Drama Quarterly - Spring 2022 by C21Media

DQ £5/US$8 £5/US$8

Starting Conversations with Friends SJ Clarkson on directing Anatomy of a Scandal Svenja Jung plays double in Der Palast Norway’s Everything You Love Remaking The Twelve down under And more...

Drama Quarterly F R O M

T H E

P R O D U C E R S

025 . Spring 2022

O F

V I G I L

A I D A N

S H A U N

T U R N E R

P A R K E S

K I L L O R C U R E

ITVS_DQ_COVER_THE_SUSPECT.indd 1

10/03/2022 11:11

Marie Antoinette

Chloe The Good Karma Hospital

Screw The Curse

banijayrights.com

Signora Volpe

Rogue Heroes Then You Run

Grantchester

Peaky Blinders

@all3media_int all3mediainternational.com J14633_C21_DRAMA_QUARTERLY_SPRING_480x320mm_DPS_ADVERT_SCRIPTED_COMBO_AW.indd 1

@all3media_int all3mediainternational.com

10/03/2022 16:09

REF: I T VS _ D Q _ A D_ L I T V IN EN KO DAT E: 14 .0 3. 20 22 SI ZE: 24 0 (w) x 320 mm(h) BLEED: 3mm

S I L E N C E C O M E S A T A P R I C E

DAVID TENNANT

MARGARITA LEVIEVA

LITVINENKO ITVS_DQ_AD_LITVINENKO.indd 1

16/03/2022 16:08

wtf creative 26 moreton street london SW1V 2PE

Spring 2022 Features 10

IN FOCUS: Conversations with Friends Lenny Abrahamson and Ed Guiney discuss making their second Sally Rooney adaptation following the huge success of Normal People.

IN PRODUCTION: Causa Própia (Natural Law) Exec producer Edgar Medina on how he secured star Margarida Vila-Nova for this Portuguese drama and being creative on a modest budget.

WRITERS ROOM: Štepán Hulík The Czech screenwriter again draws on real events to leave viewers asking more questions in four-part drama Podez ení (Suspicion).

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR: SJ Clarkson The director opens up about helming Netflix’s suspenseful thriller Anatomy of a Scandal, bringing drama to a courtroom and how her start in theatre influences her cinematic style.

IN FOCUS: Alt du Elsker (Everything You Love) Writer Marie Hafting and producer Kaia Foss reveal their voyage into the world of far-right extremism with this story of a young couple and the secret that threatens to tear them apart.

TRENDSPOTTING: Swapping film for TV As film directors continue to move to TV, Denmark’s Lone Scherfig and Argentinian filmmaker Daniel Burman discuss working for the small screen and the challenges they faced along the way.

STAR POWER: Svenja Jung The German actor reveals how she prepared to play twins in Der Palast (The Palace), a 1980s-set series in which two women from different sides of Cold War Germany discover they are sisters and decide to swap places with each other.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT: NRK drama Drama head Ivar Køhn reflects on the Norwegian broadcaster’s success with edgy, distinctive series and discusses what’s coming next.

DQ100: Part One 2022/23 We pick out a range of shows to tune in for and the actors, directors and writers making them, as well as the trends and trailblazers worth catching up with.

38 How Norway’s NRK keeps the hits coming

26 Kaia FFoss on Everything You Love

22 Anatomy of a Scandal

18 Writer Štepán ȱ n Hulík

34 Svenja Jung g plays both lead roles in The Palace

End Credits 44 46 48 50

REMADE ABROAD: The Twelve SIX OF THE BEST: Max Malka SCENE STEALER: The Responder DRAMATIC QUESTION: Series Mania and Canneseries

IN FOCUS: Conversations with Friends

DQ . Spring g 20 2022 2

Something to A

nticipation was already high when Normal People debuted on the BBC and US streamer Hulu in 2020. Based on Sally Rooney’s acclaimed novel of the same name and led by Oscar-nominated director Lenny Abrahamson (Room), ((Room), it subsequently became one of the series of the year as it transplanted the tender yet complex relationship between Marianne and Connell to the small screen, turning leading actors Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal into international stars. Two years on, Abrahamson and Normal People producer Element Pictures have reunited with the BBC and Hulu for Conversations with Friends, an adaptation of Rooney’s debut novel. Blending a coming-of-age drama with a modern love story, it centres on 21-year-old college student Frances, who navigates a series of relationships that force her to confront her own vulnerabilities for the first time. When DQ speaks to lead director Abrahamson and executive producer Ed Guiney, they are nearing completion of the final two of the show’s 12 half-hour instalments. But the journey to making the series has been every bit as complicated as the relationship dynamics at the heart of Irish author Rooney’s novels. Element (The Favourite, The Lobster) r had picked up the rights to Conversations with Friends and was developing it as a film project with the BBC before starting work on Normal People. But in making that series, the producers found Conversation with Friends might also be a better fit for television. Then two years ago during a press tour of the US for Normal People, they spoke to Rooney about changing direction and developing Conversations with Friends as a series. “She was agreeable, and it grew from there. We all just regrouped,” says Guiney. Alice Birch, who wrote the screenplay for Normal People with Rooney and Mark >

DQ . Spr prin ing g 20 2022 2

IN FOCUS: Conversations with Friends

talk about Based B Ba sed se d on S Sally alllyy R Rooney’s oo one ney’’s debut debu de butt no bu nove novel, vell C ve Conversations onve on vers rsat atio ionss w with itith h Fr Friend Friends nd ds iss o one ne o off th the he most anticipated series of the year. Michael Pickard speaks to director Lenny Abrahamson and executive producer Ed Guiney about the challenge of following the success of their previous Rooney collaboration, Normal People.

IN FOCUS: Conversations with Friends

DQ . Spring 2022

Conversations with Friends’ main cast, L-R: Sasha Lane, Joe Alwyn, Alison Oliver and Jemima Kirke

< O’Rowe, returned to pen the series with Mark O’Halloran (Rialto), Meadhbh McHugh (Asking For It) and Susan Soon He Stanton (Succession), and work began just before Normal People came out in spring 2020. “Obviously they’re very connected, the two projects, but they’re also very, very different,” says Guiney. “If Normal People is a love story then Conversations with Friends is a coming-of-age story in the context of Frances.” Played by newcomer Alison Oliver, Frances is observant, cerebral and sharp. Her ex-girlfriend and now best friend, Bobbi (American Honey’s Sasha Lane), is self-assured, outspoken and compelling. Though they broke up three years ago, Frances and Bobbi are virtually inseparable and perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin. At one of their shows, they meet Melissa (Jemima Kirke, Sex Education), an older writer, who is fascinated by the pair. Bobbi and Frances start to spend time with Melissa and her husband, Nick (Joe Alwyn, The Favourite), a handsome but reserved actor. While Melissa and Bobbi flirt with each other openly, Nick and Frances embark on an intense, secret affair. That soon begins to test the bond between Frances

The idea of the ad daptation gets more interesting the mo ore you think about zooming in closer to the real detail, rather than havin ng to amplify the detail that’s there. Lenny Abrahamson Director

”

and Bobbi, forcing Frances to reconsider her sense of self and the friendship she holds so dear. Watching the success of Normal People as they developed Conversations with Friends, the creative team had to navigate the fine line between taking what worked on the former and applying it to this new story without trying to turn it into a sequel. “We always wanted to do what’s right for the material and try not to think of it in terms of either distancing ourselves or sticking close to Normal People, and just place it where it should be,” explains Abrahamson. “There are things they have in common, but there are things that are quite different. We just tried not to think about Normal People because you know what you’ve got to do. Generally speaking, we feel very proud of it and we did what was right for this particular project.” Of course, the success of Normal People didn’t guarantee there would be a follow-up, it only made it much more likely. Similarly, Abrahamson could have chosen to move on to a different project, but he says he was struck by the character of Frances and Rooney’s ability to realistically capture people at a particular moment in their life. “I was remembering myself when I was that age, that dreadful combination of ambition, self-consciousness and embarrassment. She captured all those things so beautifully, and the fact the book is about questioning conventional models of relationships, that’s all really interesting territory. Plus, I enjoyed doing the last one so much. I would have found it extremely hard to not do this one, especially working with the same team. It felt like too rich an experience to pass up.” Highlighting Rooney’s “incredible characters and incredible worlds,” Guiney says the initial attempt to adapt Conversations with Friends as a 90-minute feature wouldn’t have played to the strengths of the novel or its author. “Her real strength is creating these characters you want to spend time with,” the exec says. “You want to develop an intimate relationship with them. That’s what she allows

IN FOCUS: Conversations with Friends

DQ . Spring 2022

TV newcomer Oliver stars as Frances

Kirke is well known for her roles in Girls and Sex Education

you to do. Sally creates characters you feel live and exist in the real world and who you almost feel like you have a relationship with. “Similarly with Lenny, as a filmmaker, he removes the lines between you, the viewer, and the characters on screen. You also feel like you have a very intimate connective relationship with them, and that just plays better given a bit of time, where you just get time to feel the experiences of the characters. The making of Normal People made us realise the way to make Conversations was to do it in a similar way, to give it that room to breathe and the characters room to live.” Abrahamson had directed some television prior to Normal People, including episodes of Hugh Laurie-led US drama Chance and Irish series Prosperity, which was written by O’Halloran. But working on Normal People “did change my thinking about television,” he says. In particular, he learned how to take small, low-key moments on paper and make them resonate with viewers. “Having experienced that, it was exciting to re-read Conversations,” he says. “The idea of the adaptation gets more interesting the more you think about zooming in closer to the real detail, rather than having to amplify the detail that’s there. Doing both things has really been such an education of the possibilities of storytelling on television in that it doesn’t always look the way you might imagine it would have to.” If the story and characters are different, the noticeable similarities between Normal People and Conversations with Friends are the lingering camera, the use of silence as much as dialogue and the way musical tracks are sprinkled through the episodes. “I’m the same filmmaker so it would be odd if it were radically different,” Abrahamson says. “And then some of [those similarities] are because it’s me approaching the material, which has deep similarities. But then as you watch on, how the story unfolds is quite different. There is an immediacy to it, which is something I tend to gravitate towards. And it just really suits Sally’s writing, so it would have been crazy to try to radically throw that away. “We also shot it on film, which gives it a different texture,” he adds. “It’s probably slightly more classically shot, but there’s also a lot of stuff that feels like it’s in the same family.” Perhaps the greatest shift from Normal People to Conversations with Friends is the doubling of the number of central characters and how that affects the complexity of the relationships in the story. Frances is at the centre, and viewers will follow her as she navigates old and new friendships, but Bobbi, Melissa and Nick are by no means left on the sidelines. Abrahamson pays tribute to the writers when he describes all four characters as “really rounded out and rich,” as they each affect the way Frances changes through the story. “I feel like they’re really integral, so it’s not like we had to fight to make them important,” he says. “They’re really important to the central movement of the story. Then we were lucky enough to cast such great actors, and they deepened them even more. Although it is [Frances’] story, it’s very much a four-hander.” Guiney agrees, noting Frances’ intense relationships with the other three characters and how that connects them all together. He also praises the casting, with Oliver coming from the same acting school – Lir Academy in Dublin – where Mescal was discovered. Unsurprisingly, there was a “tremendous” amount of interest in auditioning for Conversations with Friends. Normal People’s Louise Kiely returned to lead the casting >

