Intrigue, showmanship and high stakes negotiation are central to the plot of Wolf Hall – and also to the annual television sales event that launches in Liverpool next weekend. With millions of pounds at their disposal, representatives of the world’s broadcast networks will soon descend on the city to sample Britain’s best publicly funded television.
And this year there is one programme at the top of their shopping list: the hit BBC series based on Hilary Mantel’s book, starring Mark Rylance. Even before the Showcase convention opens, BBC Worldwide has confirmed that Wolf Hall has been sold to the channel Arte for screening in both France and Germany.
SVT Sweden, DR Denmark and BBC First in Australia have also picked up the series and two other big deals are said to be in the offing, making the acclaimed drama directed by Peter Kosminsky the most sought-after in years. Rights to screen the series in the US go to its production partner, Masterpiece.
The international sales arm of the BBC now claims the corporation is the biggest producer of television outside Hollywood, and this year it has 2,800 hours of shows to sell. The producers organisation Pact has calculated that British TV exports for 2013-14 were worth £1.28bn. After watching the first episode of Wolf Hall, Stephen Mowbray, of SVT, the Swedish national broadcaster, said: “I loved it. There is a finesse in the acting you don’t often see, a gradual build-up of tension that draws the viewer deeply into the story. I can’t wait to see more.”
To reflect the BBC’s confidence in the drama, Liverpool cathedral is being redecorated in the manner of a Tudor hall and stars from the show, including Mark Gatiss and Jonathan Pryce, will make a special appearance on 24 February, joined by Kosminsky and screenwriter Peter Straughan.
“British drama is incredibly popular internationally right now. From the success of Sherlock in China to the recent Golden Globe for The Honourable Woman in the US, our drama is enjoying both mainstream and critical acclaim,” said Paul Dempsey, president, global markets, at BBC Worldwide.
“This is a good time to be bringing a series of the quality of Wolf Hall to the market. Some good early pre-sales to big clients give an indication of the excitement around this title and we are expecting a lot of interest when we officially launch it.”
Each year more than 700 international buyers fly in to attend three days of screenings and presentations at Showcase, which is now the world’s biggest trade fair for a single distributor. While in Liverpool the delegates will spend between six and eight hours a day watching content inside one of around 600 specially designed viewing booths. And it is drama that now regularly leads the promotional charge. “The importance of drama is reflected in the catalogue of programmes we present to buyers. We are launching 25% more drama titles than last year, having invested almost 50% more in them,” said Dempsey.
Actors Trevor Eve and Kris Marshall, stars respectively of The Interceptor and Death in Paradise, will also attend the festival to promote sales of their popular shows. Acclaimed veteran writer Jimmy McGovern will be on hand to draw attention to his new seven-episode series Banished. Natural history is also a dominant British brand, led this year by The Hunt, a series made by Alastair Fothergill, who worked with David Attenborough on Planet Earth and Frozen Planet.
Boy bands are on the menu too. The Backstreet Boys are to fly to Liverpool from the US this week to promote Show ’Em What You’re Made Of, a new documentary about the rollercoaster career of the Florida band. Their British successors, One Direction, will also be present, but on screen only in the form of the concert film One Direction: Where We Are – Live from San Siro, featuring performance from last year’s highest-grossing tour.
However it is Rylance, who admits today on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 that he was such a shy boy he did not speak properly until he was six, who will be the absent star of the event. Wolf Hall, in which he plays Henry VIII’s cunning adviser Thomas Cromwell, was first screened last month on BBC2 to almost 4m viewers, making it the channel’s biggest original drama series for 10 years. He will tell presenter Kirsty Young that he is braced for greater recognition on British streets and abroad than his long stage career has ever earned him.
The Bafta and Tony award-winning actor said he is content that worldwide fame came to him late. “I feel happy to be coming to it at the age of 54 and 55 rather than 20 or 21,” he said. “I feel like I have dodged a bullet there. It is quite a difficult fate to hit this kind of world then, where there is a lot of risk and yet a lot of people saying ‘great’, ‘fantastic’ to you. There is a circle of people being very positive all the time.”
Talking of the death of his stepdaughter, Nataasha van Kampen, in 2012, he tells Young that he believes acting is “about hiding and revealing” and, choosing the Sufi poetry of Rumi as his desert island reading, he explains the appeal of acting: “Life seems so chaotic and in a play you are part of a story,” he said.
