The BBC has announced that the hit film Boiling Point, starring Stephen Graham, is being made into a TV drama. The 2021 feature film, set in a bustling restaurant, is coming to BBC One and iPlayer as a five-part series.
The original film follows Andy (Graham), the head chef of a top London restaurant, on the busiest night of the year. As the evening unfolds and tensions between customers and staff grow, Andy’s personal and professional troubles threaten to explode, with devastating consequences.
Few details have been given about the plot of the upcoming series, but we do know that it will pick up six months on from where the film left off and that it will follow sous chef Carly (Vinette Robinson), who is now the head chef at her own restaurant. Many of the original cast is also set to reprise their roles, including Hannah Walters as Emily.
The film’s co-writer and director, Philip Baratini, will return to direct the first two episodes, alongside co-writer James Cummings and producers Hester Ruoff and Bart Ruspoli. Baratini says, “When we made the Boiling Point feature film, there were so many ideas left on the whiteboard that it always felt like a possibility we would come back to this world. Restaurants are an intersection of different people from different backgrounds, all dealing with a variety of social issues and I am so proud to be using our series as a vehicle to tell those stories with a cast of characters that we have already fallen in love with. Food will fly and tears will fall!”
The movie’s most distinctive feature is that it is filmed in a single 90-minute take, giving the viewing experience immediacy and fluidity. While the forthcoming series marks a change in medium, audiences should still expect some impressive visuals. Graham and Walters, both executive producers, say: “Although we have hung up our feature-length one-shot boots, our audiences can still be excited by extraordinarily lengthy shots and camera techniques that will complement the pure naturalism that was the essence and soul of the film.”
Boiling Point received worldwide critical acclaim, including four BAFTA nominations, and recently reached a wider audience through its release on Netflix. The BBC series is set to begin filming early next year.
Words by Erin Zammitt
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