BBC Hires Producer for J.K. Rowing's 'The Casual Vacancy' TV Adaptation

4:00 PM PST 12/11/2012 by Stuart Kemp

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Paul Trijbits is charged with hiring a writer for the initial script and will guide the BBC commissioned adaptation into production.

LONDON – The BBC commissioned small screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy has brought in the experienced U.K. based film and TV producer Paul Trijbits to executive produce.

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Trijbits, until recently the managing director of Ruby Film and Television, has been brought in to exec produce for The Blair Partnership and the BBC. He is charged with managing the production and in the first instance will appoint a writer to adapt the novel.

The veteran producer's recent resume boasts duties on Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks, Focus Features’ Jane Eyre and Stephen Poliakoff's Dancing on the Edge, a major six-part drama for the BBC, which is scheduled to air on BBC Two from the end of January 2013.

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"Opportunities like this rarely come along," said Trijbits. "The abundance of rich characters and Jo's [Rowling] razor sharp insight into daily human struggles and triumphs, make The Casual Vacancy such a treat to adapt and deliver to BBC One audiences and beyond."

Rowling will collaborate closely with the project with the number and length of the episodes to be decided once the creative adaptation process has formally begun.

Rowling was just named to the The Hollywood Reporter's inaugural list of the 25 most powerful authors in Hollywood.

The series has been commissioned for the BBC by BBC One controller Danny Cohen and Ben Stephenson, controller of BBC drama and is expected to air in 2014.

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Neil Blair and Rick Senat of The Blair Partnership will be series executive producers.

Rowling's novel, published in September, is set in a small English town whose picture-perfect facade hides a place where the rich are at war with the poor, teenagers are fighting their parents and wives and husbands are at loggerheads.