BritBox bolsters NA originals

Death in Paradise is among the titles being added to BritBox

BBC Studios and ITV’s joint streaming service BritBox is adding new coproductions and original series to its 2020 line-up in North America.

A copro with BBC Studios, Sister Boniface is a spin-off from detective period drama Father Brown. Set in 1960s rural England, the series follows the investigations of a nun, wine maker and part-time forensic scientist played by Lorna Watson (Watson & Oliver).

Meanwhile, McDonald & Dodds is about a pair of mismatched detectives in the English city of Bath. Tala Gouveia and Jason Watkins (The Crown) star in the show, an ITV and BritBox copro being made by ITV Studios-owned Mammoth Screen.

New BritBox originals include A Confession, which comes from Jeff Pope (Stan & Ollie, Philomena) and stars Martin Freeman (Sherlock) and Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake). The programme, which will debut in May, is about the real-life disappearance and murder of 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan in the UK in 2011.

Fellow original Sticks & Stones, a three-part psychological thriller starring Ken Nwosu (Killing Eve), will premiere in the summer. The series, which comes from Mike Bartlett (Trauma), centres on workplace bullying as a successful sales professional and family man’s life begins to unravel during a disastrous sales pitch.

This fall, meanwhile, the platform will add Wild Bill, a six-part mystery series starring Rob Lowe (Parks & Recreation, The West Wing) as a high-flying US police chief who relocates with his teenage daughter to East Lincolnshire, England, to shake up the local police force. The series first aired on ITV in the UK last summer.

BritBox in North America is also adding renewed seasons of series including Wallander, Vera, Mrs Brown’s Boys, Bancroft, Death in Paradise, Living the Dream, The Mallorca Files, Father Brown, Scarborough, Pointless, The Bay, There She Goes and Inside No. 9 in 2020.