IRISH actor Ciarán Hinds is among a star-studded cast set to lead a new drama based on a Booker Prize-winning book.
The BBC has acquired the rights to The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan’s novel which won the prize in 2014.
A five-part drama series based on the book, which charts the life of Flanagan’s fictional character Dorrigo Evans, is now in production for BBC One.
Ciarán Hinds, Jacob Elordi and Odessa Young star in the new seriesJacob Elordi, who recently starred in Emerald Fennell’s hit film Saltburn, plays Dorrigo as a young man in the series, while Belfast-born Ciarán Hinds, who starred in Kenneth Branagh’s 2021 film Belfast, plays the older Dorrigo,
The story reveals Dorrigo embarking on a passionate love affair with Amy Mulvaney, who is played by Odessa Young, of Manodrome and The Stand, as well as his time held captive in a WW2 POW camp, and his later years spent as a revered surgeon and reluctant war hero.
Described as “an intimate character study of a complex man”, the drama is billed by the BBC as a “compelling portrayal of the courage and cruelty of war, and a timeless love story that sustains one through the darkest of times”.
A scene from The Narrow Road to the Deep North which is currently in production for the BBCSue Deeks, Head of BBC Programme Acquisition, explains: “The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a complex, beautiful, and heart-wrenching series which sensitively interweaves several stages in the life of surgeon Dorrigo Evans, from the passion of first love, to the unflinching depiction of life as a prisoner of war in occupied Burma.
“We are so very pleased to bring this truly exceptional adaptation to BBC viewers”.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is being produced by Curio Pictures and distributed globally by Sony Pictures Television.
The series is directed by Justin Kurzel and has been adapted by writer Shaun Grant