BBC1 orders drama foursome

The BBC has revealed a new drama season based on classic 20th century literature and is partnering with HBO on a JK Rowling project.

DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Laurie Lee’s novel Cider with Rosie, LP Hartley’s The Go-Between and JB Priestley’s play An Inspector Calls will all be turned into 90-minute specials for BBC1.

Meanwhile, US cablenet HBO is joining the BBC for its forthcoming miniseries based on Harry Potter scribe JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy.

Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty) will adapt Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which is being produced by Hartswood Films and Serena Cullen Productions and explores an illicit sexual relationship across the class barrier.

Cider with Rosie, in which Lee reminisces about his youth in a Cotswold village, is being adapted by Ben Vanstone and will be produced by Origin Pictures, while Adrian Hodges’ take on The Go-Between is being made by BBC Drama Production. Hodges is exec producing the show, which follows a man who finds his old diary from the turn of the 20th century.

JB Priestley’s classic play, the detective story An Inspector Calls, will be directed by Aisling Walsh and is being produced by Drama Republic.

The season was commissioned by Charlotte Moore, controller of BBC1, and the broadcaster’s controller of drama Ben Stephenson.

Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy is being turned into a three-hour miniseries and explores conflicts in what seems to be an idyllic English village.

Rowling has been attached as exec producer through her prodco Bronte Film and Television, with the miniseries to be written by Sarah Pehlps (Great Expectations) and directed by Ruth Kenley-Letts (The Hour) and Jonny Campbell (Eric & Ernie).

The show will air on BBC1 in the UK, where the project was first revealed in 2012, and Time Warner-owned HBO in the US. It is Rowling’s latest project with Time Warner, which produced the Harry Potter feature films.