Sans powdered wigs, BBC's Silk headed for U.S. remake on ABC
This just in…a U.S. television broadcast network will try, yet again, to re-invent the wheel and adapt a British drama for American television. Surprise! ABC will re-make Peter Moffat’s British legal drama, Silk, the Bafta-nominated BBC drama which revolved around the lives of barristers at Shoe Lane chambers, and the lengths they went to to attain one of the most prestigious accomplishments in an English lawyer’s career, the rank of Queen’s Counsel (QC), a.k.a. “taking silk”. Silk ran for three series from 2011-2014 on BBC1 and starred Maxine Peake (dinnerladies, Shameless, The Village) and Rupert Penry-Jones ( Spooks, Whitechapel). With Martha Costello (Peake), the unorthodox and uncompromising attorney, and ruthless rival Clive Reader (Penry-Jones), Moffat wanted to show life at the bar and all that entails focusing on the extreme pressure, the hard choices, the ethical dilemmas, the overlap between the personal and the professional, principles fought for and principles sacrificed, the Machiavellian politics, the sex and the drinking. In other words, the whole story.
According to Hollywood Reporter, Silk creator Peter Moffat will team up with Marty Scott (Drop Dead Diva) to adapt the legal drama for American audiences, with Scott writing the script and executive producing alongside Moffat. The first series of Silk ran as part of PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery series in 2013. The final two series will make their way to public television stations beginning in early 2015. As hard as I try, I’m not seeing Silk as an American drama unless they lose the powdered wigs and call it L.A. Law. You?
