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Channel 4 has given the greenlight to a remake of what remains its most-watched drama of all time, A Woman Of Substance.
The network has confirmed reports a new version of the show was in the works several weeks after the death of Barbara Taylor Bradford, who wrote the original novel. The Buccaneers scribes Katherine Jakeways and Roanne Bardsley are penning A Woman of Substance, which follows the rags-to-riches tale of Emma Harte, an impoverished, ambitious maid in Yorkshire who takes a dizzying climb to become the world’s richest woman, gazing down on her sprawling empire from a luxury New York penthouse. Banijay-backed The Forge is producing the new version and ex-Channel 4 drama boss Beth Willis is EP.
Starring Jenny Seagrove, A Woman of Substance aired 40 years ago and remains Channel 4’s most-watched drama of all time with a whopping 14M viewers, figures that rarely get topped today. Taylor Bradford died last November aged 91.
The news was confirmed on a splashy Channel 4 drama slate from the network’s new TV drama and movie commissioning boss Ollie Madden, who is aiming to greenlight around one TV drama per month and has seen his drama budget double this year.
He has also ordered a TV version of Caroline O’Donoghue’s hit novel The Rachel Incident, which we revealed was being developed by UCP 18 months back. The bestselling book tells the story of a student working at a bookstore when she meets a new best friend and the course of their lives in the Irish city of Cork changes forever. When the protagonist falls in love with her married professor, Dr Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards.
Channel 4 has also given the go-ahead to Back to Life creator Daisy Haggard‘s latest project, Maya, described as “a darkly comedic look at what witness protection looks like in the UK, and what lengths a mother will go to protect her daughter when the system fails her.” It comes from Back to Life and Fleabag maker Two Brothers Pictures, after BBC Three’s Back to Life found success in the States on Showtime.
The other two new shows on the slate are prolific scribe Jack Thorne’s latest, Falling, a love story about a nun who falls for a Catholic priest, and Pierre, the first TV series from acclaimed playwright Roy Williams, which stars David Harewood as a West London duty solicitor who is barely keeping his head above water physically, emotionally and financially.
The Undeclared War Season 2
Channel 4 is also returning to Peter Kosminsky’s The Undeclared War for a second season nearly three years after the first starring Simon Pegg, Hannah Khalique-Brown and newly-boarded Sian Brooke. Kosminsky is EPing but no longer writing The Undeclared War, which comes from Colin Teevan and Paul McGuigan. The show follows Britain’s GCHQ grappling with the aftermath of a devastating Russian cyber-attack. Wolf Hall producer Playground and Universal International Studios have teamed on this one.
Madden said: “Our commitment at Channel 4 drama is to make shows which offer a tangible point of difference, shine a light on British society in a thought provoking and fresh way, and yet are uncompromising in their ambition to entertain. I’m proud to announce this eclectic range of new commissions which embody that ethos, and we’re confident our audiences will love.”
Previously announced Madden shows include Gillian Anderson-starrer Trespasses and Margaret Thatcher series Brian & Maggie, the latter of which launched last week.