IN FOCUS: Conversations with Friends

DQ . Spring 2022

Things get complicated when Frances starts an affair with Alwyn’s Nick

Lane plays Bobbi, Frances’ ex-girlfriend and current best friend

< process, which again sought a mixture of newcomers and

in France, were shot in Croatia. Production had been due to start in November 2020 but was delayed until last spring experienced talent to lead the series. “We talked to lots of wonderful people and auditioned because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Once the show was up and running, however, there was people and watched loads of self-tapes and all that,” Abrahamson says. “As it happened, one of the actresses very little disruption. “Catherine set things up really well. [Oliver] is somebody who is new for an audience and the other A level of socialising off the set couldn’t really happen, and three are more established. She’s extraordinary, Alison. She’s that is [normally] part of the bonding that occurs. That was amazing and just so fresh and so interesting to work with. a little bit of a loss,” he says. “But we were lucky. There were Then to have the experience of Jemima, Joe and Sasha, it’s a other productions everywhere we were filming that were stopping for one week or two weeks, and it was only when lovely balance of complex and interesting people.” Behind the scenes, Abrahamson paired up with co- we came back for some pickups last December that we lost a director Leanne Welham (His Dark Materials, The Trial of day, effectively, because of a positive test. I can’t say I won’t Christine Keeler) after working alongside Hettie Macdonald be happy when we don’t have to worry about it anymore, if on Normal People. But helming the first episodes and the that ever happens.” Though Rooney was not involved in writing the scripts final two, he was keen to ensure he didn’t cramp Welham’s this time around, she did still participate in the casting style by dictating every aspect of the show’s visuals. “There is a house style that’s created, and Leanne was process and was shown near-complete cuts of each episode. really good about getting inside that way of thinking. I “We hope she’s happy with it and feels we’ve done it justice,” thought she did beautiful work on her episodes and added says Guiney. Now, as the show nears its launch later this spring on her own sensibility to them as well,” he says. As an executive producer, Abrahamson was also across every other aspect of the BBC, Hulu and RTÉ in Ireland, Abrahamson believes the production in tandem with fellow exec producer Emma Conversations with Friends has all the ingredients to become Norton (Normal People), series producer Catherine Magee just as successful as Normal People, namely a good story, a compelling central character and an amazing cast. Distributor (Rebellion) and producer Jeanie Igoe (Ramy). “You choose somebody who you feel has a sensibility that Endeavor Content has also sold the series to Amazon Prime Video (Canada, Australia, New suits the material and somebody Zealand and Africa), HBO Max EMEA who’s keen to be involved in that (Spain, Portugal, the Nordics, CEE, way, collectively,” Abrahamson says the Netherlands and the Baltics), of working with Welham. “I have the SYN (Iceland) and Wavve (Korea). privilege of casting those actors and “It also has those things Sally is making key decisions about format The two projects are rightly praised for, like a feeling of and all that stuff. But then I was able intimacy with the characters and to sit back and let Leanne take full very connected but understanding complex people in control of her episodes. The editorial they’re also very, very a compelling way,” Abrahamson process is very seamless, gentle and says. “The relationships are gnarly respectful. That allows another different. If Normal and interesting and the show deals director to fit in and, on the one People is a love story with lots of things that are very hand, sit within the house style but, much in people’s minds about how on the other, to have the freedom to then Conversations with relationships work. I would be very be their own person. She was a great Friends is a coming-ofhappy with this show if it were the choice and did an amazing job.” age story. only one we had done. Television is Filming took place in Belfast, such a busy and noisy world, we just in a studio and on location, before have to hope people give it some moving to Dublin. Episodes four Ed Guiney time and fall in love with it.” and five, which in the book are set Executive producer DQ

“

”

P ul Pa ulin i e in Pari Pa r i goo t ri

L O UUII S LO P RE PE R ESS

BII RANE RAA NE BAA

YANN YA A NN NNIC ICC K ICK C H OI CHOI CH O I RA RATT

SAMy SA My S GHH IRR SE

VVaa ne ness ssaa ss F o nt Font Fo ntee

R ph Ra phaë aëll aë lll e Roo us usse seau se au

JJona Jo o naath t h aann T urn Tu rnn bu rnbu bull ll ll

Anto An toin to ine in P e lll et Pe e tie t iee r

Wa rr Wa r en en Fee rr rri

I F Y O U W A NTT PEACE, pree paa r e for war.

7 X 52’

New stand at MIPTV R.7 H-2

IN PRODUCTION: Natural Law

Keeping it Natural

DQ . Spring 2022

Arquipélago Filmes’ Edgar Medina discusses the producer’s courtroom noir Causa Própria (Natural Law), how he secured star Margarida Vila-Nova for the lead role and being creative on a modest budget.

hen one of the biggest stars in Portugal just happens to be your neighbour, it’s only natural to ask her to take the lead in your latest series. That’s exactly what happened when Arquipélago Filmes writer and producer Edgar Medina spoke to Margarida VilaNova about starring in seven-part drama Causa Própria (Natural Law). Of course, she said yes. Vila-Nova plays Ana, a small-town judge who spends most of her time presiding over the day-to-day crises facing members of the community. But after a student is found dead in a local park and a group of teenagers are accused of murder, matters become complicated when Ana’s son becomes unexpectedly linked to the crime. She then faces a dilemma that could put her whole family in danger. “She is probably the most important actress of her generation in Portugal,” Medina says of Vila-Nova. “Even though she is still young, she has a maturity in her performances. We wrote the series thinking of her [for the role].” The drama serves up another slice of Portuguese life after the success of Arquipélago’s Sul (South), a brooding crime drama described as a love letter to Lisbon. That series was co-written and executive produced by Medina, who reprises those roles for Natural Law. With João Nuno Pinto directing, Medina created the series alongside Rui Cardoso Martins and they both wrote the scripts with Guilherme Mendonça and Elsa Sequeira Santon. “We started working on this before South. We sold the show to [Portuguese broadcaster] RTP before that series,” Medina recalls. “Initially, we only wanted to feature a series of small cases, which would be more or less based on real cases that were part of newspaper columns Rui wrote for one of Portugal’s main newspapers, Público. Every week, he put together this column featuring new cases happening in court. They were very human but also extraordinary, unbelievable even, and my first idea was to adapt one column per episode featuring these small stories. Then RTP suggested doing an entire story across the first season, so we joined the two ideas together. We have the big story of the judge and also the small court cases.” Following the discovery of the victim, the police investigation soon overwhelms people from all corners of the town. But the story principally follows Ana who, when she first learns a body has been discovered, fears it may be her son, David, lying in the morgue. As the police dig deeper, it seems David may be more involved than he is letting on. “We start with the death and the idea was to contaminate all these characters so that, by the end, all the characters will be totally changed by this death,” Medina explains. “What the characters learn about themselves, and about truth and justice, will be clear at the end.”

IN PRODUCTION: Natural Law

DQ . Spring 2022

Natural Law stars Margarida Vila-Nova as a small-town judge

Medina and Martins created the world of the show, established the characters and outlined what would happen in each episode. The four writers then worked as a team, each one writing an episode and then revising each other’s work. Though the broadcaster’s input was invaluable in determining the structure of the series, Medina says the creatives were otherwise left to their own devices as to how to deliver the story, which blends complex family relationships with the legal jousting of a courtroom drama and a haunting noirish title sequence that plays on the impact the central murder has on the town and its people. “I only work with complete freedom because sometimes I don’t have the proper amount of money to do things [under restrictions]. We present shows to RTP and they pre-buy them, so then we have the rest of the world to sell the show to. But they don’t demand anything. We have a smooth relationship. They don’t impose, they don’t see the rushes. They may make suggestions when they see some cuts, but they are usually technical suggestions. “It’s very bad working with only Portuguese money, because then you are working with very little money. But it does mean you have freedom. We got some money from the ICA [Portuguese Institute of Cinema], and then you’re able more or less to work with creative freedom. But we’re making miracles. For me, this is a great show anywhere in the world.” Writing the story, Medina says his biggest concern was creating the characters, from police inspectors Mario (Nuno Lopes) and Maria (Catarina Wallenstein), who lead the murder investigation, to attorneys such as Alice (Maria Rueff), Abel (Adriano Carvalho) and Joana (Ana Valentim).

“

I would really like Portugal to be known for its quality. We shouldn’t do many things, we should do better things. If we do that, international growth will come more easily. Edgar Medina

”

“I really don’t care much about dead people or who did the crime. For me, the discovery of the body in the park at the beginning of the series is a pretext to other things,” he explains. “I’m much more interested in how this death creates changes and struggles for and between the characters, and how characters evolve. This show starts as crime drama, then it becomes a courtroom drama, and in the last three episodes it becomes something else about how the crime affects the characters. It’s about much more than who killed the student.” Filming took place between May and June 2021, ahead of its launch in Portugal in January this year. Everything was shot on location, in and around the city of Caldas da Rainha, though the courtroom was constructed inside a local hotel that served as a studio. Having conceived Natural Law as a three-season series, Medina is looking at the possibility of returning to the show next year. In the meantime, he is buoyant about Portugal’s place in international television as the booming demand for locallanguage series around the world shows no sign of abating. “There are more possibilities internationally and there is more interest from streaming platforms,” he says. “We are still, of course, a minor country so we have to do much more for the same results [compared to the US or UK, for example]. But I would really like Portugal to be known for its quality. We shouldn’t do many things, we should do better things. That is the thing I’m really concerned with. If we do that, international growth will come more easily.” As for Natural Law, “we make shows that are Portuguese and that have roots tied to this culture, but they are also universal stories,“ he says. “This show compares to anything in the noir genre. It’s a crime courtroom drama that could be seen DQ anywhere in the world.”

WRITERS ROOM: Štepán Hulík

DQ . Spring 2022

After winning acclaim with Horícï ker (Burning Bush) and Pustina (Wasteland), Czech screenwriter Štěpán Hulík again draws on real-life events to leave viewers asking more questions in four-part drama Podezření (Suspicion).

The incredible W

hen it comes to television drama, Czech screenwriter Štěpán Hulík is looking for stories that he – and the viewers – will still be thinking about long after the credits have finished. “I’m looking for very specific kinds of stories. I’m looking for something that gets stuck in my throat and I can’t get rid of it, I can’t swallow it, so I keep coming back to it, researching it and trying to answer some questions about it for myself,” he says. That’s why Hulík still thinks about Horícï ker (Burning Bush), his 2013 dramatisation of the real-life story of student Jan Palach, who set himself on fire in protest against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. “When I still think about what he did in 1969, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think about it, and that’s great. If all the answers for you as a writer have been answered, there’s no reason for you to write a script,” he says. Hulík felt the same way about 2016’s Pustina (Wasteland), which follows what happens to a close-knit mining community when a missing girl sets off a chain of mysterious events that divides the residents and exposes the town’s dark underbelly.

Now, with Podezření (Suspicion), he tells the story of Hana, a nurse who is placed under investigation when a patient dies in seemingly suspicious circumstances. The four-part miniseries, which is written by Hulík and directed by Michal Blaško, was selected in competition at Berlinale Series in February ahead of its launch on Czech TV and Arte in France. That these stories get under the writer’s skin is not the only thing they have in common. In addition, they share a focus on strong female characters and are all loosely based in reality in some way. For Suspicion, Hulík uncovered many similar cases around the world that took place in hospitals or care homes. One example from the UK is the case of Colin Norris, a caregiver from Leeds convicted of killing four patients and later sentenced to life in prison. His case is now being re-evaluated by the Court of Appeal. “I was really attracted to the idea that maybe you have someone who is not really guilty,” he says. “I was just trying to invent a really interesting character and put her into this type of story.” Hulík could not have imagined a better protagonist. Hana is cold, unattached and unemotional, and seems completely unsuited to her career as a nurse. When accusations are levelled at her, it’s hard to feel sympathetic,

DQ . Spring 2022

Hulík yet there’s something in her denials that reveal more passion for her job than she has ever shown on the ward. “It felt interesting to me to have at the beginning such a strange, unlikeable character you don’t want to attach yourself to very much,” Hulík says. “Throughout the story, you explore why this woman is behaving in such an annoying, terrible way. What went wrong with her in her past? How was she hurt and by whom? The power of the story is you may have a character or a hero who at first sight may look very strange or even like a terrible person, but by exploring their background and their past, you realise the roots or causes of this.” Television and cinema, Hulík believes, have a unique power to create understanding of and sympathy for even the most strange or unlikeable characters. “By creating a character that’s such a horrible woman at first sight, you will then get to know her through the story so that, >

WRITERS ROOM: Štepán Hulík

Above: Podezření (Suspicion) focuses on a nurse who faces accusations after a patient’s death Left: Creator and writer Štepán Hulík v

WRITERS ROOM: Štepán Hulík

Hulík is also the writer behind Burning Bush (top) and Wasteland

< by the end, you are not going to judge her as easily,” he adds. “That was my goal.” As the story unfolds, the accusations against Hana lead to her being jailed. But Hulík didn’t want Suspicion to turn into a police procedural. Instead, the camera sticks with Hana, the writer being inspired by other similar series, most notably Peter Morgan’s The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies. Based on real events, that series explored what happened when the media spotlight fell on a retired schoolteacher questioned by police as a murder suspect. “But unlike Christopher Jefferies, which spends a fair amount of time showing how the title character is processed by the system throughout the investigation of his case, we didn’t want to devote so much space to that aspect of the story,” Hulík notes. “Rather, in the moment when Hana is arrested by the police, we show the impact it has on the other characters – what it means for them, how easily they are swayed by the media and public opinion, and the ease with which they condemn Hana without any clear evidence.” Those other characters include Hana’s daughter Tereza (Denisa Barešová) and a lawyer who decides to take on the case, both of whom are used to guide viewers through the rest of the story. The relationships between the characters also serve to build tension through the series, with Hulík hoping viewers will wonder how the characters feel about Hana and how they might be responsible for what happens to her. “We give the audience hints that maybe some other nurses or the doctor might be complicit in what happens to Hana, so you constantly have this doubt,” he explains. “You are not sure who really did what. And of course, Hana herself is such an impenetrable character that you can never be sure what she’s really thinking and what she’s capable of.” Much of Hana’s ambiguity is down to Klára Melíšková, who plays the nurse and commands the screen with an enigmatic performance that only draws you further into the story. “She emanates this strange sense of energy,” says Hulík. “She’s wonderful. It was a total transformation on her side, because when you know her, she’s such a lovely person to spend your time with. She’s smart and funny. She also completely changed herself visually.

