Ten Pound Poms created by Danny Brocklehurst with Eleven Films
The BBC has tied with Australian SVoD Stan on a Danny Brocklehurst drama about Brits relocating to Australia.
Sex Education indie Eleven Films’ 6 x 60-minute BBC1 series Ten Pound Poms is set in 1956 following the Brits who are charged just £10 to head to Australia with the promise of a better home, job prospects, and quality of life but instead find themselves confronted with poor living conditions and hostile attitudes.
Joining creator Danny Brocklehurst (Brassic, Ordinary Lies, Stay Close) on the writing team are Ryan Griffen, creator of Cleverman for ABC Australia, Smita Bhide who wrote The Indian Detective alongside Big Light Productions’ Frank Spotnitz for Netflix and CTV, and Brassic writer Ava Pickett.
Brocklehurst said the series is “a big bold character piece about what it means to start again, to be an outsider in a new land. It asks questions about success and failure, identity, parenthood and belonging.
“The assisted migration programme is a little-known part of British and Australian history but offers endless stories about the people who travelled to the other side of the world in search of a better life.”
The series was commissioned by former director of BBC drama Piers Wenger.
Co-exec producers are Eleven co-founders and co-creative directors Joel Wilson and Jamie Campbell and exec producer Olivia Trench, supported by BBC drama commissioning editor Tommy Bulfin and Stan chief content officer Cailah Scobie and head of scripted Amanda Duthie.
Wilson said Brocklehurst is “deeply passionate about the stories of the hundreds of thousands who took part in the assisted migration scheme”.
Bulfin added that the “timely [story] perfectly captures the courage and determination of our brilliant British migrants as they uproot their entire lives and try to adjust to a new life in an often hostile environment.”
The BBC and Stan’s Australia-based co-production The Tourist, from All3Media label Two Brothers’ Pictures, aired in January to 6.3m (25.7%) viewers after 28 days to become the most-watched series on BBC iPlayer by March.
Scobie welcomed the latest “bold and unflinching” BBC partnership, saying that international co-productions “play a major part” in expanding the Stan slate.
Sony Pictures Television (SPT) is the distributor.
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