London Screenings 2022

The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe

Type: Drama
Length: 4 x 60-minutes
Producer: Story Films
Broadcaster: ITV (UK)

The lives of an unremarkable middle-aged English couple spiral into global news in Story Films’ four-parter The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe.

The idiosyncratic drama recounts the true story of John Darwin, who – crippled by debt – decides to fake his own death in a canoe accident to fraudulently collect life insurance money. With only his wife Anne in on the deception, John lives a secret life in a bedsit next door to her, while she plays the publicly grieving widow. Devastated by the loss of their father, neither of their sons has an inkling that their parents have lied to them.

Wanting to shed himself of the clandestine life, John assumes a fake identity and leaves the country to invest in money-making schemes. As these go awry, he convinces Anne to start a new life with him in Panama.

Suspicions are aroused when, five years after faking his death, John returns to England and walks into a police station pretending he has amnesia. As the story unravels, the couples’ lies catch up with them.

“We’ve done lots of true crime, but this is extraordinary,” says All3Media International senior vice-president of content and commercial strategy David Swetman. “It’s a jaw-dropping tale about how one minor event can snowball out of control.”

The series is driven by the writing and acting performances, Swetman adds. Unforgotten writer Chris Lang fills in the gaps in the story, imagining what was said behind closed doors. In doing so, he “captures the nuances of John and Anne’s characters, in all their complexity and moral ambiguity”, according to Swetman.

Meanwhile, Eddie Marsan (Deceit) as John opposite Monica Dolan (Appropriate Adult; W1A) as Anne have their work cut out to portray the larger-the-life and simultaneously ordinary husband and wife. “It’s farcical, surreal, funny and devastatingly sad in equal measure,” Swetman says. “The story is funny, but there is real tragedy at the heart of it, with the breakdown of a family and the lies that are told to keep the story alive. Anne pretends to her sons that their father is dead – that’s a pretty complex set of emotions to portray.”

Swetman believes the combination of a bingeable story, great actors and high production values mean the series is tailor-made for the international market and, as a four-parter, it will work equally well on linear channels and SVoDs.

Story Film’s success with last year’s Channel 4 series Deceit is an advantage in a buyer market seeking true-crime stories, but it’s the fact that the story is “almost unbelievable” that will really help it cut through.

“The more you watch, the more you wonder at how anyone thought they could get away with faking their own death,” Swetman says.

From The Tourist to Story’s Witness No.3 and The Confessions Of Frannie Langton, All3MI has a collection of scripted titles in which ordinary characters find themselves in extraordinary circumstances.

“There’s something incredibly engaging about the idea that suddenly your life turns, and you become involved in something unexpected,” says Swetman.

Hot Picks

Hollington Drive

Type: Drama
Length: 4 x 60-minutes
Producer: West Road Pictures
Broadcaster: ITV (UK)

‘The complexity of modern families and the lengths we go to in order to protect the people we love is something that we can all relate to’

Mystery thriller Hollington Drive boasts a pedigree creative team, both in front of and behind the camera.

Billed as a taut domestic drama that explores the lengths families will go to in order to protect their children, it was created by writer Sophie Petzal and executive produced by Jonathan Fisher through his All3Media-backed indie West Road Pictures.

They have both previously worked together on two series of acclaimed Virgin Media Ireland and Channel 5 thriller Blood.

Hollington Drive is directed by Carolina Giammetta (The Drowning) and produced by Catrin Lewis Defis (The Pact), with ITV set to air the drama this autumn.

The four-parter follows two sisters – Theresa (Anna Maxwell Martin) and her headteacher sibling Helen (Rachel Stirling) – who fear their children may have played a role in the disappearance of a 10-year-old child. As the pressure, blame and accusations mount in the wake of the disappearance, the siblings switch between loyalty to each other and betrayal.

The drama is being sold by All3Media International, which has been working with the pair on the development of several scripted projects. Hollington Drive is the first series through the pipe.

All3MI senior vice-president of scripted content David Swetman explains that Hollington Drive gets right to the heart of what it means to be a parent and to fear what might happen to your children, and indeed what your children might be doing.

