Jared Harris, Joseph Fiennes & Sheila Atim Leading A+E/Sky’s ‘Royal Kill List’; ScreenSkills CEO; ‘Hardacres’ Cast; ‘The Castaways’ Trailer – Global Briefs

Max Goldbart
·4 min read

Jared Harris, Joseph Fiennes & Sheila Atim Leading A+E/Sky’s ‘Royal Kill List’

Jared Harris, Joseph Fiennes and Sheila Atim are leading an A+E Networks/Sky series about King Charles I from Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story producer 72 Films. Royal Kill List is Sky History’s latest docu-drama following in the footsteps of the likes of Royal Bastards: Rise of The Tudors and The Royal Mob. The three-part series looks back at one of the most seismic events in British royal history. In 1649, for the first and only time, a British monarch was publicly executed, having been tried and convicted of treason by Parliament. This bloody spectacle heralded 10 years of Britain as a republic before, in May 1660, the monarchy was restored with the accession of King Charles II. Told through dramatic reconstruction, Atim for the Royalists, Harris for the Regicides, and Fiennes for King Charles II will play out the Jacobean tragedy, coming a few months after the coronation of King Charles III. “Following the celebrations that recently heralded a new Carolean era, there can be no better time to revisit the events surrounding one of King Charles III’s most famous antecedents and namesakes, whose defiance of Parliament set in train a series of bloody events whose historic legacy endures to this day,” said Dan Korn, Vice President of Programming at A+E Networks EMEA.

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ScreenSkills Unveils New CEO

British TV and film training body ScreenSkills has unveiled Laura Mansfield, the boss of Remarkable Places to Eat indie Outline Productions, as its CEO. Mansfield will replace Seetha Kumar early next year. Working closely with the board, she will continue to build on ScreenSkills’ skills strategy to provide training and development programs for the sector’s workforce, industry leadership and expertise. As well as working in partnership across the screen industry and wider cross-industry partners, Mansfield will work with the Skills Task Force to deliver the objectives from a recently published report. Mansfield founded Remarkable Places producer Outline in 2016 and sold the business to Tin Roof Media Group the following year.

Channel 5’s New Drama From ‘All Creatures Great & Small’ Maker Sets Cast

The latest Channel 5 drama from All Creatures Great and Small producer Playground has set cast. The Hardacres will feature Claire Cooper (The Continental, The Peripheral) and Liam McMahon (Hunger, The Secret, Warrior Nun) as loving married couple Mary and Sam Hardacre, who land on hard times following an accident at work on the docks, which leaves them unemployed and broke. Alongside, Julie Graham (Time, Ridley, Penance), starring as Mary’s  wily mother, Ma, and their three kids, Joe, Liza, and Harry, played by Adam Little (Ackley Bridge, Coronation Street), newcomer Shannon Lavelle and Zak Ford-Williams (Better), the family band together to think fast with a business venture that will free them from their humble existence on the North Yorkshire Coast and catapult them into high society. The series from Amy Roberts and Loren McLaughlan comes off the back of the success of the revamped All Creatures, which has been a huge hit for Paramount network Channel 5 since it entered the drama game several years ago and is co-produced for PBS Masterpiece in the U.S. The Hardacres will air next year.

Paramount+ Unveils ‘The Castaways’ Trailer

Paramount+’s Castaways starring Sheridan Smith has unveiled trailer, which you can watch below. The adaptation of Lucy Clarke’s novel stars Smith as Lori, and sister Erin, played by Celine Buckens, as they set off on the holiday of a lifetime in Fiji. After a huge fight, Erin never boards the island-hopping flight to their tropical resort and the plane, with Lori on board, fails to arrive at its destination. With disaster and devastation laced throughout the gripping trailer and epic introduction to the series, thrown into the wake of the plane crash we see those who make it off the aircraft alive faced with the startling reality of – quite literally – fighting for survival on a deserted island. Castaways is the second Paramount+ Clarke adaptation, following No Escape, which launched earlier this year.

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