Film adaptation in the Offing

It's shaping up to be a big year for north-east writer Benjamin Myers. Not only is his novel The Gallows Pole being transformed into a six-part BBC series by none other than Shane Meadows, in collaboration with A24, but it's just been announced that the book that followed - The Offing - is also currently undergoing adaptation for the screen.

I loved The Offing - as indeed I did The Gallows Pole - and I know exactly what the film's director Jessica Hobbs means when she says: "When I first read the book, Helena Bonham Carter was immediately vividly present as Dulcie. She is so unapologetically, joyously, who she is, as is Dulcie." It's hard to see anyone else in the role - but it'll be interesting to see who's cast opposite her, as Robert, in what is essentially a dramatic dialogue.

I've currently got my head buried deep in Myers' latest novel, Cuddy, and can say with some confidence that it would be a hell of a lot harder than those two predecessors to realise in visual form...