Real-time thriller “Nightsleeper” has been acquired by French network TF1.
Starring Alexandra Roach (“The Light in the Hall”) and Joe Cole (“Gangs of London”), the six-episode thriller unfolds in real-time as a sleeper train travelling from Glasgow to London is hacked and events rapidly escalate on board, causing a government agency to frantically intervene.
“Can two people who’ve never met, one on the train and one not, work together to save the lives of its disparate group of passengers as the Heart of Britain overnight service hurtles towards what might quite literally be its final destination?” reads the logline.
The series, which is produced by Fremantle’s Euston Films for BBC One and BBC iPlayer, was written by “Murdered For Being Different” scribe Nick Leather with Laura Grace writing episodes 4 and 5. It’s directed by Jamie Magnus Stone (“Doctor Who”) and John Hayes (“Dublin Murders”).
It will air in the U.
Starring Alexandra Roach (“The Light in the Hall”) and Joe Cole (“Gangs of London”), the six-episode thriller unfolds in real-time as a sleeper train travelling from Glasgow to London is hacked and events rapidly escalate on board, causing a government agency to frantically intervene.
“Can two people who’ve never met, one on the train and one not, work together to save the lives of its disparate group of passengers as the Heart of Britain overnight service hurtles towards what might quite literally be its final destination?” reads the logline.
The series, which is produced by Fremantle’s Euston Films for BBC One and BBC iPlayer, was written by “Murdered For Being Different” scribe Nick Leather with Laura Grace writing episodes 4 and 5. It’s directed by Jamie Magnus Stone (“Doctor Who”) and John Hayes (“Dublin Murders”).
It will air in the U.
- 5/22/2024
- by K.J. Yossman
- Variety Film + TV
Twofour Hires ‘007: Road To A Million’ Producer & ‘Circle’ Exec
UK producer Twofour has made a pair of hires and promoted several execs in and around its senior management. Karen Hudson, whose credits include 007: Road to a Million and The Grand Tour, has been named Head of Production. Dan Gray will be Executive Producer, Reality and Entertainment, having previously worked on the likes of The Circle and UK versions of the Real Housewives franchise. Elsewhere, Creative Director David Clews has been upped to Chief Creative Director, with exec producer Nic Patten stepping up to Creative Director. Shireen Abbott has been promoted to Director of Production and Operations. Twofour is notable for being the first producer in the ITV Studios stable to land an unscripted series on Apple TV+, The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy, and Itvx’s first reality order, Loaded in Paradise.
Cineflix Brings Kurt Cobain Doc To...
UK producer Twofour has made a pair of hires and promoted several execs in and around its senior management. Karen Hudson, whose credits include 007: Road to a Million and The Grand Tour, has been named Head of Production. Dan Gray will be Executive Producer, Reality and Entertainment, having previously worked on the likes of The Circle and UK versions of the Real Housewives franchise. Elsewhere, Creative Director David Clews has been upped to Chief Creative Director, with exec producer Nic Patten stepping up to Creative Director. Shireen Abbott has been promoted to Director of Production and Operations. Twofour is notable for being the first producer in the ITV Studios stable to land an unscripted series on Apple TV+, The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy, and Itvx’s first reality order, Loaded in Paradise.
Cineflix Brings Kurt Cobain Doc To...
- 4/4/2024
- by Jesse Whittock and Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Amazon Prime Video has ordered a psychological mystery thriller limited series from Harlan Coben and Danny Brocklehurst, Variety has learned exclusively.
The series is based on an original story idea by Coben and Brocklehurst, with Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, and Alexandra Roach attached to star.
Currently titled “Lazarus,” the series is said to follow “a man who returns home after his father’s suicide and begins to have disturbing experiences that can’t be explained. He quickly becomes entangled in a series of cold-case murders as he grapples with the mystery of his father’s death and his sister’s murder 25 years ago.”
Coben and Brocklehurst will serve as writers and executive producers. Nicola Shindler and Richard Fee will executive produce via Quay Street Productions, part of ITV Studios. Claflin will executive produce in addition to starring. Wayne Che Yip will executive produce and direct the first two episodes. Matt Strevens will produce.
