the End and The ABC Murders, which focuses a race against time to stop a serial killer who is on the loose in 1930s Britain.

Commenting on the deal, Charlotte Moore, director of BBC Content, said: “These new commissions continue BBC1’s special relationship as the home of Agatha Christie in the UK. Our combined creative ambition to reinvent Christie’s novels for a modern audience promises to bring event television of the highest quality to a new generation enjoyed by fans old and new.”

The decision to plan so far ahead came after the success of And Then There Were None for BBC1 in 2015. That adaptation was written by Sarah Phelps, who is also working on the next two Christie projects. Further writers will be announced in due course.

Agatha Christie Ltd boss Hilary Strong
Agatha Christie Ltd boss Hilary Strong

Hilary Strong, CEO of Agatha Christie Ltd, said: “And Then There Were None was a highlight of the 2015 BBC1 Christmas schedule, and we are truly delighted to be building on the success of that show, first with The Witness for the Prosecution, and then with adaptations of seven more iconic Agatha Christie titles. What Sarah Phelps brought to And Then There Were None was a new way of interpreting Christie for a modern audience, and Agatha Christie Ltd is thrilled to be bringing this psychologically rich, visceral and contemporary sensibility to more classic Christie titles for a new generation of fans.”

The Witness for the Prosecution is a Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Productions’ drama for BBC1, in association with A+E Networks and RLJ Entertainment’s development arm, Acorn Media Enterprises. RLJE’s streaming service, Acorn TV, is the US coproduction partner and will premiere the adaptation in the US. A+E Networks holds rest-of-world distribution rights to The Witness for the Prosecution, and will launch it at the Mipcom market in October.

Alongside the Christie announcement, the BBC’s Moore used the EITF to unveil a range of other dramas. These include an adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s acclaimed young-adult novel Noughts and Crosses and a new six-part drama from Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty) entitled Bodyguard.

There is also an Edinburgh-set drama called Trust Me, written by Dan Sefton, and a new series from Abi Morgan called The Split. This one examines the fast-paced circuit of high-powered female divorce lawyers, through the lens of three sisters – Hannah, Nina and the youngest, Rose.

The Luminaries
The Luminaries is being adapted for BBC2

Moore’s announcements for BBC1 were built upon by BBC2 controller Patrick Holland, who also announced plans for new scripted series at the festival. “I want BBC2 to be the place where the best creative talents can make their most original and exciting work, where authorship flourishes,” he commented.

Holland’s headline drama announcement was MotherFatherSon, from author and screenwriter Tom Rob Smith (Child 44). This is an eight-part thriller that “sits at the intersections of police, politics and the press,” according to the BBC. “It is as much a family saga as it is a savage, unflinching study of power and how even the mightiest of empires can be in peril when a family turns on each other.”

Holland also greenlit The Luminaries, a six-part drama from Working Title Television based on the novel by Eleanor Catton. A 19th-century tale of adventure, set on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island in the boom years of the 1860s gold rush, The Luminaries is a story of love, murder and revenge, as men and women travelled the world to make their fortunes.

Catton, who will adapt her own novel for television, won the 2013 Man Booker Prize for The Luminaries. She said: “Learning to write for television has been a bit like learning a new musical instrument: the melody is more or less the same, but absolutely everything else is different. I’m having enormous fun, learning every day, and I’m just so excited to see the world of the novel created in the flesh.”

Filming on the six-parter will begin in 2017, taking place in and around New Zealand.

Anna Friel in Marcella
Anna Friel in Marcella

While the BBC dominated the drama announcements at the EITF, ITV also used the event to reveal that there will be a second season of crime drama Marcella, written by The Bridge creator Hans Rosenfeldt and starring Anna Friel. Produced by Buccaneer Media, the first season of the show was a top-rated drama on ITV, achieving an average of 6.8 million viewers across its run.

