Philippa Gregory’s Wideacre Optioned for TV

Happy Prince has optioned the rights to Wideacre, the best-selling novel from Philippa Gregory, author of The Other Boleyn Girl and The White Queen.

Set in Georgian England, Wideacre follows the story of Beatrice Lacey, destined to lose her beloved ancestral estate, Wideacre, once she is married. Deeply connected to the land, Beatrice will use any means necessary to protect her heritage and keep control of the estate.

The book will be adapted by Dominic Treadwell-Collins and produced by his Happy Prince label.

Treadwell-Collins will work in the same format as Jilly Cooper’s Rivals, which launched on Disney+ earlier this month, leading a writer’s room and executive producing the series alongside Gregory and Happy Prince’s Alexander Lamb, with Adam Carter on board as associate producer.

Gregory said: “I am very excited to see Wideacre come to the screen. It was a best seller when it was first published in 1987 and a best seller again in its 30th-anniversary edition. The Happy Prince team has a real understanding of the frustrations of women in the 18th century. Beatrice is a young woman who stands to lose everything, but she shows ambition, passion and a complete absence of scruples to succeed in a world that is completely against her because she is a woman. Above all—her greatest feature—she is not at all ladylike.”

Treadwell-Collins said: “I have longed to adapt Wideacre for television for years. It’s a feral, wicked and delicious novel, brilliantly plotted and audacious in its storytelling. Beatrice Lacey is the ultimate anti-heroine, and the team is so excited to work with the genius that is Philippa Gregory to bring her daring feminist historical fiction to the screen.”