The series is based on an original story idea by Coben and Brocklehurst, with Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, and Alexandra Roach attached to star.
Currently titled “Lazarus,” the series is said to follow “a man who returns home after his father’s suicide and begins to have disturbing experiences that can’t be explained. He quickly becomes entangled in a series of cold-case murders as he grapples with the mystery of his father’s death and his sister’s murder 25 years ago.”
Coben and Brocklehurst will serve as writers and executive producers. Nicola Shindler and Richard Fee will executive produce via Quay Street Productions, part of ITV Studios. Claflin will executive produce in addition to starring. Wayne Che Yip will executive produce and direct the first two episodes. Matt Strevens will produce.
- 2/7/2024
- by Joe Otterson
- Variety Film + TV
In any given year, British TV can be relied on to provide plenty in the way of crime drama, and 2023 was no different. Between these returning series and newcomers A Town Called Malice, Blue Lights, Marlow, Payback, Rebus, Steeltown Murders, The Gold, The Sixth Commandment, Wolf and more, crime continued to flourish on the small screen.
Happily though, that was far from all that UK TV offered this year. There was fantasy too, in the form of Netflix’s South London super-powers drama Supacell, ghost detective series Lockwood & Co., Greek and Roman mythology series Kaos, and sci-fi in Prime Video’s The Rig.
Add to all those the romances, dramas inspired by real-life, and several other book adaptations, period and otherwise plus music-based dramas Champion and This Town, and it was a pretty full slate.
January Stonehouse
Succession‘s Matthew Macfadyen and Crossfire‘s Keeley Hawes star in this three-part ITV drama,...
Happily though, that was far from all that UK TV offered this year. There was fantasy too, in the form of Netflix’s South London super-powers drama Supacell, ghost detective series Lockwood & Co., Greek and Roman mythology series Kaos, and sci-fi in Prime Video’s The Rig.
Add to all those the romances, dramas inspired by real-life, and several other book adaptations, period and otherwise plus music-based dramas Champion and This Town, and it was a pretty full slate.
January Stonehouse
Succession‘s Matthew Macfadyen and Crossfire‘s Keeley Hawes star in this three-part ITV drama,...
- 1/3/2024
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
The BBC has released two first-look images from its upcoming real-time thriller ‘Nightsleeper.’
The story is about the hacking of a sleeper train travelling from Glasgow to London, and a government agency’s frantic efforts to intervene in the rapidly-escalating events onboard. Can two people who’ve never met, one on the train and one not, work together to save the lives of its disparate group of passengers as the Heart of Britain overnight service hurtles towards what might quite literally be its final destination?
Alexandra Roach (The Light in the Hall) and Joe Cole (Gangs of London) lead the cast of the suspense thriller, written by BAFTA award-winning writer Nick Leather (Murdered For Being Different) from Fremantle’s Euston Films, coming to BBC One and BBC iPlayer in early 2024.
Roach plays Abby Aysgarth, the Acting Technical Director at the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, who’s finally about...
The story is about the hacking of a sleeper train travelling from Glasgow to London, and a government agency’s frantic efforts to intervene in the rapidly-escalating events onboard. Can two people who’ve never met, one on the train and one not, work together to save the lives of its disparate group of passengers as the Heart of Britain overnight service hurtles towards what might quite literally be its final destination?
Alexandra Roach (The Light in the Hall) and Joe Cole (Gangs of London) lead the cast of the suspense thriller, written by BAFTA award-winning writer Nick Leather (Murdered For Being Different) from Fremantle’s Euston Films, coming to BBC One and BBC iPlayer in early 2024.
Roach plays Abby Aysgarth, the Acting Technical Director at the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, who’s finally about...
- 11/22/2023
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Crime dramas can sit on a pretty broad spectrum: some are campy, cosy and even comfortingly formulaic, whereas others make you need to sleep with the light on. The one guarantee is that in the UK at least, there’s such an appetite for detectives and crime stories that TV will never run out of new cases to solve.
