Parts of BBC drama to be filmed in Malta
The BBC is to start filming a three-part drama, Daniel Deronda, in Malta next month in a variety of locations, including Bighi, the Vittoriosa waterfront and Palazzo Parisio. The BBC contacted the Malta Film Commission in April to ask about filming on...
The BBC is to start filming a three-part drama, Daniel Deronda, in Malta next month in a variety of locations, including Bighi, the Vittoriosa waterfront and Palazzo Parisio.
The BBC contacted the Malta Film Commission in April to ask about filming on the island and visited for a recce shortly after.
Grand Harbour is doubling as the port of Genoa, an MFC representative said.
Filming will last for almost a week, three days of which will be taken up at Palazzo Parisio.
Daniel Deronda is also being filmed on location in London, Edinburgh, Somerset and Surrey over the next 11 weeks.
Meanwhile, the USA Cable mini-series, Helen of Troy, is busy in pre-production. Filming also starts next month until November at Fort Ricasoli and other locations.
While work on both productions is under way, the Film Commission continues to receive and deal with requests from as far afield as India and Nepal, the representative said.
George Eliot's 1876 novel, Daniel Deronda, one of literature's most emotionally intense masterpieces, has been adapted for the screen by award-winning writer Andrew Davies, who described it as "highly original and modern in its feel".
Davies received critical acclaim for his TV version of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now.
The drama is being directed by Tom Hooper (Love in a Cold Climate) and the cast includes Iris star Hugh Bonneville, as well as Edward Fox, Romola Garai, Hugh Dancy, Jodhi May, Celia Imrie and Amanda Root.
Talks are still under way to bring Greta Scacchi and Barbara Hershey on board, an article on the BBC website said.
Daniel Deronda is reuniting Davies with producer Louis Marks - the team behind the BBC's acclaimed version of Middlemarch.
Set in the 1860s, Daniel Deronda is a passionate, intense love story, which takes both hero and heroine, Daniel Deronda (Hugh Dancy) and Gwendolen Harleth (Romola Garai), on a journey of eventual self-fulfillment.
Daniel Deronda is a man torn between his feelings for the vivacious Gwendolen Harleth and a young Jewish woman, Mirah Lapidoth (Jodhi May).
Gwendolen is forced into an oppressive marriage with Henleigh Grandcourt (Hugh Bonneville), who wants to shape her into his ideal, aristocratic wife.
BBC drama commissioning controller Jane Tranter has said that "like his recent adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, its themes are as relevant today as they were in 1876 when the novel was published".