DQ . Spring 2022

“I did my best to lay the foundations of the character on the page, but what Klara was able to bring to it was truly magnificent. She’s able to express with a single look something I would never have been able to express on the page. It’s a true blessing for a writer to have an actor like this, to lift your character. From the very first moment of the audition, we were sure she was the one. She was just sitting there, looking at us with this stony face, a poker face, and you didn’t know what was going on behind this face. It felt so attractive to us; it was such a mystery.” As part of Nutprodukce, the Prague-based production company that also made Wasteland and Burning Bush, Hulík was able to follow Suspicion from development to its premiere in Berlin and at every stage in between. He was supported on that journey by Blaško, a director fresh out of college when he joined the project. “We saw his student movies and thought he was a great talent, so we decided to offer him this,” Hulík says. “I guess he considered this an opportunity for himself to move on in his career, and his commitment to the project was extraordinary. We are grateful to have him.” As for writing the scripts, Hulík took on the job himself after spending a couple of months researching the subject matter. Once he knows the specifics of a series, he writes perspectives for each character and finds the best angle to tell the story. “I consider the research my homework in a way – it’s important to make the story feel as authentic as possible,” he says. “The audience may not be able to tell which particular detail doesn’t fit. But with their sixth sense, they will unmistakably sense if something is wrong, and at that point they will stop believing the story itself. As an author, I can’t let something like that happen.” But what makes Suspicion a story that, like Burning Bush, Hulík will still be thinking about in another 10 years’ time? “When something really bad happens to you in your life, we tend to consider it as a failure or a disaster, but I wanted to show that sometimes the worst things that happen to you might actually be blessings in disguise,” he says. “I hope what Hana goes through may serve her in this way, for her and for her daughter. They have a very complicated relationship throughout this show and, by going through this hell together, they are able to re-evaluate their relationship and find out what is important for them. “This was something I really wanted to show and to remind the audience that there is always an option to change our lives for the better, regardless of the circumstances.” DQ

“

I’m looking for very speciﬁc kinds of stories. I’m looking for something that gets stuck in my throat and I can’t get rid of it, I can’t swallow it, so I keep coming back to it. Štěpán Hulík

”

SOLLY MCLEOD

ITV0414_TomJones_DQFP_240x320mm_AW.indd 1

SOPHIE WILDE

09/03/2022 10:59

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR: SJ Clarkson

DQ . Spring 2022

Shooting a Director SJ Clarkson opens up about helming Netflix’s suspenseful thriller Anatomy of a Scandal, bringing drama to a courtroom and how her start in theatre influences her cinematic style.

The director (masked) with star Michelle Dockery

Clarkson (centre) on set for Anatomy of a Scandal

J Clarkson has made her name as a television director on both sides of the Atlantic. Beginning with credits on British dramas such as Footballers’ Wives, Bad Girls and Hustle, Clarkson went on to work on shows including Mistresses and Whitechapel. Then in the US, she directed a number of hit series, among them Heroes, Dexter, Orange is the New Black and Succession. Most notably, she was the lead director on Netflix’s Marvel series Jessica Jones and miniseries The Defenders. Yet despite her wide-ranging credits, and a brief scene in timetravel crime drama Life on Mars, Clarkson has somehow avoided directing a courtroom drama – until now. She directs all six episodes of Anatomy of a Scandal, a Netflix series that blends psychological thriller

and courtroom suspense to tell the story of Britain’s elite through a personal and political scandal. When star government minister James Whitehouse is exposed for having an aﬀair with his aide, it threatens to destroy not only his career but also his marriage to Sophie and their loving family. Meanwhile, barrister Kate Woodcroft is also on the rise until her prosecution of James and its wider impact places intense strain on her self-esteem. SJ Clarkson

Created and written by David E Kelley (Big Little Lies) and Melissa James Gibson (House of Cards) and based on Sarah Vaughan’s book of the same name, Anatomy of a Scandal stars Sienna Miller (The Loudest Voice) as Sophie, Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) as Kate and Rupert Friend (Homeland) as James. The cast also includes Naomi Scott, Josette Simon, Geoﬀrey Streatfeild and Joshua McGuire. “They’re hard to sustain and hard to be engaging,” Clarkson says of courtroom dramas. “I like the pomp of it, though. The courtroom was a byproduct of reading this amazing thriller with these incredibly exciting characters and this compelling story that twists and turns and has reveals that are surprising and satisfying. I immediately saw the cinematic opportunities of it, and rather than courtrooms feeling like a burden,

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR: SJ Clarkson

DQ . Spr ri in ng 20 02 22 2

Scandal

they were a blessing. Courtrooms are about retelling stories, and I became fascinated by how inaccurate our memories are. If you could show that in a cinematic way, that could make it incredibly exciting.” Clarkson was first handed a copy of Vaughan’s novel before it was published in 2018, and found it to be a real page-turner. “I was so captivated by it; it was obvious it would make a great adaptation,” she says. The director then met Kelley, Gibson and 3Dot Productions executive producer Liza Chasin, before the show was pitched to Netflix. She was in the early stages of “soft prep” before the UK went into its first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, which put the project on hold for the next five months. That gave Clarkson and Gibson extra time to work on the scripts, with daily Zoom calls between Clarkson in London and Gibson in New York.

“When you’re directing all six episodes, you want to make sure they’re as ready as possible because you don’t really have time to be prepping while you’re shooting,” she says. “That’s not really an option.” Both in the UK and the US, Clarkson has directed lots of pilots and mid-season episodes, but Anatomy of a Scandal is just the third time she has steered an entire series, following Love, Nina in 2016 and David Hare’s 2018 thriller Collateral. “I suppose it’s like making a giant movie because you take ownership from start to finish. That’s exciting and also terrifying because there is no let-up. You have six episodes of television in your head continually and you’re juggling them,” she says, noting that Anatomy was filmed in location blocks and out of continuity. “Normally, what you would do is if you’re in a courtroom, you go in, you do a couple of weeks and then

you pop out, have a breather and maybe do some location work,” she explains. “But because of the pandemic, we ended up doing all the courtroom at the same time. When you take on a six-episode series, you really are authoring the entire thing and it’s an awful lot of material to keep in your head at the same time.” What Clarkson did find liberating, however, was the chance to pick up any shots that might have been missed later in the schedule. “One thing we all know about drama when we’ve done it long enough is things are going to change. You need to be fluid. If things change or if things didn’t land, you can pick it up later. But the schedule is brutal. You are filming for 90 days during a global pandemic. It’s definitely a marathon, not a sprint.” When she worked with Hare on Collateral, Clarkson would visit the writer in his studio and go through

Sienna Miller and Rupert Friend also star

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR: SJ Clarkson

DQ . Spring 2022

Clarkson talks to actor Naomi Scott between takes

< the scripts, the pair reading them

out together. “That’s a really great way of getting under the skin of it, but it was awful because neither of us are particularly good actors, although he might disagree,” she jokes. There was a similar process with Gibson, having group chats with Kelley and then working through scenes together. By the time shooting began, the six scripts were all pretty much locked and infused with Clarkson’s visual intentions, so when filming began, how the courtroom scenes would play out and where the story’s numerous flashbacks would cut in and out were already in place. Revealing moments of the aﬀair and the early stages of James and Sophie’s relationship, it was important the flashbacks moved the story forward in the present day but also arrived and left organically.

Dockery plays barrister Kate

Friend’s government minister James is the man in the dock

“What you show in flashback is part reminiscing but part giving more information or sowing seeds and laying breadcrumbs of where we’re going,” Clarkson says. “It was quite a challenge to know where to land them and which ones to have in because there were more in the book that we didn’t put in, and we actually created some of our own for the series to help us with the way we were steering the narrative.” Like any adaptation, Anatomy of a Scandal has evolved in its transition to television. Notably, each chapter in the novel takes a diﬀerent character’s perspective, and while that approach was discussed for the series, ultimately the show takes a diﬀerent path. But Clarkson often returned to the novel – her “bible” – whenever she was in doubt about what was at the core of a scene or a character’s motivation. “We’ve really tried to take the spirit and essence of the book,” she says. “My hope is it’s the ultimate bingewatch. That’s how I felt when I read the book. I kept turning the page and I was like, ‘I have to infuse the cinematic storytelling with this same level of engagement and propulsion.’” If viewers were to look for any visual connections to her previous work – “SJ-isms,” as she calls them – they may spot some elements that hark back to the early stages of her career working in theatre. In Anatomy, there are numerous shots featuring reflections in puddles or mirrors, while the camera itself often moves through a scene. That approach is particularly successful in the courtroom, where characters are stood or seated in the same place throughout proceedings, but the moving camera provides a sense of propulsion in an otherwise static arena.

“What I got excited about was the elements of fragmented memory and how I could show that cinematically in a fresh, engaging way that would make you lean in [to the story] and then also question it,” she says. “That was a benefit to courtroom scenes. One scene was 44 pages, and in a British courtroom, you don’t get to walk around. You don’t get to do this wonderful blocking with the prosecution parading around the courthouse. “So much thought in those early days went into the actual geography of the courtroom. I put Sienna in the public gallery because it felt like a theatre, like she was watching her life play out in front of her. We were always thinking about things like that.” Although the show is set in London, Clarkson likes to say Anatomy of a Scandal is set in a parallel universe, one where people don’t wear masks to keep them safe from Covid-19 and where Big Ben isn’t covered in scaffolding – it was actually recreated using VFX. The series also showcases some of the city’s other landmarks, though many of the show’s settings – including the courtrooms and the Whitehouse home – are builds. Clarkson worked closely with designer Melanie Allen on the layout of these key sets, while location manager Antonia Grant, “the best in London,” pulled together five different locations to recreate the Houses of Parliament, including one in Manchester. “It’s about really working with your team as a director and pulling on their resources and talent, and then getting a brilliant first AD, in my case Richard Styles, to pull a schedule together that we could actually complete, because the magnitude of it was huge,” Clarkson says. “And then getting my longtime collaborator Balazs Bolygo to light it and shoot it. That’s the gift of being a director. You get to work with all these amazing people who make you look good.” Clarkson’s theatrical flourishes are most noticeable at the end of episodes – cinematic punctuations that certainly show off her directorial flair and come at emotionally heightened moments for the characters. One example is at the end of episode one, when James is told he will be questioned by

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR: SJ Clarkson

DQ . Spring 2022

the police, and Friend is physically hauled oﬀ his feet as if he has been hit by a truck. Similarly, at the end of episode two, when Sophie’s world is turned upside down by some intimate court revelations, Miller begins to freefall through the air. “Sometimes you’re lucky enough that when you read something, you get these ideas. You always want to go, ‘How do I end the episode with a bang?’” says the director. “It’s just fun for the audience to give them a cinematic punch at the end of it. Hopefully it’s driven by psychology. You don’t ever want to just impose it on it because then it’s just style over substance. If you do that too many times, and you can, there are

barrister Angela Regan, and Dockery are shown in the court changing rooms robing up before heading into court. They spoke with a legal consultant and practiced putting on their robes and wigs until it became eﬀortless, in a bid to make it seem as though the actors really were wellseasoned barristers. “I knew in the opening scene I wanted them to be able to put that robing on eﬀortlessly, that they just sort of slung it on, so that was something we rehearsed,” Clarkson says. “We rehearsed getting in and out of that costume and putting the wig on without a mirror, because then it seems real. My job is to just try to make everything feel real.”

With the Houses of Parliament recreated using five diﬀerent locations, and scenes in some cases shot five months apart, one challenge Clarkson faced was continuity. Friend would sometimes walk through a door when shooting started in November 2020 and come through the other side when filming completed in March last year. “Thank god for my brilliant script supervisor. Tessa Kimbell is a goddess,” says the director, who felt a sense of achievement from merely completing the shoot. The series launches on Netflix worldwide on April 15. “Everybody worked so hard. There were some very long dialogue scenes, especially in the courtroom,

Miller is Sophie, James’s wife

Aladdin star Naomi Scott also features

moments when you take out the grounded nature of what I hope this is. I hope it’s grounded, even though there’s a heightened quality to it.” As Clarkson’s directing style evolves with every project she takes on, so too does her approach to working with actors. In rehearsals, she will have questions for them about their characters but won’t sit down and talk through the script. Where she does highlight individual scenes, often she will ask her cast to switch roles and read each other’s parts. In another callback to her theatre background, she will also work on movement and play some theatre games to help them get into character. Inevitably, the pandemic did hinder some of Clarkson’s preparation with the actors, as they were kept apart where possible to avoid any Covid cases spreading through the main cast. Dockery and Miller were separated until their shared courtroom scenes. Rehearsals were particularly useful for an early scene in episode one where Simon, who plays defence

She would also hold actor surgeries, where they would talk together about their characters, what might not be working for them or what they might be most nervous about. “It’s like going to the GP. You talk through those things because often actors will have a great insight you don’t know about or something you haven’t thought about. That way, you’re being fluid and you’re working with them.”

