In a TV landscape in which demand for new drama outstrips supply, adapting popular shows from abroad is a favoured strategy. It can often be done quickly and cheaply, and can deliver healthy ratings.
The original Swedish version of Before We Die performed respectably when it aired in the UK, averaging 300,000 viewers across its first series on All 4’s foreign language VoD service, Walter Presents.
Originally a novel by Frederick Forsyth, the TV series will be inspired by the novel and 1973 film adaptation.
The original drama will stay true to the novel and film, but further explore the tricky anti-hero at the heart of the story.
The drama follows a professional assassin who is given a contract by a French dissident paramilitary organisation to kill the French president.
A high stakes cat and mouse game will see the characters travel around the world in a geo-political landscape that represents our turbulent times.
The film followed Andy (Stephen Graham), a head chef at upmarket London restaurant Jones & Sons struggling to cope during one of the busiest days of the year.
Whishaw will play the on-screen version of Kay, who also adapted the memoir for TV, which will explore what it means to be a good doctor in a system that is buckling under pressure from all angles.
Kay created the memoir using his diaries which were written in secret after sleepless nights and hectic days, giving the honest truth of what it means to be a doctor working in obstetrics and gynaecology.
The series sees Whishaw playing Kay, a doctor suffering from 97-hour work weeks, while making life and death decisions and dealing with surmounting pressure and responsibility.
Written by Jason Richman, the series has been adapted from the graphic novel series of the same name created by Greg Rucka.
The series is set in Stumptown, a nickname for the city of Portland, and focuses on quick-witted former army veteran turned private investigator Dex Parios (Cobie Smulders), who is suffering from PTSD.
Parios deals with the cases that the police can’t get involved in and her intelligence and drive to do the right thing sees her excel at her job, but her reckless nature and tendency to ignore the rules frequently gets her into trouble.
The North Water is set during the late 1850s and follows a disgraced army surgeon, Patrick Sumner (O’Connell), who attempts to flee from his past by joining a whaling expedition in the Arctic.
Led by Captain Brownlee (Graham) and the ship’s owner Baxter (Courtenay), Sumner serves on the Volunteer as the ship’s medic.
Sumner’s quest for redemption takes a brutal turn when he encounters cruel harpooner Henry Drax (Colin Farrell), whose indifference towards killing reflects the harshness of the Arctic wasteland they’re sailing towards.
The six-part series of the same name will delve into the origins of the world’s most esteemed Special Forces unit, the Special Air Services.
Set during the darkest days of the Second World War, a maverick military group revolutionise a new form of warfare in the deserts of North Africa.
Operating as small squads of parachute trained soldiers, the troops deploy behind enemy lines for reconnaissance missions, to raid supply lines, attack reinforcement routes and sabotage enemy aircraft weaponry to help the war effort.
The novel, written only months before Austen’s death, was never finished and consists of just eleven chapters.
The adaptation has been extended into an eight-part series starring Rose Williams (Curfew), Theo James (The Divergent series), Anne Reid (Last Tango in Halifax) and Kris Marshall (Death in Paradise).
Williams plays Charlotte Heywood, an impulsive and unconventional young woman who moves away from her rural hometown to the coastal resort of Sanditon, which is trying to reinvent itself as a fashionable retreat.
The six-part drama is the first screen adaptation of the novel and will be shot entirely on location in palaces, villages and streets in Northern India.
The story follows Lata, played by rising star Tanya Maniktala, a spirited university student, coming of age in North India in 1951.
At the same time the country is going through significant change, getting ready for its first democratic general election and adjusting to life as an independent nation.
The two-part thriller follows Mark Easterbrook (Rufus Sewell) as he investigates a mysterious list of names discovered in a dead woman’s shoe.
Easterbrook’s search for answers leads him to the unusual village of Much Deeping and The Pale Horse, the home to a group of suspected witches.
Rumours have circulated the town that the witches are responsible for the disappearances of wealthy relatives using dark magic yet Easterbrook remains adamant that there are rational explanations to solve these mysteries.
