BBC, Showtime commission Motive Pictures’ gothic thriller The Woman in the Wall

UK public broadcaster the BBC and US network Showtime have co-commissioned The Woman in the Wall, a gothic thriller produced by Endeavor Content-backed British indie Motive Pictures.

Ruth Wilson

The 6×60’ series is created by Joe Murtagh (Calm With Horses) and stars Ruth Wilson (The Affair, Luther) and Daryl McCormack (Good Luck to You Leo Grande, Peaky Blinders).

The show will air on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and Showtime in the US. Outside of those territories, Paramount Global Content Distribution is handling sales.

The series is based on the Magdalene Laundries, real-life institutions in Ireland run by Catholic orders where ‘fallen women’ were sent. In the early 1990s, the unmarked graves of 155 women were discovered at the grounds of one of them.

The series is executive produced by Wilson, Murtagh, Sam Lavender, Simon Maxwell and Harry Wootliff (True Things, Only You), who is set to direct multiple episodes. Rachna Suri (Half Bad) is the second block director.

Daryl McCormack

Set in the small fictional town of Kilkinure, The Woman in the Wall follows a woman who wakes up one morning to find a corpse in her house. The woman, played by Wilson, suffers from extreme bouts of sleepwalking, which began when she was incarcerated at Kilkinure Convent at the age of 15, and has no idea if she might have had something to do with the murder.

The series was commissioned by the BBC’s chief content officer Charlotte Moore and former director of BBC drama Piers Wenger, alongside Jana Winograde and Gary Levine for Showtime.