Rose Ayling-Ellis To Lead TV Adaptation Of Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson Novel About Deaf Journalist

Rose Ayling-Ellis is leading a TV adaptation of Will Dean’s first Tuva Moodyson novel about a deaf journalist in development with Death in Paradise producer Red Planet Pictures.

The Strictly Come Dancing winner is also exec producing TUVA [working title], which is being forged as a six-part returning crime thriller version of Dean’s first novel in the series, Dark Pines. The TV series will move the action from Sweden to the UK.

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In Dark Pines, Moodyson moves back to her hometown in the wilds of Scotland and finds herself working on a small-time local paper, desperate for a headline-breaking scoop. When a serial killer who has remained dormant for 20 years begins to kill again in the small community, she finds herself with a front-page story that could make her career, but will it lead to danger?

Former EastEnders star Ayling-Ellis became the first deaf winner of Strictly Come Dancing in 2021 and has since landed roles in the likes of ITV’s Code of Silence. She is also developing a comedy-drama about deaf women dating in London.

Ayling-Ellis is EPing TUVA with Belinda Campbell, Caroline Skinner and the show’s writer Charlotte Jones (The Halcyon).

“As soon as I read Charlotte’s scripts and then dived further into Will’s books, I just knew this was a role I wanted to play and a world I wanted to explore,” said Ayling-Ellis.

Red Planet has secured the rights to all novels in the Moodyson crime series. The Asacha Media Group-backed drama outfit is also working on adaptations of books by Louise Candlish and Anthony Johnston’s The Exphoria Code.

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