True Blood’s Anna Paquin to star and executive produce
UKTV has ordered its first original drama – a six-part series about the world of high-stakes PR for W.
Flack, a 6 x 60-minute series starring Anna Paquin, will be produced by Hat Trick Productions and the True Blood star’s company CASM Films.
UKTV is co-producing the series with CBS and Lionsgate’s US joint-venture cable network Pop. It will enter production this spring ahead of a 2019 TX.
Flack will follow the life of an expert American publicity executive living in London as she struggles to make the best of a string of bad situations.
It was created and exec produced by Oliver Lansley, the actor, writer and theatre director best known for creating BBC2 sitcom Whites and starring as Kenny Everett in BBC4 biopic The Best Possible Taste. It will be directed by The Full Monty and Rev’s Peter Cattaneo.
Paquin said that Lansley’s script walks a “fine line” between character-driven drama and intelligent humour. “My character, Robyn, exists in a world where there are no moral absolutes and humour is used as a sharply executed defence mechanism to maintain the illusion of perpetual control,” she added.
UKTV, which is planning to appoint a dedicated drama commissioner, revealed in December that it expects to order four drama series this year.
Director of commissioning Richard Watsham said Flack marked a “new chapter” in the broadcaster’s move into original programming.
“The response from independent producers to our call out for distinctive drama has been incredible and as well as moving into production on Flack, we are now developing a growing number of original drama series for Alibi and Drama,” he added.
Pop’s executive vice president of original programming Justin Rosenblatt said: “Flack is extremely poignant, smartly exploring an age in which for better or worse, news happens in a breath.”
The show was ordered by UKTV’s Watsham and senior commissioning editor Pete Thornton, who will exec produce with CASM’s Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Cerise Hallam Larkin and Mark Larkin and Pop’s Rosenblatt.
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