Sky
Sharon Duncan-Brewster (right) in Intergalactic
It’s sci-fi but not as we know it Shilpa Ganatra hails Sky’s mould-breaking space adventure Intergalactic
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oing boldly where no woman has gone before, Sky’s new drama Intergalactic follows the exploits of a group of female prisoners who commandeer their penal transport to escape to the free world of Arcadia. But their journey is made trickier as one of the convicts is Ash Harper (played by Savannah Steyn), the daughter of a high-ranking member of the Commonworld’s establishment. With Ash imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit, her own quest is the search for the truth. Imagine Orange Is the New Black, but set in space. “That sums it up perfectly when you see it. For me, it’s a relationship drama in sci-fi clothes,” says Paul Gilbert, executive producer for Sky Studios. “It felt like we hadn’t seen a bold, British sci-fi for a long time,” adds Serena Thompson, also an executive producer for Sky Studios. “The idea of doing something female-driven,
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adrenaline-driven, about emotion and character, and with a thrilling ride, is something we could see working for Sky One.” Intergalactic’s genesis came from pro ducer Matthew Read. Sky approached Cuffs and Prisoners’ Wives writer Julie Gearey to flesh it out into a compelling series. “They knew my big passion is writing female gang shows,” says Gearey. “And I’d already been talking about wanting to work in a science-fiction genre. I was a child at exactly the right age for Star Wars. I was the kid who used to put the dressing gown on and the ear muffs and pretend to be Princess Leia.” Of its many novel aspects, it is particularly refreshing that Intergalactic has “an American scale of ambition while retaining a British identity at its heart”, Gilbert notes. Indeed, the unhackneyed accents, subtle humour and the downto-earthness (pardon the pun) mark the show as born in contemporary Britain. That was what drew Sharon Duncan- Brewster to play the role of rebel gang
leader Tula. “I love that it doesn’t try to be anything else but British, and you find that in the humour, pace and dialogue,” she says. “It shows we can do space, too. We can do futuristic, too.” Duncan-Brewster made her mark in revered British productions such as Years and Years, Top Boy and Sex Education but is no stranger to big-budget sci-fi, having appeared in Rogue One and been cast in the latest adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, alongside Jason Momoa and Zendaya, due out later this year. “I try to take on varied projects and, nowadays, I don’t take on roles that aren’t appealing to me,” she says. “And, while this is a piece that is set in the future and we are in space a lot, at its heart, it is about people and relationships. You meet these characters and can make so many assumptions about them. Then, slowly, as the episodes progress, we get further under the skin of each individual, and you see that they are complex human beings.” For Gearey, the show’s invitation for
