Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival, BBC Four Controller, Richard Klein announced plans for two 90-minute film adaptations of Alan Furst’s acclaimed spy novels! The first to be commissioned is The Spies Of Warsaw, adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais for BBC Four from Fresh Pictures.
Alan Furst, widely recognised as the current master of the espionage novel, will bring a combination of historically located, intelligent narratives, interlaced with flawed, romantic and compelling characters to the channel. Klein says: "Alan Furst is one of the world's finest writers on war and the costs of war on human relationships. It is with great pleasure that I can confirm that BBC Four will be dramatising for television one of his best known novels, The Spies Of Warsaw. Furst and Four are a very good fit and I hope our audiences will enjoy the result of this collaboration."
The Spies of Warsaw evokes a Europe stumbling into the Second World War. French and German operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle, drawn ever deeper into a world of abduction, betrayal and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw.
Richard Fell, Head of Drama, Fresh Pictures, says: "Dick and Ian's scripts have brilliantly caught the extraordinary atmosphere of Alan Furst's books. The films will bring to life these compelling thrillers set against the impending disaster of the Second World War."
The Spies of Warsaw is currently available in paperback.
