The BBC has found its leads for ‘The Ministry of Time’, the new six-part A24 drama adapted from Kaliane Bradley’s bestselling novel, with Aoife Hinds (Normal People, Dune: Prophecy) and Billy Howle (The Perfect Couple, Under the Banner of Heaven) taking the central roles as filming gets underway in and around London.
Adapted for television by Alice Birch (Normal People, The End We Start From, Dead Ringers), the series follows Sophy, played by Hinds, a civil servant who lands a hard-fought promotion only to discover her new job is rather more unusual than expected.
The newly established Ministry of Time is a government department gathering “expats” from across history to test whether time travel is actually viable. Sophy is assigned to help one of those travellers acclimatise to the modern world as part of the top-secret programme.
That traveller is Commander Graham Gore, played by Howle, a Victorian polar explorer who suddenly finds himself very far from his own time. What begins as a professional relationship between Sophy and Graham develops into an intense forbidden romance, while the pair also begin to uncover the increasingly sinister truth behind the Ministry’s experiments.
So, you know, the standard civil service experience.
Author Kaliane Bradley seems understandably delighted to see ‘The Ministry of Time’ making the jump from page to screen.
“This is very exciting and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. If I could travel back in time six years to tell past me what was going to happen with that polar explorer she’d just started writing about, I think she would have done some very Victorian swooning.”
Aneil Karia (Hamlet, The Gold, Surge) serves as lead director on the six-part series, which comes from A24, the studio behind Beef, Such Brave Girls and Dreaming Whilst Black.
“The Ministry of Time is a truly distinctive, genre-defying series with a beautiful central relationship and we are thrilled to have Aoife and Billy leading the cast. Kaliane Bradley has created two complex, compelling characters at the heart of this brilliant story, which has been beautifully adapted by Alice Birch. We can’t wait for BBC viewers to join us on this epic adventure,” said Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama.
Alongside Birch, Bradley and Karia, A24 executive produces the series, with Jo McClellan executive producing for the BBC. Frances du Pille (The Sixth Commandment, What It Feels Like for a Girl) serves as producer. Amediateka, Bell Media’s Crave, Binge Australia and ZDF are co-producing, while A24 will handle international distribution.
Further casting is still to be announced, but with production now underway, we should hopefully start hearing more about the other historical “expats” joining the Ministry before too long.
‘The Ministry of Time’ will air on BBC iPlayer and BBC One, with a premiere date still to be announced.
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