“

We’ve really tried to take the spirit and essence of the book. My hope is it’s the ultimate bingewatch. That’s how I felt when I read the book. SJ Clarkson

”

working with Sienna to plot out Sophie’s journey and making sure that in every scene we did something different and revealed something new. And what was wonderful is we still managed to have some fun during a global pandemic. Even though it did take two years, we probably are a stronger bonded group as a result.” Now preparing a new Marvel Studios movie for Sony that is said to centre on a character known as Madame Web and set in the SpiderMan universe, Clarkson says she should find every job challenging, and the day she doesn’t, she should probably give up. There’s little chance of that with the number of new series being commissioned by broadcasters and streaming platforms alike, but it does make projects difficult to staff up, such is the demand for skilled crew. “It’s a blessing and a burden that you’ve got these amazing opportunities,” she says. “But if we get it right and we can nurture new talent and new skills that come through, Britain will be such a great place for production.” DQ

IN FOCUS: Everything You Love

DQ . Spring 2022

LOVE & HATE Writer Marie Hafting and producer Kaia Foss reveal their voyage into the world of far-right extremism with Alt du Elsker (Everything You Love), the story of a young couple in love and the secret that threatens to tear them apart.

he journey to making Norwegian drama Alt du Elsker (Everything You Love) began with a single question: why do people turn to extremism and commit horrendous acts of terror? In Norway, it’s a question that came to the fore after a number of terrorist attacks in recent years, most notably in 2011 when Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people. But when writer Marie Hafting first discussed the idea with Nora Ibrahim, head of development at The Oslo Company, she decided she didn’t just want to write about extremism. Instead, she wanted to blend that subject with something that was warm, funny and intriguing. “Then we said, ‘What about a love story?’” Hafting tells DQ. “A guy and a girl fall in love and then she discovers he is a far-right extremist. Because we have this history with terror in Norway, it was very important for us

to say something true about extremism and find out how young people get radicalised. But we also wanted to tell a human story, not one just about a crazy guy we all hate.” The resulting Discovery+ series tells a story of love and radicalisation through the eyes of a young girl in love and a boy on the edge of something much darker. The seven-parter opens when childhood friends Sara and Jonas reunite on the Oslo Metro. Romance soon blossoms between the couple, but what Sara doesn’t know is that Jonas is being radicalised by a far-right extremist group. His search for like-minded people online contrasts with his relationship with Sara, but the longer he tries to lead a double life, the deeper he falls into his new community. Then Sara discovers Jonas’s dark secret. Development first began two years ago, when Hafting and Ibrahim began sketching out some preliminary ideas and structures for the show. Over the past 12 months, they and fellow

DQ . Spring 2022

IN FOCUS: Everything You Love

Left: Everything You Love looks at the role web forums play in extremism Below: Jakob Fort and Mina Fuglesteg Dale star as Jonas and Sara

producer Kaia Foss have worked intensely on the script to ensure it adequately balances all the subjects at play. “Part of what we discovered in the way Marie developed the two main characters is that, for Jonas to be a human, we have to see how someone can become radicalised, because no one is born evil and you want to stay with them in that process,” Foss explains. “Wrapping it in a love story emphasises this idea that no one really has it written that they’re extreme. Jonas finds a young girl who is adventurous and freespirited and slowly realises he has certain world views that are far beyond what’s acceptable. There’s so much drama in that relationship, but we obviously don’t want to give a microphone to the ideology in any way. We had to find a human approach to the whole thing from both characters’ standpoints.” When viewers first meet Jonas, he’s a young man with concerns about the direction of modern society and the broad ignorance around climate change. “Many young people can relate to many of his thoughts but, at the same time, we will see that he doesn’t get much support for his thoughts in society when they go further,” Hafting says. That’s when Jonas turns to the internet and finds an audience that shares his views. “In a way, some people will find him really far right in the beginning, but it’s getting worse.” By comparison, Sara is fun, outgoing and full of life, yet she has her own problems. She is isolated by her friends, often lying to make life more comfortable and then suffering the consequences of her ill-thought Kaia Foss

actions. Across the series, she will have to face up to her own problematic behaviour. Then when she discovers Jonas’ secret, the story becomes one about how you cope with your feelings for someone you love when they become radicalised. “Once she does find out, we follow both of them when they’re apart, and that’s where they find their feelings for each other are still there,” Foss says. “He’s conflicted about his ideology because he’s met someone who doesn’t necessarily make him change his views but he’s feeling love in a different way from how he has before, and that’s at the core of this drama. It’s complicated because they do love each other, and that makes them question a lot of things about themselves as well.” “That’s the main thing for Jonas because, if he goes with this ideology, he will lose something very big and important for him, >

IN FOCUS: Everything You Love

DQ . Spring 2022

Sara is initially unaware of Jonas’s farright views

< so is it worth it?” Hafting adds. “Where is he getting love and affirmation from – his friends and forums online, or this new love?” Research was key to the series. Hafting talked with scientists, journalists, police officers and former extremists and their friends and exgirlfriends. She also spoke with Norwegian intelligence services. But most importantly, she spent time on real online forums where extremists like Jonas meet and talk. “It was necessary to understand what kind of thoughts young extremists on the internet have,” she says. “They’re different from neoNazi groups of adults, so I had to understand how they talk and write and their humour. I had to understand the lingo and also how they think about different people. “During Covid, working in my home office and researching all these forums, it was not

healthy. But it’s interesting. I had to understand that to write something true about Jonas and how he sees the world.” For the same reason, Hafting chose to write the series on her own – working with Foss and Ibrahim – instead of utilising a writers room, as she would normally. “When you go so far into the research, it’s very difficult to put another writer on the project,” she says. “You have to understand how Jonas sees the world to write it. Luckily for me, because I always like to talk to people when I work, Kaia and Nora were very good at reading and offering their own input. Without them, it would have been so much harder.” One of the biggest practical challenges of the series turned out to be how to portray these extremist forums for viewers watching at home. As Foss admits, “obviously it’s not

The right stuff: Four more dramas that explore right-wing extremism FURIA From Mammon creator Gjermund Stenberg Eriksen, this eight-part drama examines the threat of far-right extremism with a story that sees a police investigator and an undercover cop work together to crack a nationalistic subculture, leading them to reveal a terrorist plot that stretches from Norway’s mountains to the heart of Europe.

NSU - GERMAN HISTORY X Based on a series of real murders and the subsequent criminal trial, this series opens as a clandestine far-right terrorist group guns down immigrants in a series of cold-blooded acts. Though the police initially believe the deaths to be the result of infighting between immigrant communities, links are soon drawn between three suspects and their right-wing influences.

IN FOCUS: Everything You Love

DQ . Spring 2022

very interesting to be watching someone’s computer.” Instead, working with Hafting and director Stian Kristiansen, they decided to lift a lot of the action away from the computer so on some occasions, Jonas meets up with some of his online friends to make the series more active for the viewer. “It’s still a realistic scenario but a little bit more interesting to watch, and fewer hours of online chatting,” Foss continues. “From the production side, the challenges making the series had a lot to do with the casting, not just the leads but all the other characters around them. Sara has a roommate who acts like her moral compass and someone she can vent to, so just finding these people among young acting talent has been really fun and crucial for the story as well.” Headlining the series are Mina Fuglesteg Dale as Sara and Jakob Fort as Jonas, who won the parts after completing auditions featuring several scenes where they had to portray the various aspects of their characters’ personalities. Most importantly, they both had a special X factor when they were on camera, even if they weren’t acting at all. “Jakob is a little shy and that’s very nice for the Jonas character,” says Hafting, who was closely involved in casting the central couple. “With an actor who has this quality by themselves, it makes him more authentic in a way. It’s the same for Mina. She had this life and this humour and this world very automatically. That was very important for me in the process.” Filming took place on location in Oslo over an intense 39-day schedule between August and September last year. Foss describes Everything You Love as a love letter to the Norwegian capital, and the city looks beautiful on screen, full of light and green open spaces. Norwegian singer-songwriter Ary provides an electro-pop soundtrack. “It’s a one-camera production so we had a pretty small team. This was one of those projects where it was an amazing team effort because you got the sense everyone involved in the show truly believed in it,” Foss says. “I felt everybody just wanted to make this the best it could possibly be, and that was an amazing

energy to take into a project. We’re just thankful Marie wrote such a wonderful story everybody wanted to be part of.” The series launched on Discovery+ in February but, backed by distributor DR Sales, both Foss and Hafting hope international audiences will now be swept up by what at first is a sweet love story peppered by some darker undercurrents lying in wait. “This is an international problem because these forums are international platforms,” Hafting says. “I hope this series will reach people, because a guy like Jonas may be your neighbour or he may be in your class. Many people know someone similar to Jonas, but how do we deal with that? It’s something many people around the world are concerned about.” “It’s a universal love story, but this perspective brings it a little closer to home,” Foss adds. “Unfortunately it’s important, without wanting it to seem like a very educational show – it’s not meant to be, it’s supposed to be an entertaining show. When you make something, you always want it to leave some kind of a mark. This is a different angle and I hope people will take it DQ with them to some small extent.”

Hafting’s research involved spending time on extremist forums

RIDLEY ROAD Also based on real events, this miniseries is inspired by the struggle of the 62 Group, a coalition of Jewish men who took on neo-Nazism in post-war Britain. Vivien (Agnes O’Casey), a hairdresser from a Jewish family, follows her boyfriend from Manchester to London, where she discovers he has infiltrated the National Socialist Movement and decides to join him undercover.

“

I hope this series will reach people, because a guy like Jonas may be your neighbour or he may be in your class. Many people know someone similar to Jonas, but how do we deal with that? Marie Hafting Writer

”

ROMPER STOMPER Inspired by the 1992 film of the same name starring Russell Crowe, this Australian series blends crime drama and political thriller to explore a new generation of farright activists, their anti-fascist counterparts and three young Muslims caught up in the conflict.

TRENDSPOTTING: Swapping film for TV

DQ . Spring 2022

Shifting screens

As film directors continue to move to TV, Denmark’s Lone Scherfig and Argentinian filmmaker Daniel Burman discuss working for the small screen and the challenges they faced along the way.

Lone Scherfig’s The Shift (top) and Daniel Burman’s Iosi, The Regretful Spy

DQ . Spring 2022

s feature film directors, Lone Scherfig and Daniel Burman are regular visitors to the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2019, Scherfig’s The Kindness of Strangers opened the annual event, after she won the Grand Jury Prize in 2001 for Italian for Beginners and An Education screened in the Berlinale Special section in 2010. Burman similarly won the Grand Jury Prize for El Abrazo partido in 2004, while his films Derecho de familia (2006) and El rey del Once (2016) were both selected to open the Panorama Special section. This year, however, both directors returned to Berlin as part of the event’s Berlinale Series section, which since 2015 has highlighted some of the most exciting new television series from around the world. Danish filmmaker Scherfig presented her medical drama Ellas vagt (The Shift), which stars Sofie Gråbøl (Forbrydelsen) as Ella, the head midwife working in a busy maternity ward. As her close-knit team goes about their work with conviction and fine ideals, the pressure and the enormous mental and physical strain it places on them pushes them to the limit. Meanwhile, Burman, from Argentina, screened Iosi, el espía arrepentido (Iosi, The Regretful Spy), which is inspired by real events and tells the story of a young spy named José who infiltrates the Jewish community in Buenos Aires under the code name Iosi. However, he unwittingly paves the way for two terrorist attacks, and years later tries to bring the real culprits to justice. During the festival, Scherfig and Burman spoke about their respective moves into television, their collaboration process and the challenges they faced along the way. WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO MAKE A SERIES? Burman: I don’t feel any diﬀerent if I’m making a series or a film. The only real diﬀerence is the price I pay in my personal life and how much time I have to sacrifice with my children. If I’m working on a film, it takes much less time. But in the special case of Iosi, the hero’s journey is so long and so stretched that it would be much harder thinking of it in terms of a single film. Scherfig: In a way, a series has more in common with a novel [than a film]. You can make more digressions and you don’t have as strict demands on the structure. With The Shift, I have tried to really be in favour of unpredictability, where the series itself or the characters go in directions that might not have been ‘correct’ in terms of

