In addition to drama series announced last week, the BBC has unveiled another pair of orders. BBC One is moving ahead with an adaptation of period thriller The Miniaturist, based on the award-winning novel by Jessie Burton. BBC Two, meanwhile, has commissioned MotherFatherSon from London Spy creator Tom Rob Smith and with Alan Poul (The Newsroom, Six Feet Under) attached to produce.
The three-part adaptation of Burton’s The Miniaturist will be penned by Fleming and Sylvia’s John Brownlow, and produced by The Forge. The 1968-set eerie drama tells the tale of a house where, beneath lavish beauty and privilege, lie forbidden passions and dangerous secrets.
The story centers on 18-year-old Nella Oortman who arrives in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam, full of hopes and dreams. Moving from the country, she will begin a new life as the wife of merchant, Johannes Brandt. But instead of Johannes, she’s met by his cold sister Marin and quickly realizes that nothing is as it seems in the Brandt household. When Johannes finally appears, he presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a doll’s house replica of their home. It is to be furnished by an elusive miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror what is happening within the house in unexpected ways and seem to be predicting and unraveling the future with unsettling accuracy.
The Miniaturist was Brown’s debut novel which has sold over 1M copies in 37 countries and won the National Book Awards Overall Book of the Year in 2014.
Kate Sinclair is exec producer for The Forge; Elizabeth Kilgarriff exec produces for the BBC. The mini will air in 2017.
Eight-part contemporary political and psychological thriller MotherFatherSon hails from Child 44 author Smith whose London Spy was nominated for five BAFTAs last year and won one. This is a reteam with BBC Two after that crime mini.
At the intersections of police, politics and the press, the family saga and savage study of power examines how even the mightiest of empires can be imperiled when it turns on itself. A 2018 airdate is planned.
BBC Studios is producing for BBC Two. Smith is exec producing with Hilary Salmon for BBC Studios and Stephen Wright for BBC Two.
