The BBC has unveiled the casting of the leads for drama series The Ministry of Time from A24 as filming begins in and around London. It will star Aoife Hinds (Dune: Prophecy, Normal People) as Sophy and Billy Howle (The Perfect Couple, Under the Banner of Heaven) as Commander Graham Gore.
The Ministry of Time is based on Kaliane Bradley’s bestselling debut novel of the same name, adapted by Alice Birch (Normal People, The End We Start From, Dead Ringers), with Aneil Karia (Hamlet, The Gold, Surge) serving as the lead director.
The six-part series will be produced by A24 (Beef, Such Brave Girls, Dreaming Whilst Black) for BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Amediateka, Bell Media’s Crave, Binge Australia and ZDF are set to co-produce the series.
The Ministry of Time of the novel is “a newly established government department gathering ‘expats’ from across history in an experiment to test the viability of time-travel,” reads a synopsis. “Our heroine Sophy achieves a hard-fought promotion in the civil service, only to learn that her role is to help a time traveller acclimatize to the modern world as part of a top-secret Ministry program. Commander Graham Gore is a Victorian polar explorer and one of several ‘expats’ from history who are now part of the Ministry’s extraordinary experiment. The professional friendship between Sophy and Graham develops into an intense forbidden romance that reveals the transporting power of love across centuries, just as the sinister nature of the Ministry’s true intentions increasingly puts them in danger.”
Billy Howle, courtesy of Iona Wolff
Said The Ministry of Time author Bradley: “This is very exciting, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. If I could travel back in time six years to tell past me what was going to happen with that polar explorer she’d just started writing about, I think she would have done some very Victorian swooning.”
Lindsay Salt, director of BBC Drama, called The Ministry of Time “a truly distinctive, genre-defying series with a beautiful central relationship, and we are thrilled to have Aoife and Billy leading the cast.” She added: “Kaliane Bradley has created two complex, compelling characters at the heart of this brilliant story, which has been beautifully adapted by Alice Birch. We can’t wait for BBC viewers to join us on this epic adventure.”
The Ministry of Time was commissioned by Salt and is executive produced by A24, Birch, Aneil Karia and Jo McClellan for the BBC. Frances du Pille (The Sixth Commandment, What It Feels Like for a Girl) is the producer. The series will be distributed internationally by A24.