TRENDSPOTTING: Swapping film for TV

traditional dramatic plotting. It has been tricky but it has also given the show a voice of its own. Most of the other TV series I have worked on as a director have been quite traditional in their structure. Now I’m back to feature films, where you know the audience needs to have the cards you are going to play quite early on for the setups to pay oﬀ before the film is over. They are two diﬀerent disciplines. For our series in a maternity ward, I couldn’t have imagined it as a feature film unless you had one story or it took place over a shorter time span. We do have one plot that could have been a feature film, and that comes from the fact it’s what I was taught [at film school]. But it’s been fun to work with more people, have more directors, be more collaborative and do something where you can fine-tune it once you see footage coming in. When you do a series, you shoot for so long that you can calibrate a little as you go. We are already working on a new season and I’m trying to find out what it is I learned that we have to do better next time. HOW IS MAKING A SERIES A MORE COLLABORATIVE PROCESS THAN A FILM? Burman: It’s very interesting to compare making a series and a film. Everyone should have the opportunity, after they turn 40, to make a series because it’s a whole learning process in letting go of your ego. On a film, a lot of it is centred on your ego. When you make a series, you learn to o be part of a whole. In this case, I had the pleasure ure of co-directing with Sebastián Borensztein, who o I learned a lot from to make the collaboration perfect. Scherfig: The series I have loved the most throughout the years have been auteur-driven, where there is a really strong writer and a strong g visual identity, some bold stylistic choices and often even the same director throughout. If you want to copy that and ensure the series es you’re doing is not washed out in the process, it helps to be quite outspoken with what the concept is. Illustrate it and insist on talking more e about it than you would if it were a feature film, where you may not have to communicate as much because there are fewer people involved. HOW DID YOU DEVELOP YOUR SERIES? Scherfig: The scripts were pretty much finished d before we started shooting. I definitely intend to do that again, rather than shooting when you u don’t know what’s going to happen later. It’s

“

Making a series is like shooting a bullet with a very long path. You know where it has to go, but there are still many opportunities for you to take it one way or another, even though you’re always following that one long path. Daniel Burman

”

TRENDSPOTTING: Swapping film for TV

DQ . Spring 2022

Lone Scherfig (left) with The Shift star Sofie Gråbøl

< far better logistically and it also enables you to

“

I hope we’re in a place now where everyone will think it makes sense to give better resources to television, because the quality immediately lifts on days when you have just a little more time or start shooting a little faster. Lone Scherfig

”

take bigger detours. Actors can interpret scenes in a diﬀerent way because they know where their character is going. We can sometimes decide to paint a wall because we know we won’t see a certain room again. Søren Balle directed the first three episodes, Ole Christian Madsen directed the next three and I concluded the series, which was partly to give me more time to be the head writer while they were shooting. That also made me curious in terms of what would they bring to the table that I should try to preserve [in my episodes]. Now that we’re looking at a second season, I know to let in decisions that are not mine and maybe to be less in control than I would have been had it been a feature film. But it’s not something I would advise. If a younger director asked what’s the trick to making television series, I wouldn’t say, ‘Don’t be in control.’ You have to work really quickly, make fast decisions and try not to shoot something that’s not going to make it in the final cut. You have to think and work fast, take the right chances and make the right compromises. Experience definitely helps. Burman: Making a series is like shooting a bullet with a very long path. You know where it has to go, but there are still many opportunities for you to take it one way or another, even though you’re always following that one long path. After you see the finished product, you think, ‘Wow, the probability of things going wrong here was almost infinite,’ so at the end of the day, you kind of regard it as a miracle. WHAT KIND OF CHALLENGES DID YOU FACE? Burman: When I got home after a long day of shooting, if I was asked whether I would prefer to eat meat or pasta [for dinner], I would be incapable of making a decision because my capability to make a decision had dried up. Scherfig: I can sit in my car on the way back from the studio, look out the window and think that

people on the street are extras. TV drama derives more from radio drama and sitcoms, whereas films have more traditional imagery and a closer relationship to dreams. The audience would like series that are more stylised and have a convincing, believable, original identity. It’s super hard to do that on a very tight schedule, so eventually we may find that if we get more time to perfect our craft and bring in people who can do cinema and not just television, it’s better for everyone. I hope we’re in a place now where everyone will think it makes sense to give better resources [to television], because the quality immediately lifts on days when you have just a little more time or start shooting a little faster. Immediately, you feel the quality increasing. It’s tough for people to go home and feel like, ‘Ah, we could have done so much better with just a little more time.’ Burman: It comes back to the great work of the ego. As a director, you think, ‘If we shoot this scene three or four times, we will reach that point I’m trying to reach,’ but it’s something you have to balance and maybe even sacrifice just so you reach the end. Sometimes it’s not just about my ego trying to find the perfect shot but to let go and keep going. WHAT DO CREATORS NEED TO HELP THEM SUCCEED? Burman: Trust, because if there’s no trust in HODs [heads of departments] and their staff, and if these people don’t trust other staff, nothing good will come out of it. Everything is centred on trust. Scherfig: If you trust the writers, they will work with less insecurity and bring back something more bold and original. Having creative space and creative licence makes people work fast and effectively while still being inspired and still having the feeling that if they deliver something that is better than expected then someone will pick it up and it will end up in the series. Motivation has a lot to do with trust as well. It also makes the DQ whole process a lot nicer.

STAR POWER: Svenja Jung

r De n i s win from t f n d ro pai wome rs an a te y pla h two re sis o t a l. ic red in wh they n Wal a p i r ve erl pre ies he et ser disco the B s f how 80s-s many ide o Q r s 9 lls D ), a 1 ar Ge other e t e W g e c Jun Pala Cold on th a j f e n o h fe Sve ast (T sides try li Pal rent ces to e diff p pla a sw

DQ . Spring 2022 2

G N I C N E N E A D QU

DQ . Spring 2022

STAR POWER: Svenja Jung

erlin’s legendary Fr Friedrichstadt-Palast has played host to diverse performances across its 100-year a vast range of div circuses and vaudeville theatre to ballet shows. history, from circuse rst time, the treasured theatre has become And now, for the firs drama. the setting for a TV d 1988, Der Palast (The Palace) centres on twin Set in Berlin in 198 sisters Chris and Marlene, who meet for the first time as adults. Mar As celebrations are prepared to mark the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Ge Germany), dancer Chris gets the chance to Ger audition for her first solo in a special birthday aud show. But Chris’s world is rocked when her sh previously unknown twin sister Marlene, pre from fro West Germany, spots her on stage. After finding out that their mother raised Aft Chris Chr in the East while Marlene grew up with their father in the West, the sisters decide to trade places and discover what life might have been had h their roles been reversed. Taking Takin centre stage in The Palace is Svenja Jung, who wh plays both Chris and Marlene. After Jung successfully auditioned for the parts in 2019, succ production was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the six-month shoot ultimately beginning in six November 2020. 202 Making the best of the situation, the actor used the hiatus to hone her performance of two characters who, although from different parts of Germany, a might as well have come from different continents. c “They grew up in vvery different societies and systems,” Jung tells DQ. “It was fun to develop them. When I played Chris, I always danced a bit beforehand; and with Marlene, I hit a ball against a wall when I learned the dialogue. But at some point, I had a feeling they were we just in my DNA and it would just happen when I put their costumes on.” costu At the beginning, the only thing Jung knew about beginn Chris and Marlene was that one was from the East and Marle the other from the West. “That gave me a lot for my characters,” says the actor, who then worked with writer Rodica Doehnert (Hotel Adlon) and director Uli Edel (The (H Baader Meinhof Complex) to develop how they move, their Com place in the world and their political views. Debuting on ZDF a Mediathek in December last year before its terrestrial debut Decem on ZDF this January, Januar the series is produced by Constantin Television and distributed by Global Screen. distrib “Chris is not very knowledgeable about all of that [politics]. She’s accepted her life in the GDR. What I think works really well is that even though Chris is the one who grew up in an tho imprisoned system and couldn’t leave, and Marlene had the a whole world to go to, to it is Chris who feels more free and is

STAR POWER: Svenja Jung

DQ . Spring 2022 Svenja Jung shares the screen with herself in The Palace

Jung takes instructions from director Uli Edel

< more open. Marlene is the one who is actually

more imprisoned, particularly within her family. She doesn’t know who she is and she is looking for her identity, while Chris really knows who she is and where she comes from and is happy with her life, until Marlene comes along and she realises what she may be missing. I like this contrast we developed with the characters. Their personalities are the opposite of the systems they live in.” Jung could call on her extensive dance background to play the role of Chris, an accomplished stage performer. The actor started ballet when she was six and competed until she was 16, and also danced modern and contemporary. She had also completed hip-hop dance film Fly prior to starting production on The Palace. “It was all very professional but I wouldn’t compare myself to any of the professional dancers we had at the Palast. I had to practice a lot,” she says. “We danced with the real dancers from the Palast. They have a kick line with more than 30 dancers in one line, and they all look similar, which fits with the twin theme of the series. We had some dancing scenes with them and then another ensemble dance scene with 25 people. It was incredibly supportive, but if you’re there every day with these phenomenal dancers, you really have to keep up with them. “When we finished rehearsals, me, Annabella [Zetsch, as Marina Weber] and Luise [Befort, as Chris’s young rival Bettina Wilke] stayed to practice a bit longer. But it was a relief to know the other dancers were with me. If there were any questions with choreography, they were very easy-

going and helpful with all of that and showed us the steps 100 times.” But while she might have been ready for those dance scenes as Chris, nothing could prepare her for scenes where she had to play Chris and Marlene in the same frame. “I was very curious to watch the series at the end because I didn’t see anything in between to see if it worked out, especially the scenes where I play both characters and they’re talking to each other,” she says. “When it was a close-up on me, I always had another actress or my little sister Chris there – it was amazing to have my little sister play one of my doubles. “But when Chris and Marlene were both in the picture, I had to play with the air and there was no one reacting. I just had to think about how I would react and then give myself a bit of time before reacting as the other character, which was the most diﬃcult thing I’ve ever done. It was so bizarre, standing there listening, waiting and then reacting and being emotional and screaming into the air, for example.” Filming began in Poland, where scenes in Chris’s apartment were shot. And things soon became more complicated when Jung had to

play Marlene pretending to be Chris. “Honestly, I had to switch all the time,” she says of the show’s demanding production schedule. “Sometimes I started with Chris, then Marlene and back to Chris in the end. I had to be ready with both parts all the time. It was great that I had so much time to prepare, because there wasn’t much time to do that on set. I had to be there, get changed and then go for it. “It was very helpful that my sister always played Marlene’s double, so every time I was Chris, it was very clear who was in front of me. And every time I was Marlene, another actress played Chris. They helped me a lot, so I knew who I was playing and what was going on.” Jung would also alter her voice depending on which sister she was playing, with Marlene’s voice slightly deeper while Chris’s voice was warmer and a little higher. “I also had to understand how they walk – and how they drink water,” she says. “Sometimes Uli was just like, ‘Well Svenja, stop. There’s too much Marlene right now and you’re Chris.’ It was good that he was always there. From Poland, the production headed to Berlin to shoot inside the Friedrichstadt-Palast and then on to Munich to film Bamberg, where Marlene is from. “Every place has its energy, and you could really feel what was going on there,” Jung says of working in the Palast. “It’s such a historical place. You feel all the people who have been there. At the beginning, I was very scared of the stage because it is so huge. Then as soon as I got comfortable with it, it was very magical. I felt

“

Playing two people in the same scene was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It was so bizarre, standing there listening, waiting and then reacting and being emotional and screaming into the air. Svenja Jung

”

STAR POWER: Svenja Jung

DQ . Spring 2022

very playful in that building. I’m happy we had a chance to shoot there.” With renovation and rehearsals taking place at the revered venue at the same time, shooting at the Palast was not straightforward. The production would film on location at night, leaving Jung to perform dance routines into the early hours. “Doing all these dancing scenes during the night and all the close-ups at 7am was tough,” she says. “I’m not a big fan of night shoots and it was three weeks in a row, plus Covid. The circumstances we did this series in were crazy. We were the biggest production in Germany at the time, with all these dancers and this crew and with all the stopping and starting. There was a will to finish the series. It’s like there was a higher power because everyone wanted to finish it and make it good in the time we produced it.” Among a number of German series in recent years to look back on the Cold War, most notably the Deutschland franchise, The Palace certainly oﬀers a fresh perspective on life at that time, looking at events through the eyes of two women who grew up on either side of the Berlin Wall and then swap places. “You get to know the West through Chris’s eyes and the East through

Marlene’s eyes. The whole series is about reunion, between them and between West and East, and that we are the same,” Jung says. “Chris and Marlene are separated by a system but they are one family. I really like the vision of that.” Pitched as an emotional, musical and suspense-filled family drama, the six-part series is also one of the first dramas to show East Germany “in a very colourful and playful light,” says the actor, adding: “It’s very glamorous. It’s something you haven’t seen before because normally the East is very grey and the West is colourful. Now we’ve turned it around.” Discussing her personal highlights from the shoot, Jung points to a scene in which Chris dances solo with feathers. “It was one of the biggest challenges because it was just me on the huge stage, trying to fill it and perform there.” But she most fondly remembers the scenes in which she had to play Marlene and Chris at the same time, and particularly the chance she had to work with her sister. “I don’t know if that will ever happen again, because she’s not an actress,” she says. “To tell a story about sisters and having my own sister there while I was acting, DQ that was very special.”

