The BBC is turning The Ministry of Time into a six-part television series for the network and BBC iPlayer.
It is an adaptation of Kaliane Bradley's 2024 debut novel in which a secret British government department gathers "expats," which in the novel, are historical figures rescued from certain death and looks to test if time travel is real.
Per the BBC, the official synopsis for the series reads, "The Ministry of Time is a newly established government department gathering ‘expats’ from across history in an experiment to test the viability of time-travel. Our heroine Sophy (Aoife Hinds) achieves a hard-fought promotion in the civil service, only to learn that her role as a ‘bridge’ is to help a time traveller acclimatise to the modern world as part of a top-secret Ministry programme. Commander Graham Gore (Billy Howle) is a Victorian polar explorer and one of several ‘expats’ from history who are now part of the Ministry’s extraordinary experiment."
Hinds and Howle were previously announced as leading the series and it's now been confirmed that they'll be joined by:
- Hong Chau (The Whale, Wuthering Heights) as Adele
- Adeel Akhtar (Down Cemetery Road, Sherwood) as Quentin Ackerly
- Tamara Lawrance (Get Millie Black, Mr Loverman) as Simellia
- Emily Fairn (The Responder, House of Guinness) as Margaret Kemble
- Josh Finan (Say Nothing, Waiting For The Out) as Captain Arthur Reginald-Smyth
- Aisling Loftus (Sherwood, War & Peace) as Anne Spencer
- Tawfeek Barhom (Cairo Conspiracy, The Way of the Wind) as Brigadier
- Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (120 Beats Per Minute, Persian Lessons) as Salese
- Ciarán Hinds (Belfast, Munich) as Peter
- Hélène Patarot (Paris, Je T'aime, Whitetail) as Channary
Executive-produced by A24, the novel was adapted for television by writer Alice Birch (Normal People) with Aneil Karia serving as the lead director.
In a press statement, author Kaliane Bradley remarked: “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, added: “The Ministry of Time is a truly distinctive, genre-defying series with a beautiful central relationship and we are thrilled to have Aoife and Billy leading the cast. 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."
Filming is expected to begin soon and shoot on-location in London.
The author wrote the novel during the COVID-19 pandemic and was inspired by AMC's The Terror, which also features Graham Gore as a character.
Gore is a real-life historical figure who was an English officer of the Royal Navy and polar explorer who participated in two expeditions to the Arctic.
He infamously disappeared during an 1845 expedition when his ship became trapped in ice around King William Island, which is part of the Arctic Archipelago.