We’ve already had some top examples in 2023, from the Happy Valley and Endeavour finales to the excellent Belfast-based Blue Lights, but there are plenty more fresh crime dramas on the way, from police procedurals to true crime and murder mysteries. See what’s coming up below.
After The Flood
Very much what it says on the tin, After The Flood begins… after a flood, which devastates a town, but when the waters clear they leave behind an unidentified dead man in the lift of an underground car park. PC Joanna Marshall is on the case,...
We’ve already had some top examples in 2023, from the Happy Valley and Endeavour finales to the excellent Belfast-based Blue Lights, but there are plenty more fresh crime dramas on the way, from police procedurals to true crime and murder mysteries. See what’s coming up below.
After The Flood
Very much what it says on the tin, After The Flood begins… after a flood, which devastates a town, but when the waters clear they leave behind an unidentified dead man in the lift of an underground car park. PC Joanna Marshall is on the case,...
- 5/22/2023
- by Lauravickersgreen
- Den of Geek
Luke Evans and Callum Scott Howells are among the stars of upcoming BBC drama The Way from Michael Sheen, James Graham and Adam Curtis.
Sheen, who is also directing, will star in The Way with Steffan Rhodri and Mali Harries. The drama, announced in February, comes from Welsh indie Red Seam.
The Way is billed “an emotional and darkly humorous story about what it means to be faced with impossible choices” and follows the Driscoll family, who are forced to escape their small home town, which becomes ground zero of a spiraling civil uprising.
Rhodri (Steeltown Murders, Gavin and Stacey), Harries (Keeping Faith, Hinterland), Sophie Melville (The Pact, Iphigenia In Splott), Scott Howells (It’s A Sin, Cabaret) and Sheen (Staged, Good Omens) lead the cast as the Driscoll family with Maja Laskowska (Trigonometry, Baptise) as a young woman caught up in the family’s escape.
Evans (Nine Perfect Strangers, The Pembrokeshire Murders...
Sheen, who is also directing, will star in The Way with Steffan Rhodri and Mali Harries. The drama, announced in February, comes from Welsh indie Red Seam.
The Way is billed “an emotional and darkly humorous story about what it means to be faced with impossible choices” and follows the Driscoll family, who are forced to escape their small home town, which becomes ground zero of a spiraling civil uprising.
Rhodri (Steeltown Murders, Gavin and Stacey), Harries (Keeping Faith, Hinterland), Sophie Melville (The Pact, Iphigenia In Splott), Scott Howells (It’s A Sin, Cabaret) and Sheen (Staged, Good Omens) lead the cast as the Driscoll family with Maja Laskowska (Trigonometry, Baptise) as a young woman caught up in the family’s escape.
Evans (Nine Perfect Strangers, The Pembrokeshire Murders...
- 5/15/2023
- by Max Goldbart and Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
Peaky Blinders and Gangs of London star Joe Cole has been cast as lead in real-time BBC thriller series Nightsleeper.
He’ll play opposite Alexandra Roach (The Light in the Hall) in the drama, which is from Nick Leather. Filming is underway in Glasgow, Scotland.
The BBC first announced the show in December, as we reported here. Set on a sleeper train from the Glasgow to London, the real-time drama follows a government agency desperately trying to intervene as events rapidly escalate onboard. Two strangers (Cole and Roach) are forced to work together to save the lives of disparate group of passengers, as the train hurtles towards “what might quite literally be its final destination.”
Also starring are Alex Ferns (The Devil’s Hour), Sharon Small (The Bay), James Cosmo (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan), David Threlfall (Shameless), Daniel Cahill (The Control Room), Lois Chimimba...
He’ll play opposite Alexandra Roach (The Light in the Hall) in the drama, which is from Nick Leather. Filming is underway in Glasgow, Scotland.
The BBC first announced the show in December, as we reported here. Set on a sleeper train from the Glasgow to London, the real-time drama follows a government agency desperately trying to intervene as events rapidly escalate onboard. Two strangers (Cole and Roach) are forced to work together to save the lives of disparate group of passengers, as the train hurtles towards “what might quite literally be its final destination.”