Don’t I know you from somewhere? Svenja Jung’s other roles BEAT

DEUTSCHLAND 89

Jung plays Nani in this crime drama that revolves around Berlin’s celebrated club scene. The Prime Video series stars Jannis Niewöhner as the title character, a club promoter who lives a life of excess. When the bodies of two young girls are discovered in his club, he is recruited as an insider by the European Secret Service and discovers a web of corruption and organised crime not far from home.

In the third chapter of this Cold War spy thriller, following Deutschland 83 and 86, the story picks up with East German secret service agent Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Jung plays Nicole Zangen, his son’s teacher, who becomes caught up in Martin’s bid to foil a terrorist plot.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT: NRK

DQ . Spring 2022

Graphic: freepik.com

Atlantic Crossing

Skam

THE HIT FACTORY The winner of three International Emmys in six years, Norwegian broadcaster NRK is pushing a streaming-first strategy for edgy, distinctive scripted series. Head of drama Ivar Køhn tells Michael Pickard about its success so far and discusses what’s coming next.

decade ago, in January 2012, Norwegian public broadcaster NRK launched a crime drama that starred The Sopranos’ Steve Van Zandt as a New York gangster trying to start a new life in the isolated town of Lillehammer. A month later, the show – called Lilyhammer – became the first ever original series to air on a nascent streaming platform called Netflix. Today, Netflix rolls out hundreds of films and series a year to its 220 million-plus subscribers around the world, while the fate of traditional linear broadcasters hangs in the balance amid rising production costs and falling ratings. But its experience with Netflix led NRK to become a pioneer among traditional networks by pushing a streaming-first policy that has shaped a slate of awardwinning dramas.

Notably, NRK last year claimed a third International Emmy in six years, after period drama Atlantic Crossing won the Best TV Movie or Miniseries category. Anneke von der Lippe previously took home the award for Best Female Actress in 2015 for her role in thriller Øyevitne (Eyewitness), while season two of Mammon won Best Drama Series in 2017. “It’s fun that Lilyhammer, an NRK series, was the start of regional production at Netflix and then Netflix became big. But at the same time, NRK decided we had to go for streaming. That was the future,” says Ivar Køhn, the broadcaster’s head of drama. “They more than doubled the budget for drama because drama was the number-one priority for streaming. And instead of searching for a show that fits into a slot [on a channel], we could search for the best show. In streaming, people are

responsible for what they watch, and they want to have something that is a little edgy and diﬀerent. In streaming, you have to stand out. NRK as a public broadcaster adapted to streaming very early, and that also influenced our drama because it made us a little bit diﬀerent.” Køhn points to football drama Heimebane (Home Ground) as one of those early series developed with streaming in mind. The show debuted in March 2018 and starred Ane Dahl Torp as the coach of a successful women’s football team who leaves her job to become the first female coach of a Norwegian top-division men’s side. Former footballer John Carew was among the cast. “It was seen as a typical Sunday night family programme but it was possible to stand out a little bit more because it was about football,” he says. “Everyone was afraid of how

Nobe

Coun

NRK DRAMA PLANS

Exit

trym

July 22

State of Happiness

Home Ground

that could feel for the audience and it was a big change.” But it’s Atlantic Crossing and 22 Juli (July 22) that Køhn believes have shown the range of scripted series on oﬀer at NRK. Atlantic Crossing stars Sofia Helin (The Bridge) as Norwegian Crown Princess Märtha, whose eﬀorts to support her country during the Second World War lead her across the Atlantic Ocean to seek refuge in the US at the invitation of President Franklin D Roosevelt (Kyle MacLachlan). July 22, meanwhile, dramatises the infamous terror attacks that struck Oslo and Utøya on that date in 2011, when 77 people were killed, looking at the events that led up to the atrocities from the perspectives of five fictional characters. “But the most streaming-friendly series we discovered from our side was Exit, which nobody thought could be on a public broadcaster,” Køhn says about the show that made history by drawing more viewers online than on television. Writer/ director Øysten Karlsen’s series is based on true stories from Oslo’s

financial world and follows four 30-something friends who use drugs, prostitutes and other means of debauchery to escape the everyday pressures of their lives. “We went into this show because we didn’t have any programmes for male viewers,” he says. “When you quit thinking about slots, you think more about who the target audience is, and we thought Exit was good. It was very well written and it was great to read. It was very edgy but we thought men would like to see it, and that was our target audience. But now it seems everyone wants to see it and discuss it. For me, that was an eye-opener in terms of how streaming is working now. It has to be good, it has to work but it also has to be edgy and dare to tell something a little diﬀerently.” Other NRK shows to have found international success include political thriller Nobel, breakout youngadult series Skam, period drama Lykkeland (State of Happiness) and Jordbrukerne (Countrymen), in which four men with dubious plans move to a farm in the countryside and

Mammon

reluctantly become the founders of Norway’s first halal cheesemaking business. Køhn says writers working with NRK have a lot of freedom to express themselves in their series. “We’ve had situations where we don’t agree with the writers or showrunners and we say, ‘OK, you decide,’” he says. “We have a culture where we believe strongly in the writers and creatives. But of course our executive producers follow the process very closely, and the discussion we have is more about structure, about how people watch drama these days and the fact that we need to get very fast to the point [of the story]. It’s about the experience. It’s not what they say in the show but more about how they say it and whether this is the best way, or if it stops people from watching. We want people to watch, so we want to better understand the behaviour of the audience and meet what we think they need, not necessarily Ivar Køhn what they want.”

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT: NRK

DQ Q . Spr pr rin ng 20 022 2

Sofia Helin and Kyle MacLachlan in Atlantic Crossing

After eight years at NRK, Køhn is now taking on a new challenge as CEO of Rubicon, the production company that made Lilyhammer, taking up the role on May 1. But he is leaving the broadcaster with a slate he believes oﬀers more of the edgy, unexpected and compelling dramas for which it has become known. Makta (Power Play), from Heimebane writer Johan Fasting, serves up an unusual blend of period, factual and contemporary drama, with a story set in 1974 but filmed against the backdrop of modern Oslo. The

“

The challenge today is how public broadcasters can unite to bring drama to their audience. If we don’t stand together, everything will be taken by the streamers and we will lose. Ivar Køhn

”

comedy, due to begin production in April, follows the rise to power of Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway’s first female prime minister, who stands against the tactics and scheming of modern politics. It is produced by Motlys and Novemberfilm. “A lot of people have said they want to do something about her, and that time period is also a time of change in Norway and an important time,” Køhn says. “But the way we decided to do it is more about a power play. In the beginning, it’s

not so much about Gro Harlem as a character; it’s more about other people in the Labour Party and how politics works, and it works in the same way today. “But it’s not a costume drama. We are shooting it in contemporary locations, so everything is shot as it is today, with maybe a little taste of the 70s. The actors will look a little like they’re in the 70s. They will not have mobile phones. It’s a period piece, but we play with the way of doing it. I know we could have done it very traditionally but we are doing it very diﬀerently. It’s going to be hilarious and it will work very well, but it’s really something else.” Another new series airing this year is NRK-produced Gutta på skauen (Company Thorvald), a black comedy set among the resistance groups formed in Norway during the Second World War. While some such groups were praised and honoured, others sacrificed little and were forgotten. The show focuses on one of the latter, following Thorvald, Kåre, Leif, Alf and Sverre in the woods outside of Oslo in 1941. They have great ambition, but struggle with motivation, ability and execution. “In Norway, there is still a lot of respect for people who fought during the Second World War, especially the people at home creating resistance groups,” Køhn says. “We were raised on stories of these people in the forests, the heroes of Norway. We have a lot of films also about these people. Now we are doing that but

with a little less respect. This is not a story about the people who were fighting; this is about the people who thought it was good to get out into the forest and away from family life.” The exec also highlights forthcoming Monster-produced drama Etterglød (Afterglow), which centres on a mother-of-three who is diagnosed with cancer and looks at how she, her family and friends all deal with the news. “It’s a very emotional, contemporary story about something a lot of us get close to,” Køhn says. “This is a very touching story but very funny and entertaining as well.” It all adds up to a brand of Norwegian drama that is recognised around the world, while Køhn has been vindicated in his decision to push away from the type of crime series that continue to fuel the demand for Nordic noir. Yet while NRK has been forwardthinking in its focus on streaming, he still believes there is more work to be done to match the ambition of global giants such as Netflix. “We do things we think are important for our audience. But the streaming market is evolving and the diﬃcult thing is, because the public broadcasters in Europe are so late to streaming, it’s hard to get them on board [coproductions] because they don’t fit into their slots,” he adds. “The challenge today is how public broadcasters can unite or stand together in some way to bring drama to their audience. If we don’t stand together, everything will be taken by the streamers and we will lose. The role we have to support that kind of content is important.” DQ

ONES TO WATCH: DQ100 Q

DQ . Spring 2022

100 In the first part of the 23, we DQ100 2022/23, ge of pick out a range shows to tune in for and the actors,, directors and writers making them, as well as ends and trailblazers some of the trends g up with. worth catching

WORD UP

WHILE THE MAJORITY OF TV SERIES WH BASED BASE ON EXISTING IP COME FROM THE LITERARY LITERA WORLD, there is an increasing trend for magazine articles to inspire longform storytelling. Famously, Sex longfo & the City was based on Candace Bushnell’s newspaper columns, while Bushn “polyamorous romantic comedy” You “polya Me Her He was inspired by a Playboy article. article Netflix’s recent space drama Awayy was loosely based on an Esquire article, article and a Buzzfeed long read led to true c crime drama The Act. Now three

new series this year have cemented magazine articles as the new go-to source for TV drama. Shonda Rhimes’ Netflix series Inventing Anna (pictured) was inspired by a 2018 New York Magazine article, while Hulu’s The Girl From Plainville is based on an Esquire article about a real-life homicide trial. Then there’s another Hulu series, Pam & Tommy, which is based on a 2014 Rolling Stone piece about the man responsible for stealing and distributing the couple’s now-infamous sex tape.

MARTA DUSSELDORP

WOOL

DUNE ACTOR REBECCA FERGUSON (PICTURED) STARS IN THIS APPLE TV+ ADAPTATION of Hugh Howey’s trilogy of dystopian novels written by Graham Yost (Band of Brothers, Justified). In a ruined and toxic future, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep, where men and women must live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Ferguson will star as Juliette, an independent and hardworking engineer.

ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S BIGGEST STARS, Dusseldorp takes the lead in forthcoming g ABC Australia series Bay of Fires, which is due to begin production this summer. The e eight-part crime thriller is set in Tasmania nia and centres on Stella Heinekken (Dusseldorp), whose fall from grace is as spectacular as it is life-threatening. Betrayed ayed by her own company and in immediate mediate danger, the single mother moves oves with her two young children to Misery isery Reef, where she soon learns the secrets ecrets of this tiny, crime-ridden community. munity. Dusseldorp, co-creator and a producer on the series, has also recently been seen in Wentworth, worth, Jack Irish, Stateless, A Place e to Call Home and Janet King.

ONES TO WATCH: DQ100 Q

DQ . Spring 2022

MARLON JAMES

JUST 28 YEARS OLD, award-winning Danish director Risvig has had a prolific career to date, working on a number of documentaries and local young-adult series such as Centrum, and Flokken. He has now channelled his own experiences of growing up in a small town for upcoming Viaplay series Drenge (Boys). Risvig has created and directs the eight-part ensemble drama, which focuses on the strong bond between 10 young men in Silkeborg who grew up singing together in a church choir and would then meet up to push their limits and test the forbidden pleasures of adult life. But when one of the boys drowns under mysterious circumstances, their unity and loyalty are put to the ultimate test.

A BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR, James arrives on television with a debut series described as a “vivid, blistering slice of contemporary noir,” told in six parts through the eyes of six diﬀerent people. Commissioned by Channel 4 and HBO, Get Millie Black introduces Millie-Jean Black, a police detective who swaps her troubled life in London to work missing persons cases for the Jamaican police force. She soon picks up the trail of an investigation that begins in the steaming streets of downtown Kingston and heads up to the hill plantations of the post-colonial elite and eventually propels her back to the UK. James’s novels include John Crow’s Devil, The Book of Night Women, Booker winner A Brief History of Seven Killings and Black Leopard, Red Wolf.

