London Screenings Top Shows Include ‘The Wire’ Doc & Bella Ramsey’s ‘Maya’

Welcome to the Deadline Dozen, the twelve titles debuting at the London TV Screenings next week that we’ve selected for breakout potential. A record 43 distribution businesses are showcasing their latest hot shows, so this is by no means a comprehensive list, but a curated take on what’s coming to market. Genres span drama, comedy, entertainment formats and documentaries, and the companies selling them include Screenings founders, European sellers, U.S. studios and more. Read on for the Dozen.

Anna Pigeon (Cineflix Rights)

Nevada Barr’s ‘Anna Pigeon’ novels are coming to the screen and also the London TV Screenings, with Cineflix Rights across sales. Chicago PD star Tracy Spiridakos takes the titular title role, playing the former city slicker who became a park ranger after a devastating loss changes the trajectory of her life. As Anna tries to outrun her demons, her focus turns to solving crimes that have taken place within national park grounds. The series is a Bell Media (Canada) co-commission with Versant’s USA Network, the first time these two have partnered in this way. Spiridakos is joined by Paulina Alexis (Reservation Dogs) as a park ranger and Ronnie Rowe (Star Trek: Discovery) as an FBI agent. Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) plays Anna’s older sister while Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy) shows up as a wealthy landowner.

The Cage (Fremantle)

The latest series from The Responder creator Tony Schumacher is this BBC six-parter starring the Olivier-winning Sheridan Smith and Michael Socha. The pair star as casino workers who both discover the other is quietly running amateur heists where they work. They are forced into an uneasy partnership, as the local gangster they’re unwittingly stealing from and the police close in. Gambling on a final heist becomes their last chance of escape. Shot in Liverpool and Manchester, the show comes from Element Pictures, Fremantle’s Irish production house that has been on a tear in recent years with Poor Things, Pillion, Normal People, Conversations With Friends and Dublin Murders. With Socha, who teamed with Element and Shane Meadows on previous series The Gallows Pole, and prolific screen and theater actress Smith providing the tension, this is sure to attract curious buyers.

Girl Climber (Dogwoof)

If Netflix’s Skyscraper Live taught us anything, it’s that TV audiences are hungry for the high-octane stress watch of a human being scale a large structure with no safety net. Execs will know this, so Dogwoof’s Girl Climber could be among the timelier docs hitting London next week. The Skyscraper Live connection goes deeper, as the doc’s cinematography comes from Alex Honnold, the man who scaled Taipei 101 live on Netflix. Girl Climber follows elite mountaineer Emily Harrington, who sets out to conquer Yosemite’s El Capitan mountain in under 24 hours. It’s basically a terrifying, vertigo-inducing nightmare for many, but for the five-time U.S. national champ, it’s the ultimate test and proves gender means nothing in a sport that has been dominated by men.

Dustfall (Federation Studios)

Tropic Noir is the new Scandi Noir. Dustfall, an ABC Australia drama that has more than a shade of Top of the Lake, comes to London with plenty of the ingredients of a top-selling drama. For starters, in lead Anna Torv, of Newsreader fame, Dustfall has an Australian actor at the top of her game. She plays Tig Pollard, a detective working a harrowing case after an 18-year-old is found dead in a cane field. Torv is joined by Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply), Zoe Phillips (Eden) and Bert LaBonté (Colin From Accounts), quality actors from both the UK and Australia that lend Dustfall some serious heft. With a BBC deal having already been struck, Federation will be hoping this series based on the Vikki Petraitis novel can continue to bolster the French major’s standing in the English-speaking content game. By the end of next week, Tropic Noir could be here to stay.

Blue Planet III (BBC Studios)

The third instalment of the seminal Blue Planet series comes a full quarter-century after the first, and will fully utilize all the developments in camera technology and scientific discovery to reveal new wonders of the oceans. Over six episodes, the BBC and BBC America co-production will focus on the tropical seas, the seasonal seas, polar seas, high seas and deep seas, with the final ep focusing on the future of exploration and protecting the Earth’s waters. Intriguingly, it’s not yet been confirmed if David Attenborough will return to narrate. At nearly 100 years-old, it shouldn’t be surprising if he does not, but given his seemingly inextinguishable spirit for all things natural history, it would be a big talking point in the UK capital as the show launches. Whether the answer to that question impacts buyer appetite is to be seen, though we’d bet not. We’ll update if we hear anything from the Blue Planet III screenings next week at 180 Studios on the Strand.