Also starring are Alex Ferns (The Devil’s Hour), Sharon Small (The Bay), James Cosmo (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan), David Threlfall (Shameless), Daniel Cahill (The Control Room), Lois Chimimba...
- 4/23/2023
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
The great attraction of The Apprentice – charm is too strong a term for it – is the always vast gap between the Bezos/Musk/Gates level-aspirations of the competitors and their dismally limited abilities. The unspoken foundational irony of The Apprentice has always been that if any of these characters had any real entrepreneurial instinct, they’d be doing the equivalent of what the young Alan Sugar was doing when he started out in the 1960s, and selling car aerials up and down the Charing Cross Road. They’d be too busy slaving away on their new website, chasing orders and “encouraging” their staff to work harder, to muck around with some superannuated reality TV show.
Which is my way of welcoming series 17 of the Alan Sugar show. And the contestants don’t let us down. The show’s producers seem to be engaged in battle against the law of diminishing returns.
Which is my way of welcoming series 17 of the Alan Sugar show. And the contestants don’t let us down. The show’s producers seem to be engaged in battle against the law of diminishing returns.
- 1/5/2023
- by Sean O'Grady
- The Independent - TV
Have British crime dramas been boiled down to a formula? Take a forbidding rural location, populate it with miserable, suspicious people, and explore some kind of tragic but enigmatic crime that took place years in the past. It’s a winning framework that has formed the basis of many of the UK’s best recent TV series – as well as a lot of generic dross. Channel 4’s bleak new addition to the genre, the Wales-set mystery The Light in the Hall (Welsh title Y Golau), feels closer to this latter category.
The story picks up 18 years after Ela, a teenager, suddenly went missing. A local gardener, Joe Thomas (played by Misfits and Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon), confessed to her murder at the time but was unable, or unwilling, to recall some details of the crime; a body was never found. In the first episode of The Light in the Hall,...
The story picks up 18 years after Ela, a teenager, suddenly went missing. A local gardener, Joe Thomas (played by Misfits and Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon), confessed to her murder at the time but was unable, or unwilling, to recall some details of the crime; a body was never found. In the first episode of The Light in the Hall,...
- 1/4/2023
- by Louis Chilton
- The Independent - TV
She spent years in under-the-radar parts, but since winning a Bafta for After Love, Joanna Scanlan is loving life as a leading lady, tackling the Welsh language, and playing roles with ‘real welly’
When the actor Joanna Scanlan was four years old, she had an epiphany. She recalls standing on stage at her north Wales convent school reciting a poem and “in that moment feeling transported to another realm of existence. I remember thinking: ‘I prefer it here.’ The reality is that I still feel that way. As much as I love my life, I do prefer to be in the realm of the imagination. It is the place where I am my truest self.”
Scanlan, who is 61, is installed in a meeting room at her publicist’s office in Soho, London. It has been a long morning of interviews, but if she is tired of talking she is too...
When the actor Joanna Scanlan was four years old, she had an epiphany. She recalls standing on stage at her north Wales convent school reciting a poem and “in that moment feeling transported to another realm of existence. I remember thinking: ‘I prefer it here.’ The reality is that I still feel that way. As much as I love my life, I do prefer to be in the realm of the imagination. It is the place where I am my truest self.”
Scanlan, who is 61, is installed in a meeting room at her publicist’s office in Soho, London. It has been a long morning of interviews, but if she is tired of talking she is too...
- 12/30/2022
- by Fiona Sturges
- The Guardian - Film News
Exclusive: Apc Studios UK and Irish independent production company Tua Films (aka Magamedia) are co-producing Irish dark comedy-crime drama Obituary exclusively in the U.S. for streaming service Hulu, with RTÉ in Ireland pre-buying the series.
Irish TV and theatre actress Siobhán Cullen, whose recent credits include family comedy-drama The Dry and crime drama The Long Call, stars as Elvira Clancy, an obituarist working at a small-town newspaper, who suddenly finds herself being paid by the obituary due to cuts.
