Brit talent to steer BBC crime series set in NZ

Novelist and screenwriter Neil Cross at his Wellington home. (Mark MItchell)

The producers of Downton Abbey and a Kiwi-based Emmy Award-nominated writer have united to create a major crime series set in New Zealand.

The "darkly eccentric" drama, developed for the BBC and provisionally titled Bay of Plenty, will follow a London detective's move to Rotorua with her husband and kids.

The series, with six to eight episodes, was conceived by the creative director of Kiwi company Libertine Pictures, novelist and screenwriter Neil Cross. He has worked on the BBC's Dr Who, Spooks and Luther - for which star Idris Elba of The Wire fame won a Golden Globe.

The series will feature both Kiwi and international actors, and a New Zealand crew.

In the tradition of shows such as Orange is the New Black, Homeland and The Good Wife, Bay of Plenty's two leads will be women - the British detective and her Kiwi partner.

"Strong leads are very much a signature of Neil's work, especially when you look at Luther," Libertine's managing director Richard Fletcher said.

Though he was coy about the identity of the lead actor, Fletcher said Cross had written the script with someone in mind. "That may not necessarily be the person we go with, it just helps him find a reference point."

He said the intention, apart from the British cop and her family, was that the core cast be from New Zealand.

Fletcher also cited dark comedy and crime dramas Twin Peaks and Fargo as influencing the show, which will be produced by London-based company Carnival Films - the creators of Downton Abbey, Agatha Christie's Poirot and Hotel Babylon, a partnership he described as a "coup".

"They carry enormous weight in the market with the UK broadcasters and are enormously experienced and successful producers."

Bay of Plenty would play on the idea that New Zealand was a paradise to escape to, which Fletcher said was part of the British psyche.

"The idea of the series is that from an outsider's perspective this is paradise ... It may seem that way but that's not necessarily how it's going to be.

"[Rotorua is] a strange and unique landscape so that gives the opportunity to put a bit of a twist on it."

He said filming of Bay of Plenty was expected to begin in the second half of next year and be on screens in 2016.

British-born Cross, one of three owners of Libertine, has lived in Wellington with his wife and two sons since 2002.

As well as penning TV series, he worked with Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro on the 2013 horror film Mama. He has been nominated for two Emmy awards and his novel Always the Sun was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2004.

Fletcher, who was associate producer of 2010 hit Kiwi film Boy, said Cross was passionate about doing a New Zealand project and the pair had worked together for about five years.

He expected Bay of Plenty would be the first major New Zealand-originated television production to receive the Government's New Zealand Screen Production Grant (NZSPG), since the scheme launched in April.

The BBC was also a backer on Jane Campion's acclaimed Queenstown-set 2013 crime series Top of the Lake which meant it was screened on the company's Sky channel, UKTV, in New Zealand