BBC Unveils New Drama Co-Pros with Netflix, PBS’s Masterpiece & More

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Piers Wenger, the controller of BBC Drama, has revealed more than 45 hours of new commissions, including an adaptation of the classic novel Little Women with Masterpiece on PBS and a London-Tokyo crime series with Netflix.

For BBC One, Giri/Haji (Duty/Shame) is a dark, character-driven crime story that cuts between London and Tokyo. It explores the butterfly effect between the two cities, and asks, how do we live with our actions when the prisms they’re viewed through can seem to change so drastically depending on where we are or who we talk to? The original eight-parter comes from Joe Barton, the writer of Our World War and Humans. The Netflix co-commission will be produced by Sister Pictures.

From Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, two new TV writers, comes Informer, a contemporary thriller about a young, second-generation Pakistani man from East London who is coerced by a counter-terrorism officer to go undercover and inform for him. It will be produced by Neal Street Productions (Call the Midwife, The Hollow Crown) for BBC One.

Peter Harness is delivering the first British television adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds, produced by Mammoth Screen for BBC One. Filming will begin early 2018. A new three-part BBC One adaptation of Black Narcissus, Rumer Godden’s iconic tale of sexual repression and forbidden love, is in the works from writer Amanda Coe (Apple Tree Yard, Life in Squares).

Screenwriter Andrew Davies will adapt Vikram Seth’s international best seller A Suitable Boy for BBC One. The modern classic is about a young woman’s search for love and identity in a newly independent, post-Partition India defining its own future. This beloved novel has never been adapted for the screen before. In another book-to-TV adaptation, Heidi Thomas, the creator of Call the Midwife, is working on the three-part Little Women. The series is a co-production with Masterpiece on PBS.

Among the other new BBC One drama announcements are A Very English Scandal, written by Russell T. Davies (Doctor Who, Queer As Folk); Come Home, from Danny Brocklehust and Red Productions; and the 1960s-set The Wilsons (working title), inspired by a true story and written by Anna Symon.

For BBC Two, Stephen Poliakoff’s semi-autobiographical Summer of Rockets has been commissioned as a six-part series produced by Little Island Productions. Coming to BBC Three is Overshadowed, based on Eva O’Connor’s play that tells the story of a young girl whose life spirals out of control when she meets the monster of anorexia personified.

At an event co-hosted by BBC Director-General Tony Hall, Wenger said: “Returning to the BBC after five years away, I’ve been struck by how much things have changed. Charlotte and the team have made BBC Drama the home of creative risk and challenged conventional wisdom on what popular drama is. In a world where there is just so much content, it’s never been more important for BBC Drama to deliver the unexpected and for us to be clear and strong on what sets us apart. Only by thinking outside the usual parameters will we discover the next generation of standout shows. It’s all about the idea, not the box we put it in.

“I want us to be less bound by conventions of genre, slot and channel even when considering new work. We know that the biggest risks deliver the biggest hits and in a landscape which is so fast changing, ideas need to be well ahead of the curve. And that means giving ourselves maximum creative headroom to allow ideas to develop and grow.

“I also want a strong streak of Britishness to run through the center of everything we do. It gives us distinctiveness in a crowded landscape and a strong identity internationally. I think that it’s the individuality, chutzpah, determined vision and tireless curiosity at the heart of Britain’s creative community, which has played a huge part in turning drama from the U.K. into such a valuable cultural export, and so I’d like the next five years of drama from the BBC to be a celebration of British authorship, identity and life in all its most diverse forms.”