The Stage

Mellor stage play adapted as part of new BBC drama commissions

Published Tuesday 14 July 2009 at 15:32 by Matthew Hemley

Kay Mellor’s stage play A Passionate Woman is being adapted for television by the BBC, as part of a raft of new drama commissions announced by the Corporation today.

Ben Stephenson, controller of drama commissioning, said that the dramas - totalling more than 20 hours of original content - demonstrated the “BBC’s renewed commitment to drama series and serials”.

Mellor’s drama, which will be screened in two 90-minute episodes, focuses on a mother’s affair in the fifties and the consequences of that affair 30 years on.

Meanwhile, The Silence, written by Fiona Seres, is a four-part drama about an 18-year-old deaf girl who witnesses a murder and becomes the key witness.

The other commissions include detective drama Luther written by Neil Cross, and The Deep, a five-part serial written by Simon Donald, which follows the crew of a submarine who land themselves in difficulty as they search for life forms.

Finally, Sherlock, co-created by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gattis, is a contemporary take on the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the new Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as John Watson.

Stephenson said: “I couldn’t be more excited about the wealth of authored drama that I have commissioned for the first half of 2010. It is a credit to the writers and producers of this country that so much astonishing work is coming through. All of these pieces start and end with a writer’s startling vision.”