The Night Manager team reunite for new John Le Carré TV adaptation
The BBC, AMC and production company The In Factory will adapt novel The Little Drummer Girl for TV, starring Florence Pugh as a young actor pushed into a world of espionage
After Tom Hiddleston’s Jonathan Pine dominated UK screens last year, the broadcasters behind The Night Manager are returning with another John le Carré drama: The Little Drummer Girl.
The six-part series will star Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) as Charlie, a young actor in the late 1970s who’s sucked into a story of espionage amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
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Once again the BBC, US broadcaster AMC and independent production company The In Factory will join forces to co-produce the series.
South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook will direct the adaptation of the 1983 novel. He said: "At the core of this story is an extremely painful, but thrilling, romance…I am excited at the prospect of seeing how the drumbeats of Florence Pugh, the most energetic young female actor I have seen recently.”
A release date is yet to be confirmed, but production is set to start in 2018.
The Ink Factory producers Simon and Stephen Cornwell – sons of author le Carré – said in a statement that The Little Drummer Girl is "one of le Carré's greatest novels."
"Park Chan-wook is a master filmmaker at the height of his powers," they added. "His passion for the project and his vision are utterly compelling. Florence Pugh is an exciting actor whose Charlie will lead us on a heart-wrenching journey, and the team behind the camera assembled under Laura Hastings-Smith’s steadfast leadership is unparalleled."
This isn’t the first time that The Littler Drummer Girl has been on screen, with a film version produced in 1984 with Diane Keaton as Charlie.
The Night Manager, starring Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman alongside Hiddleston, commanded almost 10 million viewers per episode when broadcast last year. The drama was also named the TV show of 2016 by Radio Times critics and writers from across the magazine and website. A second series of the show is currently in development.
