LONDON – Red Arrow Studios International has picked up the distribution rights to major new drama series Death and Nightingales, based on Eugene McCabe’s modern Irish classic novel. Adapted and directed by Allan Cubitt (The Fall), the 3 x 60’ drama series is an Imaginarium and Soho Moon Pictures production for BBC Two.

Imaginarium’s Jonathan Cavendish (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) is on board to produce, with James Mitchell (Dreams of a Life) for Soho Moon Pictures and Tommy Bulfin (Peaky Blinders) for BBC Two as Executive Producers. The series was commissioned by Patrick Holland and Piers Wenger, Controller of BBC Drama and is being supported by Northern Ireland Screen.

McCabe’s Death and Nightingales is a riveting story of love, betrayal, deception and revenge, set in the beautiful, haunting countryside of Fermanagh, Ireland in 1885: a place where neighbours observe each other and inform; a world of spies, confessions and double dealing; and where a pervading sense of beauty is shot through with menace and impending doom.

Set over a desperately tense 24-hour period, it is Beth Winters’ 25th birthday – the day she has decided to join the charming Liam Ward and escape from her limited life and difficult and complex relationship with her Protestant landowner stepfather, Billy. As decades of pain and betrayal finally build to a devastating climax, this powerful and gripping drama illuminates tensions that tear both families and nations apart.

Alex Fraser, who joined Red Arrow Studios International as SVP of Acquisitions earlier this year, working across scripted and non-scripted for the company, concluded the acquisition.