House founders Tessa Ross and Juliette Howell have attached some eye-catching creatives to the project, including Outlaw King and Traitors writer Bash Doran, and John Crowley, the two-time BAFTA-winning director who helmed Saoirse Ronan starrer Brooklyn.
Life After Life tells the vivid story of the alternate lives of Ursula Todd, who dies one night in 1910, only to be born and survive on the same night. She finds herself time and again, living and dying in different circumstances only to be reborn into a new, alternative iteration of life once more. Her journey spans two World Wars and an encounter with Hitler.
Ross and Howell said Doran’s scripts capture the “warmth and scale” of Atkinson’s story, as well as the characters who inhabit the world she created. The duo added that Crowley will bring “huge heart” and “visual flair” to the series. “All human life is here, told through the experiences of Ursula who keeps on dying and being reborn,” they said.
House Productions will shoot Life After Life in spring 2021. Doran and Crowley executive produce, as does Atkinson. Ross and Howell are executive producers for House Productions and Lucy Richer for the BBC. The series was commissioned by BBC drama director Piers Wenger. BBC Studios is selling the show internationally.
It marks House’s second sizeable commission in recent days after the company partnered with Netflix on an adaptation of Stuart Turton’s murder mystery The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Sophie Petzal is penning the seven-part series.