The best-selling fourth book by lesbian author Sarah Waters, The Night Watch, is being adapted into a television drama for BBC 2.

A stellar cast has been announced for the show that includes Anna Maxwell Martin, who played the lead role in the 2008 TV adaptation of Poppy Shakespeare, Claire Foy, from Little Dorrit, Jodie Whittaker, of Accused, and Harry Treadaway, from Fish Tank.

Maxwell Martin will play the character of Kay, Foy will play Helen and Whittaker will play Viv.

It is the fourth of Waters’ novels to be adapted for television, following on from the succeses of Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith and Affinity.

The show is being made by BBC Drama Production and is being adapted for the screen by the British writer Paula Milne, who is responsible for working on Small Island, The Virgin Queen and The Politician’s Wife.

She said she was attracted to the project by the novel’s theme of “invisibility”.

“[In The Night Watch] under the deathly mantle of darkness as the air raid sirens wailed, Sarah Waters’ characters found an invisible area to explore their sexuality. In that sense it is truly a noir novel,” she said.

“Add to that its wayward structure, jettisoning the story from the present back into the past, it was simply a challenge I couldn’t resist.”

Waters’ novel is set in 1940s London during the Second World War. It explores the lives of several characters who break down barriers of sexual convention in the upheaval of the Blitz.

It won much critical acclaim on its release, winning the Lambda Literary Prize in 2007 and being shortlisted for both the Orange Prize for Fiction (2006) and the Man Booker Prize for Fiction (2006).

The filming of the one-off 90-minute drama begins this week. It is not yet known when the show will be shown on BBC 2.

Comments are closed.