All Creatures Great and Small has new cast members and first looks to share for its upcoming sixth season. The series, based on James Herriot’s books is produced by BAFTA and Playground (Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light) and Masterpiece on PBS, in association with global partner All3Media International.

The new season will consist of six episodes plus a Christmas special. In the U.S., Masterpiece on PBS will air the season in early 2026. In the UK, the show will return to 5 in autumn 2025.

Joining the cast for the new chapter will be Lucy-Jo Hudson (Hollyoaks, Wild at Heart), Gaia Wise (The Dead of Winter, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim), Jonathan Hyde (The Brutalist, Titanic), Philip Martin Brown (Waterloo Road, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy) and Chris Gascoyne (The Feud, Patience).

Glenn Close has landed her next killer TV role.

The eight-time Oscar nominee is set to star as the lead in “Maud” for U.K. network Channel 4. Written by Nina Raine and Moses Raine (behind acclaimed play “Donkey Heart”) and developed and produced by Playground for Sony Pictures Television, the six-part series is based on the short story collections “An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good” and “An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed” by bestselling Swedish crime writer Helene Tursten.

Period drama The Hardacres first debuted in October and became a huge hit with viewers on 5. Now, finally, fans have got word on the show's future.

The series, which comes from Playground, the company behind All Creatures Great and Small, will officially return for a second season. The run will, like the first, be made up of six episodes.

Welcome to my second edition of The Mavens this week, a series of conversations with some of the smartest people I know in this industry to talk about the state of the business. These are people who have accomplished big things in their time and continue doing so, and who have, notably, built careers with longevity, and more importantly, have the ability to share their thoughts uncensored.

My second Maven is acclaimed, award-winning producer Colin Callender, one of the pioneers of British television and theater. After an early career in the British theatre, his TV breakthrough was the Emmy-winning 1983 adaptation of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Following the massive success of that production, he moved into a top job at HBO, becoming executive producer of the then-cable network’s newly formed East Coast production unit. At HBO, Callender was responsible for shepherding a plethora of hits, including the Emmy-winning miniseries Angels in America from Mike Nichols, Empire Falls with Paul Newman, and John Adams, which held the record for the most Emmys in a single year until last year, when Shōgun surpassed it.

One of only a handful of people to have won multiple Emmy, BAFTA, Olivier, Tony, and Golden Globe awards, Sir Colin Callender, through his work in television, film, and theater, has brought us Wolf Hall, All Creatures Great and Small, John Adams, Angels in America, La Vie en Rose, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the theatrical productions of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, and countless other delights. Now the founder of Playground Entertainment has launched Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (currently airing on Masterpiece on PBS). The series stars Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis, and its final episode will air on April 27. Herewith, Callender shares his key components to the good life. —Ashley Baker

It’s been nearly 40 years since Sir Colin Callender, the prolific British film and TV producer and seasoned media executive, called London his home. And it shows: he very much fits the mould of an American tourist.

Nowadays, when he’s on business in the UK, the Manhattanite likes to take his meetings from a dingy booth at the back of an old-fashioned pub in Mayfair. His favourite order? A thickly battered portion of fish and chips with a pint of Guinness.

It took a decade of maneuvering to finally complete the television adaptation of novelist Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy with the co-stars back on screen, executive producer Colin Callender said at Saturday’s Deadline Contenders TV panel in Los Angeles. 

Joined by actor Damian Lewis, who plays King Henry VIII opposite Mark Rylance’s Thomas Cromwell, the Playground Entertainment founder and chairman made it clear that filming the final chapter without both Lewis and Rylance aboard wasn’t an option, even if the window took a long time to open.

Wolf Hall was one of the year’s biggest artistic triumphs when it premiered in 2015. In addition to generating huge ratings in both Britain and America, the BBC-PBS adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize–winning novels scored near-universal critical acclaim, a Peabody Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA wins for Best Limited Series, and no less than eight Emmy nominations. To some, it might seem surprising that a six-hour period drama about the political machinations of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII in 16th-century England would end up such a smashing success — and lead to an equally acclaimed follow-up, The Mirror and the Light, which premieres in the U.S. this Sunday on Masterpiece. But for Wolf Hall executive producer (and former HBO Films chief) Colin Callender, the show’s success was just a case of history repeating itself.