JONAS RISVIG HEAD TO DRAMAQUARTERLY.COM FOR THE REST OF PART ONE OF THE DQ100 2022/23, FEATURING... ACTORS

Anita Bríem, Rhianne Barreto, Robert Carlyle and Nina Toussaint-White

DIRECTORS Dennie Gordon, Jocelyn Moorhouse, Shane Meadows and Warwick Thornton

WRITERS Sara Collins, Isis Davis, Morwenna Banks and Maya Sondhi

SERIES Austral, Fahrenheit, Fleishman is in Trouble and Nautilus

TRENDS & TRAILBLAZERS Unfinished business, Rose Matafeo, Jeﬀ Pope and Cheaters

99 44

END CREDITS: Remade Abroad

DQ . Sprin DQ pr rin ing g 20 2 22 22

The original Belgian version of De Twaalf

REMADE ABROAD WHILE SAM NEILL WILL ONCE AGAIN BE SHARING THE SCREEN WITH DINOSAURS THIS YEAR IN JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION, the star is also returning

to Australian television for the first time in several years as part of the huge ensemble cast of courtroom drama The Twelve. Based on Belgian series De Twaalf, the show also stars Kate Mulvany (Fighting Season) and Marta Dusseldorp (A Place to Call Home). It follows 12 jurors, each dealing with their own struggles, who together must decide the case of a woman accused of killing a child. When DQ speaks to the creative team behind the Foxtel series, filming is underway on the third of five blocks as production moves sequentially through the 10-part drama ahead of an expected premiere later this year. Hamish Lewis, head of scripted at Warner Bros International Television Production Australia, first came across De Twaalf through WB-owned Eyeworks Belgium, which produced the Flemish-language series. He was immediately struck by its original premise, offering a character study of 12 strangers against the backdrop of a murder mystery, and thought it was perfect for an English-language adaptation. He quickly took the idea to executives at pay TV broadcaster Foxtel, pitching a series that would stick closely to the established premise but use the jury members to tell important and timely stories for an Australian audience. Within 24 hours, the broadcaster was on board and head writer Sarah Walker (The Secrets She Keeps) was assembling a writers room. “We were very much aware there were lots of storylines that worked very well in the original, and they translated beautifully. It’s very relatable,” she says. “They’re all

The creative team behind Australian drama The Twelve reveal how a Flemishlanguage series inspired this exploration of the dynamics and relationships between strangers brought together to determine a criminal trial. universal stories – a woman who has a coercive, controlling husband; a man dealing with an accident on his worksite. There were many parts we felt were working so well that we didn’t want to trample on those, but we’ve Australianised it. We did swap and change some characteristics, but there was a real intention in the room to protect what was working.” Ian Collie (Rake, Jack Irish), founder of coproducer Easy Tiger, joined the project later. A former jury member himself, he brought his own fascination with the criminal justice

“

It’s the perfect format to play with a mix of really high-proﬁle talent and explore fresh faces. Sarah Walker

”

system to a series that attempts to lift the veil of secrecy that hides exactly what goes on in the jury room. “The jury is one of the last institutions we know so little about because the media can’t report what goes on inside that meeting room,” he says. “It’s great for us writers and producers to tell it as we see it. It’s an exciting project.”

All the jurors will have their moment in the spotlight, Walker promises, with viewers gradually learning more about each character and how their personal lives may impact their thoughts about the case. “We allow the characters to organically emerge within their own episodes where it feels right,” she notes. “That sometimes includes the witness on the stand, who that day may be more pertinent or relevant to the story issue one of the jurors is going through. Then we would just lean into that theme a little bit more.” The differences between Belgian and Australian legal systems, particularly in terms of access to and anonymity restrictions around the jury, also had an impact on the adaptation, as a journalist character in De Twaalf had to be changed. “One of the other big stumbling blocks we came across – thanks to Ian and his legal brain – is that, unlike in Belgium, here you don’t put the defendant on the stand until the very end,” Walker says. “That was a very important part of it in terms of structure of the Belgian series, where you heard from the central character straightaway. Then you could make a decision about what you thought about her from that point, whereas here you can’t hear from that central character on the stand until the very end. It was very different structurally in that way as well.” “Kate has her day in court at the end,” Collie reveals of defendant Kate Lawson, played by

DQ . Sp DQ pr rin ng 20 2022 22 2

END CREDITS: Remade Abroad

L-R: The Twelve’s cast includes Brooke Satchwell, Kate Mulvany, Sam Neill, Marta Dusseldorp and Hazem Shammas

De Twaalf/The Twelve Mulvany. “She doesn’t have to but, in this case, she decides to give evidence, which occasionally happens. We try to get it where the barometer keeps flip-flopping between whether the jury and the armchair jurors – the viewers – think she’s guilty or not guilty, and hopefully that’s where we’re successful. You just don’t know if she did it or not. The best courtroom dramas are ones where you’re really unsure.” The size of the cast assembled for the series also provided an opportunity to showcase a number of less well-known actors alongside the headline cast of Mulvany, Neill (as Brett Colby) and Dusseldorp (Lucy Bloom). Rounding out the group are Hazem Shammas, Brooke Satchwell, Brendan Cowell, Pallavi Sharda, Ngali Shaw, Catherine Van-Davies, Bishanyia Vincent, Damien Strouthos, Jenni Baird, Matt Nable, Silvia Colloca and Coco Jack Gillies. “We have very well-known, very wellrespected actors in the leads of the crime story but then we have these 12 new actors who are fairly fresh to the screen, which makes it feel like they’re strangers,” Walker says. Lewis picks up: “It’s the perfect format to play with a mix of really high-profile talent and explore fresh faces. It’s been a big casting process, but Sam, Kate and Marta set a really solid benchmark for the rest to aim for.” Collie, who previously worked with Neill and Dusseldorp on Rake and Jack Irish, respectively, says many of the cast members had also seen De Twaalf. “In the hands of gifted writers like Sarah and good directors headed by Daniel Nettheim [The Tourist, Line of Duty], it’s a good package to attract some of our top cast,” he adds. “In the end, it’s a project and a story with so many layers. That’s what’s so attractive about it.”

The show is set and filmed in Sydney, where the courtroom and jury room were among built sets created at the city’s old ABC studios, while the production sought to reflect the diversity of the jury by filming parts of Sydney not often seen on screen. Moving the action from Belgium to Australia also brought a sunnier outlook compared with the often bleaker backdrops of European noir. Though fans may wish to seek out the original series, Lewis says the premise at the heart of The Twelve offered the chance to tell an entirely original crime story through the eyes of 12 random strangers while tapping into timely themes affecting contemporary Australian society. “It just felt like something that could be really easily translatable, with a great platform to tell some exciting stories,” he says. Distributed by Endeavor Content, The Twelve is set to wrap production in April ahead of its launch on Foxtel later this year. Walker believes the show stands out for the way it highlights how personal prejudices among the jury members affect their ability to judge others. “We’re all human beings, we’re all fallible,” she says. “It’s an interesting thing when you’re actually looking at the people who are judging someone else for doing something wrong, but they’re not making great decisions in their own lives either. That’s just a lovely, delicious dilemma for the characters. As a writer, you can’t ask for anything more than that.” DQ

L-R: Jenni Baird, Coco Jack Gillies, Matt Nable and Silvia Colloca also feature in the Aussie version’s ensemble cast

45 99

END CREDITS: Six of the Best

DQ . Spring 2022

SIX OF THE BEST

Max Malka Max Malka, head of scripted at Banijay-owned Endemol Shine Finland, selects a handful of US favourites, a groundbreaking Norwegian youth series and an awardwinning drama from Michaela Coel. Better Call Saul Sure, Breaking Bad is a masterpiece that I absolutely love, but to have the supporting roles live on and engage the audience the way they do in Better Call Saul just blows my mind. This series is funny, tragic, entertaining and always surprising. The quality of every element in the series – from the writing to the performances, editing, sound and cinematography – has me taking notes. On a personal level, I wish someone had encouraged Saul to apply to film school. He is a creative genius and law doesn’t deserve him.

The Wire I bought the DVD boxsets of each season and watched and rewatched them. The societal and political realities in which the multidimensional characters live make it a window into something real. I heard David Simon, the creator, say that if you write about someone who is not you, or not based on your experience, then you will be judged on what you deliver, and you should be. The verdict on The Wire is pretty clear. Succession, another favourite, reminds me of The Wire – maybe because it’s also so specific and authentic, plus half the time I have no idea what the dialogue means! I May Destroy You Michaela Coel’s series is revolutionary. It’s a deeply personal story dealing with sexual assault, but instead of a whodunnit, it goes deeper into the theme of consent in a broader and nuanced way while managing to stay humorous and hopeful. The way the structure of the series is diﬀerent and unpredictable reminds me of Ramy Youssef’s show, Ramy. Both also tell something personal and the creators star.

Barry

“

Barrry is exactly the kind of series I wish I had made. High concept, funny and yet very characterdriven is my favourite d kind ind of combo. Max Malk alka

”

The Wire

I May Destroy You

Skam

Coel, a trained actor, and Youssef, a stand-up comedian, partnered with TV and film professionals to bring a fresh take on the traditional 20to 30-minute format and structure, which I appreciate and love. The Knick Created by Jack Amiel and directed by Steven Soderbergh, The Knick is such a complete world. Set in the early 1900s in New York’s Knickerbocker Hospital, it stars Clive Owen as a chief surgeon. What I love about it is it’s set at a time when scientific breakthroughs were made every day, and the owner of the hospital, a young woman, hires a brilliant black surgeon, so moral dilemmas, gender and race issues cannot be avoided. The electronic score by Cliﬀ Martinez is a great contrast to the epoch

setting, removing all stiﬀness and pompousness. Skam This Norwegian youth series, about a group of teenagers in upper secondary school, sounds like a nice, small, local show. When it became a phenomenon across the Nordics and even around the world (now with more than half-a-dozen remakes), it was eye-opening for me as a producer. Skam proved local YA content can travel and engage internationally, and changed how I thought about the potential of my projects in that genre. Skam was loved by its contemporaries but also by a wider audience of older viewers, who could relate in a nostalgic way to the well-created characters.

Barry From Alec Berg and Bill Hader, Barry is about a hitman who wants to change profession and become an actor. It’s exactly the kind of series I made. High concept, funny wish I had m and yet very ver character-driven is my kind of combo. There are favourite ki great series that tick those a lot of gre boxes, but I picked Barry three bo as it’s one of the more recent ones and the execution is superb. I especially enjoyed some of the more en experimental storytelling in ex Better Call Saul DQ the second season.

Mark your diary for Content London 2022 28 Nov - 1 Dec

END CREDITS: Scene Stealers

D . Spr DQ p in ng 20 2022 22

Martin Freeman in The Responder

Former police officer Tony Schumacher reveals how an early scene in his five-part series The Responder sets out to challenge viewers’ expectations of this Liverpool-set crime drama.

SCENE STEALERS

The Responder “PEOPLE THINK THE SERIES IS ABOUT DRUGS, AND IT’S NOT. IT’S ABOUT PEOPLE,” says writer

Tony Schumacher

Tony Schumacher about his BBC drama The Responder. “When I worked with [Time writer] Jimmy McGovern really early on, Jimmy was all about, ‘Don’t let them make you put too much plot in. This is about people.’ So for me, The Responder is not a police show. It’s not a drugs show. It’s a people show with drugs in it.” The five-part drama – ex-police officer Schumacher’s first original TV series – seeks to reflect the extreme emotional pressures facing those on the front line of British policing with a story that is funny, tragic and challenging. Sherlock star Martin Freeman plays Chris Carson, a crisis-stricken, morally compromised, unconventional urgent-response officer tackling a series of night shifts on the beat in Liverpool. While trying to keep his head above water both personally and professionally, Chris is forced to take on a new rookie partner Rachel (Adelayo Adedayo) and they soon discover that survival in this high-pressure, relentless, nighttime world will depend on them either helping or destroying each other. “When we ﬁrst meet Chris, he’s on the edge of a cliff. He knows he’s been edging towards it but he never thought he’d go over it. Chris doesn’t even realise he’s fallen until he’s hit the bottom,” the writer says. “Up until that point, he’s felt like a juggler, keeping balls in the air. Then all of a sudden, one ball’s gone and that’s it, everything falls down and he lacks any reserves of mental health to help him get through that period.” From the start of episode one, it quickly becomes clear that Chris is an unorthodox copper, prowling Liverpool’s darkened streets like a lone wolf and holding seemingly unhealthy, personal relationships with many of the people he confronts during a night shift. One such character is teenager Marco, who shares an early

scene with Chris in the back of his police car. “Very early on, probably only a day into working on the script, I realised I might have something special,” Schumacher says of the scene. “When I’m writing, I look for the magic. I look for the moment when I go, ‘This is it.’ If I can’t find it, I have to keep going back and back until I find it – and if I never find it, I throw my script away. I realised in the first draft, in probably the second day of writing, that I had something special there and then. It meant a lot to me, that scene. “When we were talking about making the show, I found it was also a scene that meant a lot to other people. I don’t know why. That’s the magic, I suppose. It resonated because it introduced these two really complicated people. When I started writing that scene, Marco was just going to come and go. He was just a guy Chris was going to pump for information and move on from. But another rule I have is if a character has more than two lines of dialogue, I have to create a backstory for them. “I realised immediately with Marco that I had someone special, and we were so lucky getting Josh Finan [to play him]. Bringing those two actors together and with the chemistry and the magic between them, this felt like such an important scene because it sets everything out.” The scene begins when Marco is picked up by Chris, and the officer asks whether he’s dealing drugs (see script extracts overleaf ). A shared history is quickly established. “You trying to be a detective again, lad?” Marco says, a nod to Chris’s recent demotion, before admitting he has been earning money from ‘Snide Nige’ by “sitting on some gear” for him. “Nothing heavy. Trackies and that. Good copies, though. Hey! I can get you one if you want? Nice tracky and trabs? [tracksuit and trainers] Smarten you up dead cheap, lad!”