When she “accidentally” kills a nasty piece of work, she discovers she might have an untapped bloodlust, and sets her sights on other unpleasant residents of the town. Her killing spree hits a potential snag when the paper hires an attractive crime correspondent.
The six-part series is written by Irish scriptwriter Ray Lawlor (Le Ceangal), directed by John Hayes and produced by Nell Green.
Apc Studios’ Laurent Boissel and Magamedia’s Paddy Hayes are executive producers of the series which is being made in association with Fís Éireann/ Screen Ireland, Bai and The Wrap Fund.
“It has been a blast pitching this wonderful high-concept drama to various funders and broadcast partners over the past few years — an obituarist who resorts to murder to stay in a job,” they said in a joint statement.
“We’re genuinely thrilled that Hulu and Rte are already on board and it’s super exciting to be bringing it into production now in the West of Ireland,” said Boissel and Hayes.
Obituary goes into production in Ireland in 2023 and will exclusively premiere on Hulu in the U.S. later that year.
It marks the latest Irish drama series to attract U.S. investment, coming after Lionsgate boarded TG4 and Streamz drama series Northern Lights, as Deadline revealed at the time.
Cullen is currently filming Bodkin for Netflix, following a critically acclaimed run alongside Ralph Fiennes in Straight Line Crazy at The Bridge Theatre.
Paris-based independent production and distribution company Apc Studios is headed by Emmanuelle Guilbart and Boissel. Its Apc Studios UK recently produced Wolf for the BBC in co-production with Hartswood Films and The Light in the Hall with Duchess Productions and Triongl for S4C, Channel 4 and Sundance Now.
Galway-based Tua has over 20 years’ experience in the Irish entertainment industry, with recent credits including Irish Oscar entry Foscadh and TV drama winning Corp + Anam starring Maria Doyle Kennedy and the teen musical comedy-drama Eipic.
Irish TV and theatre actress Siobhán Cullen, whose recent credits include family comedy-drama The Dry and crime drama The Long Call, stars as Elvira Clancy, an obituarist working at a small-town newspaper, who suddenly finds herself being paid by the obituary due to cuts.
When she “accidentally” kills a nasty piece of work, she discovers she might have an untapped bloodlust, and sets her sights on other unpleasant residents of the town. Her killing spree hits a potential snag when the paper hires an attractive crime correspondent.
The six-part series is written by Irish scriptwriter Ray Lawlor (Le Ceangal), directed by John Hayes and produced by Nell Green.
Apc Studios’ Laurent Boissel and Magamedia’s Paddy Hayes are executive producers of the series which is being made in association with Fís Éireann/ Screen Ireland, Bai and The Wrap Fund.
“It has been a blast pitching this wonderful high-concept drama to various funders and broadcast partners over the past few years — an obituarist who resorts to murder to stay in a job,” they said in a joint statement.
“We’re genuinely thrilled that Hulu and Rte are already on board and it’s super exciting to be bringing it into production now in the West of Ireland,” said Boissel and Hayes.
Obituary goes into production in Ireland in 2023 and will exclusively premiere on Hulu in the U.S. later that year.
It marks the latest Irish drama series to attract U.S. investment, coming after Lionsgate boarded TG4 and Streamz drama series Northern Lights, as Deadline revealed at the time.
Cullen is currently filming Bodkin for Netflix, following a critically acclaimed run alongside Ralph Fiennes in Straight Line Crazy at The Bridge Theatre.
Paris-based independent production and distribution company Apc Studios is headed by Emmanuelle Guilbart and Boissel. Its Apc Studios UK recently produced Wolf for the BBC in co-production with Hartswood Films and The Light in the Hall with Duchess Productions and Triongl for S4C, Channel 4 and Sundance Now.
Galway-based Tua has over 20 years’ experience in the Irish entertainment industry, with recent credits including Irish Oscar entry Foscadh and TV drama winning Corp + Anam starring Maria Doyle Kennedy and the teen musical comedy-drama Eipic.
- 11/7/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow and Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
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