Due north for next TV epic

IT WILL be Our Friends In The North… of Scotland.

An epic award-winning novel that tells the story of Scotland since the Second World War through the lives of a gay photographer, a Tory MP with a shoe fetish and an alcoholic MI5 officer called Jimmy Bond is set to turned into a £5 million television drama.

The screen rights to And The Land Lay Still by author James Robertson, which won the Scottish Book of Year in 2010 and was described as “outstanding” and “important” by First Minister Alex Salmond are being bought by ITV Studios.

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The production team behind Vera, the ITV crime drama starring Brenda Blethyn, hope to emulate the success and critical acclaim of the nine-part BBC drama series, Our Friends In The North by Peter Flannery, a “state of the nation” broadcast in 1996 which charted 40 years in Newcastle and London.

Robertson, 53, author of four novels, and the Scottish Parliament’s first writer in residence, said: “I would love it to be a kind of Scottish Our Friends In The North. A number of folk have said it reads like [that] and when I was writing the book that wonderful TV series was somewhere in the back of my mind. I thought if I could manage to do something similar to that for Scotland then I would be very happy.”

The 670-page novel charts the demise of British nationalism after the Second World War and rise of Scottish nationalism. Among the dozens of characters is an alcoholic MI5 operative called Peter “Jimmy” Bond, who is charged with monitoring fringe nationalist groups in the 1970s. Other characters with the potential to attract the cream of Scotland’s acting community include Michael Pendreich, a gay photographer who is putting together an exhibition of his late father’s photographs; Jack Gordon, who is haunted by his wartime experiences in the Far East; and David Eddelstane, a Tory MP with a shoe fetish.

Among the many events told through the lives of the two dozen characters are the discovery of North Sea oil, the miners’ strike, the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the Poll Tax. The author believes the recent success of the SNP and the possible break-up of the Union means the time is right for an epic television drama that examines the history of Scotland since the Second World War. He also believes the success of dramas such as The Wire and The Killing illustrate an appetite among TV audiences for following one story over many hours.

“It is such a big book, for example, if it was made into a big-screen movie, can you really get all that into an hour and a half? You would be struggling, but if it was stretched over five or six hours you could really take the time to go into the detail, which is what The Wire and The Killing manage to do superbly,” he said. “For those reasons and for the political relevance, it may be the right time for the book to be made into this type of TV series.”

He has met Julia Walsh, head of development at ITV, which produces Downton Abbey, and Elaine Collins, the producer behind Vera, who is a former actress married to Peter Capaldi.

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Collins, who first spotted the potential for the novel, said: “It is a brilliant novel, a classic in the making and when I read it I felt it was a Scottish Our Friends in the North. It represented a Scotland I recognised, particularly the Nationalist politics. The characters were very recognisable. ITV Studios operate as the in-house drama supplier for ITV but we also make drama for the BBC and Channel 4.”

As the deal is currently being finalised, Collins has not yet commissioned a writer to adapt the novel. “We are sealing the deal and it would be good to find a really strong Scottish writer to adapt it.”

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John Archer, chief executive of Hopscotch Films and former BBC Scotland head of drama said: “This is fantastic news. The time is right for an epic drama about Scotland over one or two generations and Robertson is such a good writer.”

The current cost of television drama is around £600,000 per hour, which would mean a six-part series would cost just under £5m.