END CREDITS: Scene Stealers

DQ . Spring 2022

“I thought I’d get more stick about it, but people have got to know it. People who care about the characters have bothered to learn the language.” Having worked first as a taxi driver and then as a police officer in Liverpool, Schumacher has spent much of his life sharing Josh Finan conversations like that between as Marco Chris and Marco. “That was what was important to me,” he says. “I wanted to capture the truth of those interactions and spend time with them – to be brave, and we were brave with it. We were brave in that we said, ‘We’re making a 21.00 BBC One show. Let’s have a six-minute conversation in a car.’ And we did it. “It’s just two characters and no plot. It’s fucking brilliant. At 21.15, I managed to get a scally saying ‘tracky and trabs.’ It’s bizarre but it shows people they were going to watch something they hadn’t seen before. “It was almost a test for the audience. We said to them, ‘If you enjoy this, you’re going to enjoy the rest of it.’ We challenged the audience to get over that first hurdle, and that’s what I’m most proud of.” DQ

When Chris pushes back, he is accused of talking to Marco “like you’re me dad,” before Marco prods him further. “You are rude to everyone out here. We all hate you.” “Despite that line, you can see there’s just genuine affection. But for me, the most important thing of all is that it was me sitting in the back of that car when I was a kid and it was me sitting in the front of the car as an adult,” Schumacher says. “I’ve been those two people in that car, and that’s why I think the magic was there. I was having a conversation between 18-year-old me and 45-year-old me.” Thanks to Marco’s use of Scouse slang, the conversation also marks the moment in the series where the show’s Merseyside setting becomes more than just the backdrop to story. “We got a lot of stick about the vernacular, Marco’s lexicon of slang and Scouse, and I don’t care,” says Schumacher, who hails from the region himself. “That’s how Marco talks. Up until then, that show could have been set in Fulham or Felixstowe, anywhere, but the minute Marco opens his mouth, it’s a six-inch nail right through the script that goes, ‘Bang, we’re in Liverpool here and I’m not making any concessions. If you don’t want to watch it, don’t watch it.’

O M CO MA MAR u. ll you tel to te g to As if I'm going RIS CHR CHR d ed quid? dr hundr ng a hun w else you makin How RCO MAR I got skills man. CHRIS d quid and You've got one hundre re a thick twat. you're O MARCO a a favour. I done a man S CHRIS hat favour? What man? Wh MARCO again ng to be a detective t yin tr Y You lad? t. . Marco takes the hint es him in the mirror Chris eye MARCO (CONT’D) Between us yeah? akes , and then sha k Marco in the mirror Chris checks d d. ad. hea he i his CHRIS ver. Whatev p ks up. o per Marco MARCO M nide Nige? You know Sni CHRIS No. MARCO him. a on some gear for I sat

CHRIS

MARCO (C (CO C NT’ NT’D D) D) (Mutters) But yo ou are ou r ru rude de e though h. CHR CH H IS S Don’t take it pers erso onal. ona . All I’m saying is that you o r lif life, you know, there’s ju ust st t no point in it i .

Gea Ge ear? r

I got me kid. .

MARCO Jar clothes. Nothing heavy. Jarg Tr ckies and that. Good cop Tra co ies th ugh. Hey! tho ! I can get you o one n if f y you want? Nice tracky cky an a d trab rabs? ? Smarten you up dead Sma d chea h p lad!

MAR RCO

CHR S CHRI You’ve go ot a kid? Yeah man. n

M CO MAR

CHRIS Get lost. How old are you?

CHRIS W t do you want to do with your Wha l e Marco? You must have some lif li om sort sor t of plan?

Eighteen n. .

M CO MAR

MARCO Is this where you talk to me like y 're me dad? you

CHRIS You lo Y look o abou ut forty!

CHRIS You haven't got a fucking dad. Yo

MARCO Ther The T re you y go again. Rude.

Ma arco co br bridl i es for a beat. CHRIS (CONT'D) It's It' s just so pointless.

Beat. t. MAR RCO C (CONT’D) She lives with her mum. S CHRIS

MARCO

What? W

CHRIS

MARCO Me kid, she lives with her Ma’.

MARCO A Aar eh!

CHRIS Do o you see e much of her?

CHRIS IS I’m not being rude e.

Na N ah.

MAR ARCO CO O You are being rude Y ude e. Seri Seri ious ously ly lad,you’re the ab bsolu bsolu ute defi fini nitio tio i n of rude, everyb body ody sa says it.

Wh hy not?

What is? Wha You.

Sh h ’s a slag he g.

CH IS CHRIS S Everyone? ? MAR M AR RC CO Yea ah man! You You are ar re e rude to everyone out ut t he here. re. e. We al ll hate you. Chr C hr ri make ris kes s eye eye co ontact on ta in the mirror.

Chr h is i maintains the eye con co tac act t for a mome ome m nt. t

E CAR, 23:05 12 POLICE S IS’S S HRI REETS/C T. STR NT IN /IN EXT/ nd an s tly as CHRIS drives out g sof e ng t eri att cha s ch t dio is dio rad h ra The b k seat, staring oﬀ bac e ba the n i in w low lo s ps p lum s C CO M MAR w dow. w ndo f the wi of I RIS HR CHR co? rco ar ng Ma n t dealing ou no You Yo

MARC MAR RCO CO

Not me like.

Y ur kid? Yo id?

MARCO CHRIS MARCO CHRIS

MARCO Her H r Ma! You bell end! Chris s smiles to himself as s Marco sh hake a s his s head.

Dramatic Question

Spring 2022

Global drama comes together in France

“

If the official competition lineups are anything to go by, both Series Mania and Canneseries promise an array of thematically diverse series in all genres from across Europe and around the world.

”

AS THE WORLD RE-EMERGES FROM ISOLATION AFTER TWO YEARS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, fans are once again flocking to cinemas and auditoriums to see the best new international series at television festivals around the world. Following the red-carpet premieres at Berlinale, it’s now time for fans and industry insiders to gather in Lille for Series Mania before TV stars walk along the pink carpet at Canneseries. If the official competition line-ups are anything to go by, both events promise an array of thematically diverse series in all genres from across Europe and around the world. Among the shows screening at Series Mania are Vikings creator Michael Hirst’s western adventure Billy the Kid and David Simon’s We Own this City, a police drama that takes The Wire creator Simon back to the streets of Baltimore. UK entries include comedy horror The Baby, a raw and dark look at motherhood from the perspective of a woman who doesn’t want to be a mother. Meanwhile, The Birth of Daniel F Harris follows Danny, who has been living with his father in the middle of nowhere and raised on stories of monsters in the outside world that are out to capture him. But when he turns 18, he sets out to find the real monster: the one who killed his mother. Elsewhere, Israel’s Fire Dance is a tale of impossible love from filmmaker Rama Burshtein-Shai that centres on 18-yearold Faigie, who seeks a relationship with a married 35-year-old man in their ultra-Orthodox community. Transport is a Finnish drama that explores the impact of illicit horse trafficking after a microchip is found in a jar of baby food. Italian drama Il Re (The King) focuses on a ruthless prison governor. Also screening are Le Monde de Demain (The World of Tomorrow), a musical drama about France’s hip-hop pioneers, and Sentinelles (Soldiers), a retrospective look at the actions of French soldiers in Africa. Meanwhile, the fifth season of Canneseries features a competition comprising 10 dramas that hail from as far afield as Denmark and Israel, Spain and Canada. Belgian entry 1985 is set against the backdrop of the country’s most notorious unsolved crime spree – the case of the Brabant killers – as three friends become caught up in the horrifying events. Set in the same decade, Italy’s Bang Bang Baby sees 16-year-old

Alice discover her late father is actually alive and a member of a criminal organisation led by her ruthless grandmother, beginning her descent into a life of crime. Moving into the 90s, Spain’s El Inmortal is a crime drama set in Madrid and inspired by the real story of a man who would become one of the most powerful drug traffickers in Europe. Another story inspired by true life, The Dreamer – Becoming Karen Blixen, comes from Denmark and stars Connie Nielsen as the eponymous author who returns to her childhood home from East Africa in the 1930s and follows her journey from her lowest ebb to become a renowned writer. Norway’s Afterglow balances humour and high emotion in a story of a woman’s cancer diagnosis and how it affects those around her, while Canadian selection Audrey’s Back follows a 17-year-old who falls into a coma and wakes up 16 years later, leading her to learn to live again in a time she doesn’t understand. Israeli series The Lesson is pitched as a contemporary drama tackling societal themes as the conflict between a teacher and a 17-year-old student spills out of the classroom. Politics also runs through Jeux d’influence, les combattantes, a French series that confronts the relationship between lobbying and industry with a story about a minister, a lobbyist, the media and activists caught up in a scandal. Two shows come from Germany. The first, Punishment, is an anthology series showcasing the work of six up-andcoming directors based on stories by Ferdinand von Schirach. Then Souls serves up a compelling mystery involving the stories of three women – the wife of a pilot, a cult member who believes in life after death and a mother whose son claims to remember a past life – and questions whether people can really live multiple lives. Both festivals play out against the backdrop of more serious matters in the shape of another international crisis and the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Our thoughts are with our friends from Ukraine and DQ backs every effort to support the Ukrainian people and to bring this war to a peaceful conclusion. Michael Pickard Editor, Drama Quarterly

WHO’S WHO EDITORIAL Editorial director Ed Waller ed@c21media.net, Editor of C21Media.net Jonathan Webdale jonathan@c21media.net, DQ editor Michael Pickard michael@c21media.net, Chief sub editor Gary Smitherman gary@c21media.net, Senior sub editor John Winfield john@c21media.net, News editor Clive Whittingham clive@c21media.net, Senior reporters Nico Franks nico@ c21media.net, Karolina Kaminska karolina@c21media.net, Ruth Lawes ruth.lawes@c21media.net, North America Jordan Pinto jordan@c21media.net, Research editor Gün Akyuz gun@c21media.net, Head of television Jason Olive jason@c21media.net, Video editor Sean Sweeney sean@c21media.net SALES Commercial director Odiri Iwuji odiri@c21media.net, Sales director Peter Treacher peter@c21media.net, Business development director Nick Waller nick@c21media.net, Sales manager Hayley Salt hayley@c21media.net, Senior sales executive Richard Segal, Sales executive Malvina Marque melvina@c21media.net, Telesales executive Eva Fischer eva@c21media.net EVENTS Head of event programming Ruth Palmer ruth@c21media.net, Deputy of event programming Adam Webb adam.webb@c21media.net, Events manager Gemma Burt gemma@c21media. net, Events assistant Chloe Hocking chloe@c21media.net PRODUCTION Operations director Lucy Scott lucy@c21media.net, Production manager Eleanore Hayes eleanore@c21media.net, Team assistant Courtney Brewster courtney@c21media.net, Head of finance Susan Dean susan@c21media.net, Finance manager Marina Sedra marina@c21media.net, Finance officer Shuhely Mirza shuhely@c21media.net, Editor-in-chief & managing director David Jenkinson david@c21media.net

DQ Magazine C21Media Ltd 2nd Floor, 148 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3AT Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7729 7460 Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7729 7461 Email: michael@dramaquarterly.com

@all3media_int all3mediainternational.com

J14634_C21_240x320mm_DRAMA_QUARTERLY_SPRING_BACK_COVER_FP_ADVERT_THE_THIEF_HIS_WIFE_AW.indd 1

09/03/2022 18:04