BAFTA-winning Irish director and writer Neasa Hardiman has signed on to direct ‘In the Club’ – a new BBC drama series based on the book by Kay Mellor about six couples who attend a parenting class during pregnancy.
Ms Hardiman also recently scripted ‘Sea Fever’ - a sci-fi horror feature about the crew of a West of Ireland trawler, marooned at sea – which won the London Film Awards Feature Screenplay prize last year.
The film adaptation of 'Sea Fever' is now set to go into production in late 2014, produced by Brendan McCarthy at Fantastic Films – who enjoyed considerable success with their last foray into the genre ‘The Last Days on Mars’.
Ms Hardiman won a Children’s BAFTA award in 2010 for Best Drama for ‘Tracy Beaker Returns’ and counts among her many awards a further two Bafta and three IFTA nominations.
The author of ‘In the Club’, Kay Mellor, is known for writing BBC’s ‘The Syndicate - remade as a Steven Spielberg co-production in the US as ‘Lucky 7’.
The premise of ‘In the Club’ was partly based on Ms Mellor's own experiences of becoming pregnant as a teenager – inspiring the character of 15 year old schoolgirl Rosie who hides her pregnancy from everyone.
‘In The Club’ will consist of six 60 minute episodes, produced by Rollem Productions for BBC One and will air in 2014.