Sunday, October 12, 2008

Ask Adrian: British Television? (REVISED)




AP QUESTION: As a fellow Brit and Londoner, have you considered coming back home and doing something here? We have some great programs on British television. I'm sure there would be plenty to keep you interested.

AP ANSWER: Actually I am very interested in doing English television programs although doing a British soap is not the type of show I would want to do right now. English drama is very well written and some of the mini series are excellent too. I would love to have a part in one of those, like the Tudors, for instance.

Here is what I found:

***(JUST ANNOUNCED) - "SMALL ISLAND" BBC1 - based on the bestselling award winning novel by Andrea Levy. "Small Island" is period piece love story set in 1940s Jamaica & during the Blitz in London. It follows the intertwined lives of Queenie, her husband Bernard, and their Jamaican lodgers Gilbert and Hortense.

"THE TAKE" - SKY ONE TV Mini-series - Based on a novel by Martina Cole.

"MOVING ON" BBC-TV Mini-series to be filmed December/January 2009

"A PRISIONER OF BIRTH

" 111 Pictures just optioned Jeffrey Archer's " A Prisoner of Birth for a 4 hour miniseries.

"THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN" - MGM is shifting gears in the TV biz, greenlighting a number of fictional series in hopes of jump-starting mainstream small-screen production and feeding its distribution pipeline with fresh content. In the next few weeks, the team at the Lion led by Jim Packer and Gary Marenzi will be talking up adaptations of two projects based on MGM-owned catalog titles:

"RONIN" - The Robert De Niro crime thriller "Ronin," which will be reconfigured as a series and probably shot in Europe.

"THE OTHER QUEEN" - A BBC special TV series based on Philippa Gregory's new book just went into production, according to the author.

"DESPERATE ROMANTICS" - The new 6-part BBC 19th century mini-series "DESPERATE ROMANTICS" to be filmed in London in early 2009. A 6 x 60-minute drama, has been commissioned from BBC Drama Production for BBC Two for transmission in 2009/10. Set in and among the alleys, galleries and flesh-houses of 19th-century industrial London, Desperate Romantics follows the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a vagabond group of English painters, poets and critics. A relationship drama from the perspective of this iconoclastic group of dysfunctional male romantics, the series follows their lives and relationships as they shamelessly scheme and strive to find fame, fortune and success, as well as love and quite a bit of sex along the way.

"JANE EYRE" -
Alison Owen of Ruby Films, who most recently produced "The Other Boleyn Girl," is working with BBC Films to develop the new adaptation of Bronte's classic 19th century romance. It's the story of a mousy governess who softens the heart of her surly employer Mr. Rochester, only to discover that he's hiding a terrible secret.Moira Buffini has written the screenplay. No director is yet attached, but the producers are aiming to set the project up to shoot this fall.

"KINGDOM" - Heavyweight filmmakers Barry Sonnenfeld and Tony Jordan develop a medieval drama for British television.The Kingdom will be directed by Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, Pushing Daisies) while Jordan (Life On Mars, EastEnders) is rewriting the scripts.A pilot, written by creator Chad Hodge, was made in the US but dropped by CBS.Producer Sony TV asked Jordan to rewrite the show and is planning to sell it to a UK broadcaster in June, then shoot a pilot in Europe this summer.Sony may also look for a US network to get on board alongside a UK buyer.

(See Original Posting April 2,)
http://adrianpaulnewswire.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

"THE THREE MUSKETTERS" - The BBC is lining up a new drama about pirates and a version of The Three Musketeers to take the place of Doctor Who during its 2009 break, according to a report. A modern adaptation of the French novel is being developed in-house at the corporation saysMediaGuardian.

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