Bergerac reboot is official

British staple of the1980s, Bergerac, is to be given a reboot and is on its way back to television.

The series, which ran on the BBC between 1981 and 1991 and starred John Nettles as a Jersey-based detective sergeant and private investigator, is being given a contemporary makeover.

According to Variety:

Emmy-winning producer Gub Neal (“The Fall,” “Prime Suspect”) is leading the development for Artists Studios, serving as executive producer. Neal said the show would be updated for the present day, dealing with “contemporary stories-of-the-week that run alongside a strong serial spine.”

More news as we get it!

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StarzPlay picks up Rig 45 for UK broadcast

We’ve had Swedish/Nordic series Rig 45 on our radars for quite a while now, and have been waiting for a UK broadcaster to be named.

Now we know that StarzPlay – accessed via Amazon Prime – will stream it here in the UK.

Rig 45 pick up two days before Christmas when Andrea is sent by Benthos Oil to investigate a fatal accident on a North Sea rig. Met by an inexplicable wall of silence from the crew, Andrea starts to suspect something is very wrong – and when a hurricane slams into Rig 45, cutting off all communications with the outside world, the crew find themselves battling both the elements and a shockingly devious killer.

It stars an international cast that includes Catherine Walker, Gary Lewis, Lisa Henni, and old favourite Søren Malling.

Here’s a trailer…

Look out for it from 22nd February.

Sarah Phelps to adapt Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse

Sarah Phelps is one of this country’s leading screenwriters, and her work adapting the works of Agatha Christie has been nothing more than miraculous (although some have been less than enamoured with the reworkings). Last month we brought you news that Gwyneth Hughes would be adapting Death Comes As The End for the BB, quite possibly for this Christmas.

The fear was that Phelps was done with Christie, but news reaches us today that this may not be the case.

Per the Radio Times, Phelps has signed up to adapt Christie’s stand-alone novel, The Pale Horse. She was quoted as saying:

When I was working on And Then There Were None [in 2015], there was a little voice in my head saying that I could write a quintet and cover 50 years of the tumultuous blood-soaked 20th century within the genre of the murder mystery. Having now done the 1920s, the beginning and end of the ’30s, as well as the 1950s, the next one is going to be set in the 1960s.

Agatha Christie plants these little clues in her books and I pick them up and run with them. I’m honouring the secret, subversive Agatha. There’s something dangerous about her – and there’s a lot of academic work to be done on the tension in the novels between the book she knew the public wanted to read and the one she wanted to write. I always think I’m doing the version of the book she wanted to write.

So, The Pale Horse, then.

To understand the strange goings on at The Pale Horse Inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning? Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman’s head? Or was it when the priest’s assailant searched him so roughly he tore the clergyman’s cassock? Or could it have been the priest’s visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her death bed?

Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble which Mark Easterbrook had himself witnessed earlier? Wherever the beginning lies, Mark and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, may soon have cause to wish they’d never found it.

Look out for it in 2020.

FOR ALL OUR AGATHA CHRISTIE NEWS AND REVIEWS CLICK HERE

 

Netflix picks up Icelandic crime drama The Valhalla Murders

We’ve already brought you news of Icelandic series, The Valhalla Murders, but the questions have always remained: when and where will it air in the UK?

Now we know half of that question: it’ll be shown outside of its native Iceland on streaming giant Netflix. Produced by Icelandic state broadcaster RÚV, it’s currently in production and is expected to air at Christmas.

So what’s it about?

Icelandic born police profiler Arnar who lives in Denmark, is asked to go back to his native country to investigate the first serial killer case. He teams up with the local senior inspector Kata who resents his arrival, as she is the lead detective on the case. The murders don’t seem to have much in common until they connect it to a home for troubled boys dated back to the 1980’s.

In the title roles are Nína Dögg Filippudóttir (Trapped, Prisoners) and Björn Thors (Prisoners). Top crew personel include production designer Heimir Sverrisson (Adrift, The Oath), DoP Arni Filippusson (Prisoners, Either Way), and Bafta award-winning editor Valdis Oskarsdottir (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Prisoners).