BBC acquires Australian drama The Slap

British public broadcaster the BBC has acquired Australian drama The Slap after striking a deal with distributor DCD Rights.

The broadcaster will air the 8x1hour drama, which is an adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ novel of the same name, on its arts and culture digital network BBC Four.

The series was produced by Australian indie Matchbox Pictures in association with Film Victoria for Australian public broadcaster ABC. DCD Rights recently picked up the international rights and will be selling the series at MIPCOM.

The show, which stars Hotel Rwanda‘s Sophie Okonedo, centres around an incident at a barbeque where a man slaps a child that is not his child. It looks at the “shattering repercussions of a single event on a group of family and friends”.

Sue Deeks, head of programme acquisition at the BBC, said: “This fine Australian adaptation brings the novel’s keen-eyed dissection of suburban living to the screen with tremendous performances – it is a truly powerful, compelling and thought-provoking watch.”

Pilar Perez, SVP, acquisitions, DCD Rights, added: “Our distribution reach and access to significant funding enables us to invest in exciting new productions around the world, and we are constantly on the look out for programming with huge international appeal such as The Slap“.