Jeremy Brock Drama Set for ITV

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LONDON: ITV has ordered a new five-part drama, Desire, to be written by screenwriter Jeremy Brock and produced by Mammoth Screen.

Brock co-created Casualty and has written many feature films, including Mrs Brown and The Last King of Scotland. Desire was developed by Rebecca Keane, Mammoth’s creative director. Mammoth Screen’s Damien Timmer and Julia Stannard (War and Peace) will executive produce the five-parter.

Desire focuses on Leia, who is just about managing to hold her life together in the face of a messy divorce when she finds herself falling in love with an intensity she’s never experienced before. It’s the wrong man at the wrong time but Leia can’t give the relationship up. The series explores what happens when a passion is so powerful it starts to jeopardize your job, your home, and even your kids.

ITV’s head of drama, Polly Hill, said: “I am so thrilled to be working with Jeremy. Desire is such a beautiful and compelling story, dealing with the intense passion of a new relationship, the tricky and messy business of divorce and the ultimate love for your children. I am proud to be making this with Mammoth Screen for ITV.”

Timmer added: “It’s a privilege to work with the great Jeremy Brock on this very bold, authored drama. Leia has really got under our skin and we look forward to sharing her story with the audience!”

Brock said: “For a long time, I’ve wanted to write about what it feels like to be a parent, to try and balance the unconditionality of parental love with the shock of adult passion. Our values are bound up with our identity… children, family, work, love, our ideologies. I wanted to write about what happens when all these lights, by which we steer, are suddenly torn away and we are offered the stark choice: adapt or risk losing everything. It’s a huge privilege to be given the opportunity to write this big, passionate, messy slice of contemporary life, and I look forward to working with Polly Hill at ITV and with Mammoth Screen.”