EXCLUSIVE: Lennie James is leading a BBC adaptation of Girl, Woman, Other scribe Bernardine Evaristo’s Mr Loverman.
The Save Me star will play Barrington Jedidiah Walker, or Barry to his friends, a Caribbean-born life-and-soul personality living in Hackney who has been harboring a secret for years. Carmel, his wife of 50 years, knows Barry has been cheating on her, but when it emerges that the affair has been going on for decades with his male best friend, Morris, their marriage goes into meltdown. Now entering the next chapter of his life, Barry has big choices to make that will force his whole family to question their own futures.
Noughts + Crosses and The Outlaws scribe Nathaniel Price is penning the eight-parter, director is Hong Khaou (Baptiste) and production outfit is Fable Pictures, the Sony-backed indie that made Sarah Gavron’s Rocks. Sony Pictures Television is distributing globlly. More casting will be announced in due course.
Mr Loverman was published a decade ago and is British-Nigerian scribe Evaristo’s seventh novel. Evaristo is the author of Girl, Woman, Other, the hit novel that shared the 2019 Booker Prize with Margaret Atwood’s Testaments. That novel is also being adapted for the screen by Potboiler Television, although it is yet to secure a buyer.
Evaristo said she “loves the idea of stepping beyond the pages of Mr Loverman into people’s living rooms and lives.”
BBC Drama Director Lindsay Salt added: “Mr Loverman is a must-read novel and in the skilled hands of Nathaniel, Lennie and the Fable team it will soon be must-see television. I can’t think of a more perfect team to bring Bernardine’s exquisite story to the screen.”
James recently joined Joshua Oppenheimer musical The End and plays Morgan Jones in The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. Sky recently revealed it is developing a third season of BAFTA-winning hit drama Save Me, which stars James as Nelson “Nelly” Rowe.