Commenting on the recommission, Rosenfeldt said: “I was delighted at the reaction to the first season and am thrilled to be revisiting Marcella for ITV. In the second season, the audience will get the opportunity to spend more time in her world, exploring some of the characters and getting to know them better.”

Other interesting stories as the industry gears up for autumn include the news that Amazon has acquired Australian drama The Kettering Incident from BBC Worldwide for its Prime Video service. The show was co-created by writer Victoria Madden and producer Vincent Sheehan was shot entirely in Tasmania. The eight-episode series tells the story of a doctor who returns to her hometown years after the disappearance of one of her friends.

The Kettering Incident
The Kettering Incident has been picked up by Amazon

In mainland Europe, Telecinco Spain has ordered a local version of hit Turkish series The End. Produced originally by Ay Yapim, the new version will be called El Accidente and will be the third local version of the show in Europe after remakes in Russia and the Netherlands.

The show, which was also piloted in the US, tells the story of a woman investigating her husband’s death in a plane crash, only to discover that he wasn’t on the flight. It is distributed by Eccho Rights, which has also sold the original to 50 countries.

In the US, premium pay TV channel Starz has renewed Survivor’s Remorse for a fourth season. The show has had a particularly strong third season having been paired in the schedule with Starz hit series Power. Across all platforms, it now draws around 2.9 million viewers per episode.

“We are thrilled to renew Survivor’s Remorse for a fourth season,” said Starz MD Carmi Zlotnik. “Critics have consistently called it one of the smartest and funniest comedies on TV, and we are delighted to see audiences embracing the characters and the storyline with that same enthusiasm. Mike O’Malley and his tremendously talented team of writers and actors boldly tackle today’s most pressing issues, from race, class, sex and politics to love and loss, but with such a deft touch that nothing ever feels heavy-handed.”

The End has sold across the world
The End has sold across the world

In other news, ProSiebenSat.1-owned Studio71 is producing a live-action series inspired by the Battlefield video game franchise that will launch on Verizon’s Go90 platform. Rush: Inspired by Battlefield will stream on the mobile service from September 20.

The Battlefield franchise, developed by EA Dice and published by Electronic Arts, has amassed more than 60 million players since launching in 2002. “Gaming is one of the most popular forms of entertainment today and there is a huge appetite for content inspired by video games,” said Studio 71 president Dan Weinstein.

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Mercurio’s Duty calls for viewers

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Line of Duty has added viewers each season
Line of Duty has added viewers each season

BBC2 in the UK is having a great year in terms of its drama output. The first part of 2016 saw a solid performance for US acquisition American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson, while tomorrow sees the much-anticipated return of Peaky Blinders for season three.

Sandwiched between the two was the third season of Line of Duty, which has proven to be a huge hit for the channel. So successful, in fact, there are reports that season four, which is scheduled to air in 2017, will move to flagship channel BBC1.

As the dust settles on Line of Duty’s ratings, various claims are being made, but probably the most eye-catching is that the series is BBC2’s most successful drama in 15 years. With an average audience of just under five million per episode (live+7 day ratings), it even managed to outperform Wolf Hall, which was a strong performer in 2015 with an average audience of 4.4 million.

Line of Duty focuses on the activities of an anti-corruption unit led by superintendent Ted Hastings (played by Adrian Dunbar). It is the latest masterpiece from Jed Mercurio, widely acknowledged as one of the top talents working in British TV.

Mercurio actually started out as a doctor before breaking into the business with acclaimed medical drama Cardiac Arrest in the mid-1990s. Since then he has had pretty consistent success as a TV writer while also carving out a decent career as a novelist. Indeed, his second TV series was an adaptation of his first novel, Bodies.

He has proven particularly adept at creating procedurals with a twist. Aside from Cardiac Arrest, Bodies and Line of Duty, for example, he also created Critical, a medical drama for Sky1 set in a fictional trauma centre.