“It builds the tension throughout the four episodes, and we gradually unravel the complex and dark back stories to our characters,” he says.

Swetman believes Hollington Drive has broad appeal for international buyers. “The complexity of modern families and the lengths we go to in order to protect the people we love is something that we can all relate to,” he says.

All3MI has already closed several deals for Hollington Drive, with Sundance Now in the US, NRK (Norway), NPO (Netherlands) and VRT (Belgium), and pre-sold the series to BBC Studios in Australia.

Swetman says four-part thrillers work well for both linear channels – where they can be stripped nightly back-to-back or aired weekly – and streaming services as box sets.

All Creatures Great and Small

Type: Drama
Length: 7 x 60-minutes
Producer: Playground Entertainment
Broadcaster: Channel 5 (UK); PBS (US)

All3Media International is riding a wave of interest in family-friendly, broad-appealing content with Playground’s reboot of 1980s favourite All Creatures Great and Small.

Set once again in the picturesque Yorkshire Dales during the 1930s, the adaptation preserves the rich spirit, tone and values of James Herriot’s iconic characters.

It follows the eponymous aspiring vet, who soon realises that treating animals is as much about treating their owners, and that Yorkshire farmers can be a tough crowd.

With the series airing later this year on Channel 5 and US network Masterpiece, The Last Kingdom’s Ben Vanstone is lead writer and exec producer and Downton Abbey’s Brian Percival is directing.

Nicholas Ralph makes his TV debut as Herriot, while Mr Selfridge’s Samuel West plays eccentric surgeon Siegfried Farnon and Patrick Melrose’s Anna Madeley is housekeeper Mrs Hall.

Driscoll cites the broad appeal, which works as an antidote to some of the All3MI’s darker programming. “We’ve got plenty of thrillers like Liar and Baptiste, so it’s good to have a family-friendly drama out there to tap into that market,” he adds.

Driscoll says commercial and public service broadcasters, mainly in EMEA, have been acquiring the series as "they want something to air for a broad audience with no language or sex concerns”, adding: “It’s also got repeatability.”

All3MI has so far secured just shy of 20 deals for the series, including in Australia, Scandinavia and across western Europe.

The outfit has mainly been targeting traditional channels with deals allowing for regular repeats and lengthy catch-up windows. SVoDs are unlikely to be in the market for a drama of this tone, although Driscoll does single out emerging behemoth Disney+ as a potential future target.

Gordon, Gino and Fred

Type: Factual-entertainment
Length: Two series (3 x 60-minutes; 7 x 60-minutes) plus two Christmas specials (both 1 x 90-minutes)
Producer: Studio Ramsay
Broadcaster: ITV (UK)

With the world stuck indoors, viewers have been keen for travel shows that provide real escapism and have turned in droves to talent-led offerings such as Gordon, Gino and Fred.

Studio Ramsay’s big-budget factual entertainment series has been running for two series now, following the escapades of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and his trusted maître d’ Fred Sirieix, along with fellow chef Gino D’Acampo.

The trio, whose chemistry bubbles on screen, have so far travelled around Europe and the US, and have fronted two Christmas specials.

Driscoll says the show is leading the line on All3Media International’s roster of travel offerings, which also includes Studio Lambert’s Race Across the World and North One’s Travel Man.

“Travel is massively appealing right now, but these shows need to be more than just a holiday guide,” he adds. “You need top talent who bounce off each other to elevate the programme.”

Ramsay, who Driscoll describes as the “most famous” of the three, exhibits a different side to his personality compared with his Hell’s Kitchen and 24 Hours to Hell and Back persona. “He is a sensible dad on the road with a couple of idiots,” says Driscoll.

More than 30 broadcasters from territories such as Scandinavia and Latin America have picked up at least the first series, with many buyers coming from traditional pay-TV services such as Discovery Italy or Australia’s Foxtel.

These often air programming that could play have played on ITV and seek shows that can be repeated at different times of the day.