EXCLUSIVE: “For the first time in my career, I’m genuinely excited and enthusiastic about a work of mine…one that I own, and believe could work marvelously in a different medium…being adapted for the screen,” Watchmen author Alan Moore says in a rare quote about his new fantasy novel, The Great When, getting a TV adaptation. In a competitive bidding situation, Colin Callender‘s production company Playground has landed the rights to the book by the famous graphic novelist, which was published Oct. 1 by Bloomsbury. The Great When is the first in Moore’s planned five-volume Long London series of epic fantasy novels that Playground plans to adapt into a tentpole, multi-season event series.

The course of English history is often mapped out against its Kings and Queens. The Normans, bringing European modernity to a savage isle; the Plantagenets, turning the nation into an international superpower; the Victorians, industrialising our country into a formidable, globe-spanning empire. It is an easy taxonomy, but one that elides the fact that eras are shaped as much by the power behind the throne as by the royals themselves. That’s where Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, the second and final chapter in the BBC’s adaptation of the late Hilary Mantel’s historical novels, comes in.

A lot has changed since early 2015, when Wolf Hall was last on our screens. The UK has been through six prime ministers. President Trump came and went (and may come again before this second series even airs). And Hilary Mantel – who died in 2022, two weeks after Queen Elizabeth II – wrote and published a third novel in her acclaimed historical fiction series about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell. At long last, we have Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (BBC One), six more rich hours of whispered conversations in candlelit, tapestry-draped rooms.

Ireland has long been home to many major Hollywood productions, but an upcoming comedy series goes a little meta, turning the focus on the chaos that ensues when an actual big-budget Hollywood TV show comes to a small Irish town. 

“Small Town Big Story” — Sky Studios, Playground, FilmNation and Hot Cod Productions — was written and directed by Chris O’Dowd and stars Christina Hendricks and Paddy Considine.

The six-part series — due to premiere in the U.K. and Ireland next year and now heading to Mipcom — is set in the fictional town of Drumbán, a rural village of misfits on the border of Ireland. But when a major Hollywood film rolls into town, it throws the spotlight on a secret that’s been kept hidden since the eve of the millennium. 

EXCLUSIVE: Banijay Rights has sold rags-to-riches series The Hardacres to a wealth of territories as the sales giant reveals one of its biggest pre-MIPCOM deal packages with the Cannes confab kicking off next week.

The Channel 5 show from All Creatures Great and Small producer Playground chronicles the loves and fortunes of the working-class Hardacre family as they move from a grimy fish dock to a vast country estate in 1890s Yorkshire, England. The show has sold to BritBox in Australia, TVNZ in New Zealand, TV4 Sweden, MTV in Finland, DR in Denmark, RTÉ in Ireland, BBC First in Benelux and, as previously announced, Movistar Plus+ in Spain. Dazzler Media has acquired home entertainment rights for the series in the UK. It is made in association with Screen Ireland, Red Berry Productions and Newgrange Pictures.

'Wolf Hall' producer Playground is behind the series, which will star Benjamin Wainwright as the French detective.

A new iteration of one of the most beloved detectives in fiction is coming to PBS. The public broadcaster has ordered Maigret, a series based on Georges Simenon’s novels about Jules Maigret, a chief inspector for the Paris police. Production on the series, which stars Benjamin Wainwright as the title character, has begun in Budapest; it will air under PBS' Masterpiece Mystery! banner.

All Creatures Great and Small Season 5 is on the way! The PBS Masterpiece series will officially return on Sunday, January 12, 2025 at 9/8c on PBS. And with the premiere date announcement comes the first official trailer for the new season.

