Starz boards BBC Two Poliakoff drama

US premium cable channel Starz has signed on as coproducer of BBC Two drama Close to the Enemy, which comes from writer Stephen Poliakoff.

The deal with distributor All3Media International hands Starz exclusive US premium rights to the six-part drama.

Writer Poliakoff was attached to previous Starz drama Dancing on the Edge. He will write and direct the new show, with Helen Flint (Galavant) and Hilary Bevan Jones (Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot) executive producing.

The show will debut in the UK on BBC Two and US on Starz next year. Little Island produces in association with Bevan Jones’s Endor Productions and Playground Entertainment, which is a new copro partner and whose UK chief, Louise Pedersen, is the former boss of All3 International.

Set in a bomb-damaged London hotel just after World War II, the series follows a former British intelligence officer, who must ensure a captured German scientist hands over secret technology crucial to national security. Jim Sturgess (One Day) stars.

Starz managing director Carmi Zlotnik said the channel’s viewers would find the thriller “extremely compelling”, while All3 International senior VP, sales Stephen Driscoll said new international deals would be announced “in the very near future”.