See-Saw Films (part of the Mediawan group) has optioned Emma Forrest’s upcoming novel Father Figure.
The book will be adapted for television by See-Saw’s label, Fanboy, run by executive producer Patrick Walters. Following Fanboy’s hit series Sweetpea for Sky Atlantic, and the option of Harry Trevaldwyn’s Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King, the company next turns its attention to Forrest’s coming-of-age thriller.
The story follows Gail, a troubled scholarship student at the exclusive girls’ school Saint Saviours. “Impulsive, bored, and yearning for connection, she’s at that dangerous age when you want to be picked up by men and driven home by your mother,” a plot synopsis reads. “Ezra is rich, powerful, and successful, haunted by the wildness of his youth — and by anxiety over his teenage daughter, Agata. When Agata joins Saint Saviours, Gail and Ezra’s lives collide, setting off a chain of events more dangerous than either could ever predict.”
Also executive producing the series will be Helen Gregory, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Forrest herself.
Father Figure is the latest in a series of literary options for See-Saw, who also recently acquired the rights to Shifters by Benedict Lombe, and Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal, alongside a first look deal with writer Ben Vanstone.
Forrest’s book will be published on July 3 with Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of Orion Publishing Group.
“Not to be too on theme, but I am as giddy as an unbalanced teenage girl to have found at See-Saw and fanboy people so connected to my material, whose ambition and aesthetic so closely mirror my own,” said Forrest. “I know Patrick and Natasha are without question the ones to help me translate my novel to must watch TV.”
Walters added: “Father Figure is an incredible novel and we’re so excited to be adapting it for television. Emma is a singular talent I’ve long admired since the seminal Your Voice In My Head. In Gail she has created an extraordinary literary heroine who I’ve no doubt will burst on to the screen with an electric force.”