Nick Hornby, New James Bond Author Anthony Horowitz to Write BBC Dramas

BBC flagship channel BBC One has ordered new dramas written by popular author Nick Hornby (About a Boy) and novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz, who was announced as the writer of a new James Bond book last year.

Hornby will write his first-ever TV drama, the five-episode series Love, Nina, the BBC said. The 30-minute show will be an adaptation of the best-selling book by Nina Stibbe, which won the 2014 National Book Award for popular nonfiction book of the year. See-Saw Films (Top of the Lake) will be the production firm.

The show, about a 19-year-old girl who leaves Leicester to work as a nanny in London, was ordered by Charlotte Moore, controller of BBC One, and Ben Stephenson, controller of BBC Drama Commissioning.

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Said popular author Hornby: “Love, Nina has already attained the status of a modern classic, and I am so happy that I’ve been given the opportunity to adapt it. We want to make a series that is as charming, funny and delightful as Nina Stibbe’s glorious book.”

Horowitz also will bring to BBC One New Blood, a seven-episode hourlong crime thriller created and written by him and produced by Eleventh Hour Films.

The show centers on junior investigators Stefan and Rash, who work for two different law enforcement divisions and are brought together by two seemingly unrelated cases. They are opposites in almost every way. “What they do share are the same frustrations with life — underpaid, unappreciated and undermined,” according to a show description. “Lumbered with huge university loans, they can’t afford to buy a house and have little or no job security. They are both British but not part of the establishment.”

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Said Horowitz: “For a long time, I’ve been wondering how to take a fresh approach to crime drama, and I hope that with New Blood I’ve succeeded. This is a show about the so-called Y generation.”

The two dramas are set to air in 2016.

Email: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai