Four decades after the television adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s novel A Woman of Substance generated a record audience, Channel 4 is preparing to release a second.
The broadcaster has commissioned an eight-part reimagining of the “revenge romp” which has sold more than 30 million copies since its release in 1979.
The original three-part series, starring Jenny Seagrove and Liam Neeson, was watched by 13 million people in 1985 — a record audience for Channel 4 that still stands.
Producers said that the original story, “packed full of rolling Yorkshire hills, hairspray, shoulder pads and heaving bosoms”, remains as relevant to modern audiences as it did in the 1980s.
The adaptation was announced three months after the death of Taylor Bradford, aged 91. Vicki Downey, trustee of the Barbara Taylor Bradford Trust, which manages her estate’s literary and media rights, said that it was her dream to see the book reimagined.
“It is a classic of its genre,” Downey said. “In many ways, A Woman of Substance was one of the first female empowerment novels, portraying a woman driven not by love or the pursuit of it, but by her determination to gain power, protect and provide for others, and, above all, to succeed.”
The story follows Emma Harte from her humble beginnings as an impoverished maid in Yorkshire in 1911 to becoming the world’s richest woman who lives in a luxury New York penthouse.
Ollie Madden, director of drama at Channel 4, said that Harte’s “superpower” is weaponising the degree to which men underestimate her. “Watching her do that through the decades, experiencing her epic journey from housemaid to mogul, promises to be as thrillingly entertaining as it is fiercely relevant,” he said.
The original 1980s adaptation garnered a less effusive review from The Times’s television critic at the time. “There is something almost pornographic about the direct appeal of this female-orientated genre to a lowest common denominator of sentiment,” Celia Brayfield wrote. “It is highly effective … but it is not useful or ennobling.”
A Woman of Substance is one of ten of Taylor Bradford’s novels to have been adapted for TV. Channel 4 is understood to be considering adapting the remaining six books in the Emma Harte series if the reboot proves successful.
They will be hoping to emulate the performance of Rivals, Disney+’s adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s “bonkbuster”, which was watched by more than 2 million people in the four weeks after its October launch and has been commissioned for a second series.
Casting is yet to be announced for A Woman of Substance, which will be adapted by Katherine Jakeways and Roanne Bardsley, who wrote Apple TV+’s The Buccaneers.
It forms part of a new slate of Channel 4 drama including Pierre, a legal drama starring David Harewood, and the second series of Peter Kosminsky’s thriller series The Undeclared War, starring Simon Pegg.
