BBC commissions new adaptation of “Howard's End”

PanARMENIAN.Net - A new four-part adaptation of Howard's End is part of a quartet of new commissions announced December 28 by the BBC, Digital Spy said citing The Telegraph.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Kenneth Lonergan has adapted EM Forster's 1910 novel for the screen. It marks the first time the BBC has adapted the novel since a one-off Play for Today in the 1970s.

James Ivory's movie version saw Emma Thompson win the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. It also starred Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

"I only have the nerve to take it on at all because of the bottomless wealth and availability of its ideas, the richness of its characters and the imperishable strain of humanity running through every scene," said Lonergan.

"The blissfully expansive mini-series format makes it possible to mine these materials with a freedom and fidelity that would be otherwise impossible."

Like Wolf Hall, Howard's End will be created in partnership with an American broadcaster.

A second commission, Press, will see Doctor Foster writer Mike Bartlett tackle journalism with a six-part drama about British newspapers.

Rounding off the new commissions is a new Hugo Blick (The Honourable Woman, The Shadow Line) thriller, Black Earth Rising, that centres on a genocide told through a daughter who has been adopted, and supernatural thriller Requiem from writer Kris Mrksa.

The shows join a 2016 drama slate that already includes three Hollow Crown films, starring Dame Judi Dench and Benedict Cumberbatch, a six-part War and Peace adaptation, and John le Carre adaptation The Night Manager, starring Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman.

Meanwhile, BBC's head of drama Polly Hill has said the channel has nothing to fear from Netflix and Amazon.