CBC Television will produce TV adaptations of three popular Canadian novels.

Works from Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler, and Douglas Coupland will be part of a new initiative titled From Page & Stage.

• The first program in the new category will be Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, which debuts Jan. 21 at 8 p.m.

• Coupland’s jPod is currently in production for a potential series
• Mordecai Richler’s novel St. Urbain’s Horseman will run as a miniseries
• Richler’s Barney’s Version is slated as a feature film

Also scheduled to air in the next year are a miniseries based on Guy Vanderhaege’s The Englishman’s Boy, a live adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s children’s novel Wind in the Willows and Iron Road, a miniseries inspired by the opera of the same name composed by Cha Ka Nin and written by Mark Brownell.
     In the last two years, the CBC says it has invested more than $11 million to bring works of literature to the screen. which generated more than $84 million in production.
     The CBC previously adapted such works as Anne of Green Gables, Road to Avonlea and Random Passage. In six years, from 2001 to 2007, CBC television has aired, or will air, 19 dramas or other programs based on Canadian literary works.

What do you think? Is there a quintessential Canadian novel that we’re missing? What other book should we be adapting?

Other media reaction:

• Toronto Star: “But consider CBC history. Many saddened devotees of public broadcasting can remember when there was adventurous, ambitious drama on the public network week after week. The projects being feted now will be spread out over several seasons. And given the Soprano-ization of the television universe, I for one would be a lot more interested in seeing them without the many commercial interruptions viewers will be subjected to on CBC — just as a couple of seasons ago, I was much happier watching the last Prime Suspect and the biography of Joni Mitchell on PBS instead of suffering through the chopped-up, crudely edited CBC versions.” [full article]

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	CBC Television, Drama