Sky Living orders Timothy Spall poltergeist drama

BSkyB has ordered a new three-part poltergeist drama, TBI has learned, as the pay TV broadcaster continues to ramp-up investment in original content.

The Enfield Haunting has just entered production in the UK. The three-parter is based based on the Guy Lyon Mayfair non-fiction book about the ‘Enfield Poltergeist’, This House is Haunted: The True Story of a Poltergeist.

The case, and subsequent investigation, followed a series of mysterious events that occurred in a house in the north London town of Enfield in the late 1970s. The ghostly happenings were reportedly witnessed by thirty different people.

UK indie producer Eleven Film is making the dramatisation of the paranormal events and the investigation into them. Timothy Spall (Sweeney Todd) and Mathew Macfadyen (The Three Musketeers) will both star in the new drama.

The events have been covered on UK television before, notably in a 1992 in the BBC’s Ghostwatch and later in 2007 in Channel 4 documentary Interview with a Poltergeist.

The limited 3x60mins series will go out on Sky’s Sky Living channel. Sky has a distribution division, Sky Vision, but international sales are expected to land with Entertainment One, which agreed a first-look deal with Eleven Film earlier this year.

Sky has significantly increased its spending on original drama, factual and entertainment programming in recent years. It has committed to grow that content spend to £600 million (US$1 billion) this year.