Nicholas Ralph, Callum Woodhouse, Samuel West, and more All Creatures Great and Small stars are featured in the Season 5 trailer revealed on September 6 (above). In it, both James and Tristan return home from war, much to the delight of their loved ones. This marks Woodhouse’s return to the series as Tristan, who was absent from Season 4.

Callum Woodhouse is back! While it was revealed earlier this year that Callum Woodhouse would be reprising his All Creatures Great and Small role as Tristan Farnon, Channel 5 has now revealed a first look at the brand new season.

Not only do the first-look images for season 5 include a cosy group shot of all the main characters, they also show a sneak peek of Tristan back in the fold as well as a shot of him reunited with brother Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West), with Tristan in full military uniform.

EXCLUSIVE: Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley mysteries are being given a new lease of life.

More than 15 years on from the closer of the BBC‘s mid-noughties adaptation, BritBox International, Wolf Hall producer Playground and Salt Films are developing Lynley, a new version, which is being penned by Sherlock writer Steve Thompson and directed by Ed Bazalgette.

Leo Suter (Vikings: Valhalla) and Sofia Barclay (Ted Lasso) are leading the adaptation, playing DI Thomas Lynley and DS Barbara Havers, an aristocratic police detective and maverick sergeant from a working class background. Together, the mismatched duo become a formidable team, bonded by their desire to see justice done, while the series tackles issues around personality, gender and class.

The BBC and Masterpiece PBS have revealed first-look images from Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, the hotly-anticipated miniseries sequel to the 2015 Emmy-nominated Wolf Hall.

Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis reprise their roles as Thomas Cromwell and King Henry VIII in the adaptation of the book by Hilary Mantel, the final novel in her acclaimed Wolf Hall trilogy. If Wolf Hall was about Cromwell’s rise from humble beginnings to become Henry VII’s chief advisor and one of the most powerful men of his age, The Mirror and the Light traces his final years, when King Henry’s reign is teetering on the edge.

The Mirror & the Light is the final instalment of late author Hilary Mantel’s trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, chief advisor to King Henry VIII in sixteenth century England.

The first two novels were adapted for the BBC and PBS Masterpiece in 2015 by writer Peter Straughan and director Peter Kosminsky, via Colin Callender’s Playground Entertainment and All3Media’s Company Pictures.

“All Creatures Great and Small” has been renewed for Seasons 5 and 6, Masterpiece on PBS announced. Each season will include six episodes, in addition to Christmas specials.

Colin Callender CBE, executive producer and CEO of Playground said of the show’s renewal, “Kindness and decency are increasingly rare qualities these days, so it is a blessing to be able to return to the sanctuary of Skeldale House and James Herriot’s beloved characters who represent all that is the best in us. There are no villains in ‘All Creatures’ — just everyday folk trying to get through the day with dignity with the help of a supportive community, family and friends. It’s a lesson for modern times.”

Playground Entertainment and FilmNation’s six-part series set in Drumbán, a fictional village in rural Ireland full of misfits. Hailing from the mind of Moone Boy creator Chris O’Dowd Small Town, Big Story centres around a rural town of rattled misfits on the border of Ireland and another world, and what happens when a Hollywood production rolls into town, throwing a spotlight on a secret that’s been kept hidden since the eve of the Millennium. The series stars Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon) and Christina Hendricks (Mad Men).

O’Dowd said: “I bloody love television, and am most engrossed by stories that bring the remarkable to the everyday. I hope we’ve made a beautiful show that an audience will find funny and will keep people on the edge of their seats…and beyond.”

Small Town, Big Story is one of several original and exclusive titles coming up next on Sky in 2024.

Casting has been announced for The Hardacres, a major new 6 x 60’ period drama for Channel 5 from Playground, the award-winning production company behind the internationally acclaimed hit series All Creatures Great and Small. Currently filming on location in Dublin and Wicklow, Ireland, the new series is based on CL Skelton’s best-selling series of novels ‘The Hardacre Saga’.  The novels are the number 1 bestseller in the Amazon Family Saga Kindle charts in the UK, US and Australia and Top 15 Bestseller across all Amazon Kindle titles in the US and UK. Global partners Banijay Rights will handle international distribution for the series. The Hardacres is a sweeping rags to riches story that  follows the lives, loves and fortunes of the working class Hardacre family as they move from a grimy fish dock to a vast country estate in 1890’s Yorkshire.

