St Mary’s Academic’s Book to be Adapted for Television

A book written by Christie Watson, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at St Mary’s University, Twickenham is to be turned into a television series.

Christie’s The Language of Kindness will be adapted for television after Mammoth Screen, the British production company behind hit dramas including Poldark and Victoria, optioned the rights.

The book, which is being published by Chatto & Windus on Thursday 3^rd May, gives a series of acts of care, compassion and kindness in the nursing profession.

Christie, who was a nurse for 20 years at Great Ormond Street Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and St Mary’s Hospitals, uses her book to tell stories including the nursing of a premature baby who has miraculously made it through the night and a patient’s agonising heart-lung transplant.

The memoir was subject of a bidding war between 14 different publishers in 2016 before Chatto & Windus won the rights, with Christie previously publishing books including Tiny Sunbirds Far Away and Where Women Are Kings.

Mammoth Screen has commissioned Rachel Bennette, who adapted Zadie Smith’s NW for BBC Two and has also worked on BBC and Amazon drama Ripper Street and Lark Rise To Candleford, to adapt Christie’s novel for television.

Christie said of the news, “I am delighted to be working with Mammoth Screen in order to develop a realistic television drama about nursing and kindness.”