Critical
Mercurio created Critical for Sky1

He has also tried his hand at a number of other sub-genres of the scripted TV business. The Grimleys (1999-2001), for example, was a comedy drama, while Frankenstein (2007) was a modern-day re-imagination of Mary Shelley’s iconic gothic novel. He also set up Left Bank’s long-running action-adventure series Strike Back (2010) and adapted DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover for BBC1 last year.

Within the UK system, Mercurio is unusual in that he is more akin to a US showrunner than a European writer/auteur. Typically, he will write and produce his shows – sometimes directing as well. As a consequence of this level of control, Mercurio is well placed to ensure his creative vision hits the screen.

Mercurio recently gave a very insightful interview to Den of Geek in which he distinguished his work from procedurals that delve into the private lives of their protagonists. “Part of me isn’t that interested as a person and a viewer in people’s personal lives. I’m more interested in what people do in the workplace and what goals they set themselves. I guess that’s why I write a lot of precinct drama. (There’s often) an expectation, or pressure sometimes even, to feel that the way to succeed with drama is to see all sides of a character by going into their personal lives, even if you’ve got nothing to say.”

It’s interesting to note that Line of Duty’s ratings have been building across the first three seasons, giving it the feel of a show that slipped under the radar but is now attracting new swathes of fans. All of which augurs well for season four, regardless of the channel it airs on.

Liam Neeson starred in the Taken movie franchise
Liam Neeson starred in the Taken movie franchise

In the US, this is a critical time of year for the scripted business as the major networks decide which pilots to take forward to series. Most announcements will trickle through in the next few weeks, though a few new shows have already been given the go-ahead.

One of these is ABC’s Designated Survivor, which will star Kiefer Sutherland (24) and is being written by David Guggenheim (Safe House, Bad Boys 3). Another is Taken, a spin-off from the hit movie franchise. The TV version, for NBC, will be penned by Alex Cary (credits include Homeland, Lie To Me).

Not yet greenlit but looking good is Fox’s Lethal Weapon, another reboot of a movie franchise. This one is being scripted by Matt Miller, whose writing credits include ABC’s short-lived Forever.

Also, this week, DQ’s sister site C21 Media reports that long-running CBS drama The Good Wife is being adapted for the South Korean market by broadcaster TVN. The show, created by Robert and Michelle King, comes to the end of its seventh and final season in the US this week. All told, that means TVN will have 155 episodes to work with.

The Korean version of the show will be produced by Jung-Hyo Lee (I Need Romance, Heartless City) and written by Han Sang-Woon. Like the CBS original, it will centre on the complicated relationships of people in the legal system working against a backdrop of scandal and corruption.

The Good Wife is coming to an end in the US
The Good Wife is coming to an end in the US

Interestingly, this is not the first adaptation Han Sang-Woon has worked on. Last year, he wrote Spy for KBS2, based on Israeli drama The Gordin Cell. Previously, he wrote the movie My Ordinary Love Story. Commenting on the production, TVN parent company CJ E&M told C21: “For the Korean version of The Good Wife, we focused on the casting and were successful in casting Korea’s biggest actress, Jeon Do-Yeon – who has won many awards in her career, including best actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival – in the lead role, marking her return to television after 11 years.”

Finally, continuing the writers-as-brands theme we discussed in last week’s column, Amazon is about to air ITV period drama Doctor Thorne in the US (May 20). When it does, it will call the series Julian Fellowes Presents Doctor Thorne, another indicator of the marketing leverage that leading writers increasingly possess.

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Police drama Line of Duty’s cast and crew on the new season

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Hard-hitting crime drama Line of Duty is back on the beat for what its cast describe as the best season yet. Michael Pickard reports.

It’s been away from screens for almost two years, but British crime drama Line of Duty is set to return for its third season this week.

Continuing the show’s part-anthology format, the new run opens on March 24 with a brand new story that begins with the fatal shooting of a criminal suspect by an armed response unit led by sergeant Danny Waldron (Daniel Mays).

Danny and his team claim they acted in self-defence, but anti-corruption squad AC-12, led by superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), gathers evidence that suggests the killing was deliberate. DC Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) is then sent undercover into Danny’s team to find out more.