Wolf Hall is coming back and bringing Harriet Walter, Timothy Spall and Harry Melling along for the ride. The trio are joining the cast alongside the likes of Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, Jonathan Pryce, Kate Phillips and Lilit Lesser in the period drama for the BBC and Masterpiece PBS. The six-part series is currently filming across the UK. Succession star Walter will play Lady Margaret Pole, while Mr Turner star Spall is the Duke of Norfolk and Melling (The Queen’s Gambit) plays Thomas Wriothesley.

EXCLUSIVE: Masterpiece has dropped the trailer for season 4 of All Creatures Great and Small, returning Jan. 7 to PBS.

Season 4 sees Nicholas Ralph reprise his role as young country vet James Herriot, now happily married to Helen Herriot, played by Rachel Shenton (For Her Sins). Samuel West (Slow Horses) returns as James’ erratic mentor Siegfried Farnon while Anna Madeley (Patrick Melrose) continues as Mrs. Hall, matriarch of Skeldale House. Patricia Hodge (A Very English Scandal) also reprises her role as the eccentric Mrs. Pumphrey, and Derek as her Pekingese Tricki. 

Masterpiece PBS and the BBC are set to begin production on Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, an adaptation of the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s award-winning trilogy.

Mark Rylance will reprise his role as Thomas Cromwell, while Damian Lewis will return as King Henry VIII. Also returning are Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Wolsey, Kate Phillips as Henry VIII’s third wife Jane Seymour and Lilit Lesser as Princess Mary, the daughter of Henry and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light will trace the final four years of Cromwell’s life, completing his journey from self-made man to the most feared, influential figure of his time. Further returning and new cast members will be announced at a later date.

Eight-time Grammy winner Gloria Estefan is writing the music and lyrics for an original stage musical called Five Notes about Paraguay’s Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, the singer announced today.

In an Instagram post, Estefan said she’s collaborating with her daughter Emily Estefan for the music, with the book written by playwright Karen Zacarías. Dear Evan Hansen director Michael Grief will direct Five Notes, according to Estefan.

Christina Hendricks and “House of the Dragon’s” Paddy Considine have been tapped to lead “Small Town, Big Story,” a new Sky Studios drama from Chris O’Dowd.

O’Dowd (“State of the Union”) created and will direct the six-part dramatic comedy, which tells the story of the effect on a small Irish village when a Hollywood production begins shooting on its doorstep and rattled residents struggle to keep a long-buried secret under wraps.

Paramount-owned Channel 5 in the UK has commissioned rags-to-riches family drama The Hardacres, based on author CL Skelton’s series of novels The Hardacre Saga.

The six-part series is being produced by New York- and London-based prodco Playground (All Creatures Great & Small), in association with Screen Ireland, Red Berry Productions and Newgrange Pictures. Banijay Rights is handling international distribution.

New York- and London-based production company Playground Entertainment has promoted Scott Huff and David Stern to joint MDs, giving them oversight of day-to-day operations as founder and executive chairman Colin Callender continues to focus to corporate strategy, coproductions and talent relationships. Huff and Stern will be charged with accelerating the growth of the transatlantic company, which has produced projects including BBC Two drama Wolf Hall, BBC/Starz crime series The Missing and Amazon’s King Lear adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins.

EXCLUSIVE: Channel 5 has said the success of drama series including All Creatures Great and Small has boosted its ratings and propelled the Paramount-owned UK broadcaster to record profits.

Channel 5 is looking to double down on its scripted purple patch with another major adaptation from Playground Entertainment, producer of All Creatures. The company is in talks to turn international bestseller Hardacre into a sweeping rags-to-riches series set in Yorkshire, Deadline can reveal.