BritBox Teams Up With The BBC To Produce Anglo/German Crime Drama The Mallorca Files
BritBox has teamed up with the BBC as well as a number of broadcasters across Europe to launch a Spa..
BritBox has teamed up with the BBC as well as a number of broadcasters across Europe to launch a Spain-set crime drama from the writer behind The Good Karma Hospital and Delicious.
The broadcasters have ordered The Mallorca Files (w/t), created by Dan Sefton, and produced by Cosmopolitan Pictures, the production company set up by Ben Donald and Misfits firm Clerkenwell Films.
The ten-part drama is set amongst the expat community on the sunny Spanish island and features a British and German detective clashing over their very different approaches to policing the island. While self-confessed introverted Brit Miranda Blake takes her career seriously, German Max Wolf is a classic extrovert and unashamedly unconventional. The two characters battle it out to solve crimes in the sun-drenched setting.
The show, which will begin production in November, will air in daytime on BBC One in 2019 with all ten episodes dropping on to the British public broadcasters digital service iPlayer on its first day of transmission. It was commissioned by Dan McGolpin, Controller of BBC Programming and Daytime.
BritBox will air in the U.S. and Canada, while ZDFneo will air in Germany and France 2 will run in France after BBC Studios and Cosmopolitan Pictures put the co-production deal in place.
Showrunner Dan Sefton, who will write alongside Rachael New, Alex McBride, Sarah Louise Hawkins and Dan Muirden, said, “With influences from Almodovar to Coen Brothers, The Mallorca Files brings a fresh new spin to the story of two supposedly mismatched cops forced into an uneasy partnership. Set in the picture-perfect Balearic Island of Mallorca, action-packed, quirky and full of memorable characters, wit, and spectacle, this show is the perfect antidote to the British Winter. It has fun with a classic TV genre.
Donald added, “Right from the beginning Ive wanted to make a series like the cop shows I grew up with and loved, with a pair of loveable characters people are drawn back to and want to hang out with; a show that is unashamedly entertaining and quite honestly a fun antidote to the pretty bleak world out there. In its funding, this series represents the very best of what co-production can do to add value for the UK audience and licence fee payer. Ive always wanted to find a way to bring the Anglo-German relationship on television out of sketch comedy and into the 21st century.”