Army of Shadows (Studiocanal)

The UK’s Channel 4 and France’s Canal+ have teamed up for the latest drama from Top Boy, The Day of the Jackal and MobLand showrunner Ronan Bennett, and it’s one that is bound to attract attention in London. Inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 film and Joseph Kessel’s seminal book, written during the resistance in Nazi-occupied France during WWII, it is set in a near-future Britain sliding into authoritarian rule. Against that backdrop, an ex-soldier, a novelist and a journalist become unlikely leaders of an underground resistance network. The Melville family and the Kessel estate, which is controlled by the Irish Red Cross, have both given the co-production their blessing. Studiocanal is distributing, having developed it with STV Studios-owned Two Cities Television.

The Neighbourhood (ITV Studios)

Taylor Swift’s bestie Graham Norton is a man at the top of his game and so there couldn’t be a better time for ITV Studios to be shopping his new street-sized reality gameshow. Norton, who hosts a popular UK chatshow, is a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and is having his book adapted for TV by FilmNation, will oversee proceedings as real-life households from all walks of life move next to each other and find themselves competing in fierce challenges. Those challenges will change the dynamics behind closed doors and, to win, they’ll need to defeat their neighbors, while still staying popular on the street. It’s been a while since a weighty constructed-reality show has dominated proceedings and ITV will be hoping it has landed on the next big thing. Think of this as the ultimate fantasy for the nosy neighbor brigade.

The Faithful (Fox Entertainment Global)

If you’re looking for a book adaptation, The Faithful leans into some of the oldest IP in existence. The series is billed as a faithful dramatization of the Book of Genesis, told through the eyes of the women whose descendants would shape the future of faith as we know it. The episodes of the drama are told through the eyes of five women from The Old Testament: Sarah and her servant Hagar, Sarah’s great-niece Rebekah, and Rebekah’s nieces, sisters Leah and Rachel. Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting) plays Sarah in the first instalment and Jeffery Donovan (Fargo) is Abraham. Danny Cannon (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) is directing and executive producing the premiere. Carol Mendelsohn (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) is an exec producer. The show will play on the Fox network in the U.S.

Maya (All3Media International)

At any given time, everyone wants to know what Daisy Haggard and Bella Ramsey are doing next, so the fact they are combining makes Two Brothers Pictures’ Maya one of the buzziest shows on offer next week. Haggard, who was behind the critically acclaimed Back to Life, created, and is starring in, the propulsive psychological thriller, which scaled heights when it landed The Last of Us breakout Ramsey as co-lead. Haggard plays Anna, a fiercely devoted single mother forced into witness protection with her headstrong teenage daughter Maya (Ramsey). Leaving behind Anna’s parents, played by UK thesps Harriet Walter and Tom Courtenay, the two must assume new identities as they disappear into a remote rural town in Scotland. Dark thrillers are selling like hot cakes at the moment. Haggard and Ramsey will make this one worth watching.

Beyond The Silk Road (Blue Ant Rights)

HBO’s The Wire was seminal and set a new bar for TV drama. That’s one reason for the buzz around Beyond The Silk Road, a one-off doc that reunites two of its main stars, Dominic West and Clarke Peters. The duo were hard-bitten cops in David Simon’s classic series, but it turns out that while making The Wire, they bonded over a shared love of horsemanship and unwound by riding out into the Maryland wilderness. Here, they saddle up for a trip to Kyrgyzstan, covering some of the titular Silk Road, the historic network of trade routes within which Kyrgyzstan was an important crossroads. They are accompanied by expert and guide Alexandra Tolstoy as they travel on horseback, living in yurts, and taking part in age-old rituals and sports.

The Hunt (Seven.One.Studios)

The Hunt is on. Germany’s Redseven Entertainment has masterminded this extremely high-stakes survival series in which predators are chasing prey. Having already had a civilian version commissioned by the UK’s Channel 4 and a celebrity one for Germany’s Joyn, The Hunt comes to London seeking its next victim. It takes place deep in a vast unforgiving forest, as 10 contestants are dropped into the ultimate real-world game of hide and seek – where losing means walking away with nothing and winning could mean pocketing up to £100,000 ($135,000). The Prey hold the cash, desperately trying to protect their winnings while completing challenges to win more money. The Predators must hunt them down and steal their money. If they succeed their roles are reversed and the entire game flips.

Wallander (Banijay Rights)

Wallander is back. Swedish novelist Henning Mankell’s detective stories have previously been adapted for TV with much success as Kenneth Branagh embodied Kurt Wallander. The new Swedish-language take comes from Jarowskij/Yellow Bird, TV4 and Banijay Rights, with the latter across distribution. Gustaf Skarsgård (Oppenheimer, Vikings) takes the title role across the three 90-minute specials that make up Season 1. The new adaptation promises to go deeper than ever before, taking the audience under the skin of this iconic character. We find Kurt Wallander’s life unravelling as the reimagined show kicks off. Newly separated after two decades of marriage and estranged from his daughter, he’s on the edge, drinking too much and carrying the weight of every unsolved case.