EXCLUSIVE: BritBox International has become something of an unlikely savior of the UK drama industry of late amid the co-pro crisis and the streamer has now swooped in for one of the BBC’s biggest upcoming series.
BritBox is co-producing and has taken rights in the U.S. and Canada on The Other Bennet Sister from The Power co-creator Sarah Quintrell and Industry producer Bad Wolf, which is based on the book by ex-BBC Two controller Janice Hadlow.
With casting close to being unveiled, the show that is set to roll cameras shortly tells the story of Mary Bennet – the seemingly unremarkable and overlooked middle sister in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
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Jane Tranter, who runs Bad Wolf, said “Georgian expert” Hadlow, a former BBC colleague, is “really good at looking around the edges of something in a creative and perceptive way.”
“Mary Bennet is a character who Jane Austen kind of brings on and then turns her back on,” Tranter told Deadline. “She doesn’t even think Mary Bennet is worthy of satirization. She’s a dull bore. Janice sees that bird with a broken wing and answers the question of why.”
While The Other Bennet Sister will have “contemporary resonance through its perspective,” Tranter stressed that the 30-minute per ep series is a straight period drama. “We’re not hiding the fact it’s period by moving the camera in a modern way or using modern music,” she added. “It feels classical, fresh and simple rather than something that is trying to look relevant.”
Amid the co-pro crisis that has hit the British TV drama industry this year, BBC Studios-owned BritBox has become something of a kingmaker in terms of getting projects over the line and multiple sources have pointed to its crucial place in the market. Tranter did note that a number of buyers were looking at The Other Bennet Sister, but BritBox had the vision and chops.
“I think BritBox is really important for keeping a certain type of British programme going,” she added. “They love period drama and quintessentially British stuff that aren’t massive flashy co-pros with enormous stars and a £5M-plus ($6.6M) budget. Where they are being clever is picking up the crème de la crème [of mid-budget British content] and presenting them in a way that makes them feel really special.”
Commenting on The Other Bennet Sister, BritBox boss Robert Schildhouse said Quintrell’s “beautifully crafted adaptation is exactly the kind of intelligent, character-driven, and distinctly British storytelling BritBox audiences love.” “The power of Jane Austen is eternal,” he added. “Her stories continue to captivate audiences across the globe, and Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennet Sister carries that legacy forward with a bold new perspective on the world of Pride and Prejudice.“
Overcoming the co-pro slump
Tranter has been one of the leading British industry figures arguing for government help amid the TV drama crisis and she told us “creative solutions” around financing and co-pros are now vital to overcoming the problem at least in the short term.
“We need to look more strongly again towards Europe and maybe farther flung than that,” she added. “And we need to look at the cost of our shows and think that if we want to make a show that is difficult to co-produce because of the domestic nature of the story then we must tell it in a different way.”
She put the current state of the “becalmed” co-pro market down to streamer and studio rethinks after the Hollywood strikes and U.S. elections. “We had that big post-Covid boom where suddenly everyone was commissioning everything and then the strike slowed it down,” she added. “Instead of revving back when the strikes were over there was this sense from the Americans of saying, ‘Maybe this is enough content after all and maybe what we should look for now is less international and more American’.”
Tranter has argued vehemently for an improvement to the UK’s high-end TV tax credit but noted that a potential streamer levy in the UK, which has been shot down by the government, was “never going to be practical within the timescale that is needed to sort the current funding crisis.”
Her indie is on something of a roll having secured Apple TV+’s new Bernie Gunther prequel series, which could become the next big franchise akin to Slow Horses, and a fourth season of the BBC and HBO’s Industry, while she also anxiously waits on whether Doctor Who will be re-upped via the soon-to-lapse BBC and Disney+ deal.
Marisa Abela celebrated
Industry star Marisa Abela took home a surprise BAFTA at Sunday’s ceremony. During her acceptance speech, Abela, who landed the Industry role straight out of drama school, shouted out Bad Wolf not once but twice as she stressed the power of the team behind the hit series.
“You feel like the people both behind and in front of the camera are being recognized,” added Tranter. “I remember viscerally making a speech before the first season of Industry and you could hear everyone’s hands and legs shaking because of the nerves of it all. That enthusiasm we’ve all had as we tried to work out what the show is is part of its enduring charm and everyone came into their own in Season 3.”