Update: The project’s title has been changed from “I, Jack White” to “I, Jack Wright.”
“Unforgotten” creator Chris Lang is working on a new drama titled “I, Jack White,” PvNew has learned.
The six-part series, which will start shooting in London later this month, tells the story of a man named Jack White who dies by suicide — or so his sprawling family are led to believe.
But when his numerous wives and children stumble across White’s secret last will, the document throws a grenade into their lives and leads them to question whether how well they knew Jack White after all.
Federation Stories is producing the project for BBC Studios-owned U.K. network UKTV.
Tom Vaughan (“What Happens in Vegas”) is set to direct while Federation’s Polly Williams and Arielle Gottlieb are exec producers.
Lang previously wrote ITV thriller “The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe” about the true story of a man who faked his own death in a canoe accident, starring Monica Dolan and Eddie Marsan, and “Innocent,” about people wrongly convicted rebuilding their lives, which he co-created with Matthew Arlidge.
The writer has said previously his starting point for penning a drama is “what could I forgive, and what could I not forgive? And is there anything that you couldn’t forgive or shouldn’t try to forgive?”
“When you start with that position, you can draw very dark characters who have done heinous things, but if you’re constantly trying to find some sense of the possibility of redemption, forgiveness, and compassion, then it makes a more interesting story, because what it does is it humanizes everyone,” he told PBS. “It’s the quote from ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ ‘The quality of mercy is not strained.’ It’s basically saying that it benefits both the giver and the givee. And it’s the same—mercy or compassion or forgiveness, all of these things—if we can’t forgive people…then we’re done for.”
Reps for UKTV and Federation Stories declined to comment.