Ingratiating herself to her new colleagues, Kate is quick to identify tensions and conflict among Danny and his team. But when Kate’s own conduct comes under scrutiny, she finds herself sidelined from an armed drugs raid that goes very badly wrong.

Produced by World Productions for UK pubcaster BBC2, Line of Duty is executive produced by series creator Jed Mercurio (Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Critical), Simon Heath (The Great Train Robbery, The Bletchley Circle) and Stephen Wright. It’s distributed by Content Media.

With more than three million people tuning in to the season two finale, the BBC took the unusual step of ordering two more seasons back to back.

Vicky McClure as
Vicky McClure, known for playing Lol in the This is England franchise, as DC Kate Fleming

Mercurio says this “incredibly exciting” opportunity was made possible by the fervent support from the show’s fans, adding that he never entertained tinkering with the single-story-arc format, ensuring season three will stand alone from the fourth instalment in the series.

He does, however, promise more of the twists and turns that have so far made Line of Duty stand out from other crime dramas on television. “What makes Line of Duty distinctive is that it’s cops versus cops,” he explains. “Most police shows are about hunting and chasing criminals, whereas we have police officers in a quest to bring other police officers to justice.

“Also, we’re a serial, so we can do six hours of one story. That means we can get deeper into the story and have time to establish its direction, which allows us to produce some big surprises.”

Mercurio reveals that the level of jeopardy in the latest run is taken to new heights, with Mays’ Sgt Waldron showing his violent side in the first episode.

But why has the series been so successful? “I’m excited and flattered by the success of it,” Mercurio admits. “It’s always hard to diagnose what makes something successful but all you can hope is that if you stay true to the characters and stay true to the style of the show, people will keep coming back.”

As a fan of Line of Duty’s first two outings, Mays was keen to sign up for season three, which he believes will keep viewers on the edge of their seats. But he was under no illusion about the amount of dedication Mercurio’s writing demands from his actors, having watched Lenny James and Keeley Hawes in seasons one and two respectively.

“Then when they showed me the actual scripts I was blown away,” he reveals. “The quality of Jed’s writing is so brilliantly detailed and has its grounding in absolute social reality, which is a great combination. I recognised it was a great opportunity to be part of the long-running success of Line of Duty, and it’s certainly one the most complex and exciting characters I’ve taken on in a long time.”

Daniel Mays (front) plays the 'damaged, twisted and unpredictable' Danny Waldron
Daniel Mays (front) plays the ‘damaged, twisted and unpredictable’ Danny Waldron

In particular, Mays describes an interrogation scene in episode one as the hardest passage of dialogue he’s ever had to learn – but says it also made for one of his most thrilling days on set.

“Running and chasing suspects wearing all that gear was also a challenge,” he adds. “We went on weapons training for a couple of days, which was really beneficial and also allowed the actors to bond. It’s a great credit to the opening episode that we all look comfortable in the gear and believable as an armed response unit. Another challenge was trying to get into the mindset of a character so damaged, twisted and unpredictable.”

While Mays has joined the cast for the first time, McClure has been ever present alongside Dunbar and Martin Compston (who plays Steve Arnott).

“At the start of the series she’s back undercover with a brand new team,” This is England star McClure says of her character. “Filming that was really different, as it felt like a completely different show at first, with a brand new cast and new firearms.”

Compared with other police dramas, Line of Duty “feels very real” in every way, she says – from the characters’ relationships and the way they dress to the language they use.

“We don’t brush over anything,” she adds. “It is a drama and is dramatised but ultimately it is played as real as possible, which is why it’s so gripping.”

And with season four around the corner, it will have to go some way to beat what McClure says is the best season yet.

“It’s action-packed and has a lot of amazing new characters with great storylines,” she adds. “Also, with the cast and crew, we have such a good relationship that it’s nice to come to work every day. We have such a laugh, which is important when a lot of the show is so intense.”

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