The Other Bennet Sister producer Jane Tranter has launched an impassioned plea for TV makers to search out stories that “that will make our world a more empathetic place.”
In a keynote talk at MIA Market this week, the Bad Wolf Production CEO and co-founder used the example of a “farmer in his 70s” who had identified with Mary, the outcast protagonist of BBC period drama The Other Bennet Sister played by the 30-year-old Ella Bruccoleri.
“Being able to make a drama in 2026 that features a woman who some people in society doesn’t think should be an acceptable face of a woman,” said Tranter.
“She doesn’t look like what people want her to look like, she doesn’t sound like what people want her to sound like and she doesn’t behave like society wants a woman to behave like and yet she is her own woman.
“In 2026, stories about people being accepted for who they choose to be are the kind of stories I will keep making until someone carries me out in a wooden box. I really urge you to look for those stories. We have to tell stories that change the lack of empathy in our world. Look into yourselves and go and tell your own stories that will make our world a more empathetic place.”
The Other Bennet Sister is an adaptation of former BBC executive Janice Hadlow’s novel of the same name. The BBC series, which plays on BritBox in the U.S., tells the story of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from the viewpoint of Mary, the overlooked sister from the Bennet family, before telling the tale of her journeys to London and the Lake District. A three-part Christmas special has been ordered.
As one of the most experienced execs working in scripted having led the BBC’s drama before launching Bad Wolf, Tranter has made shows such as Doctor Who and Industry. While she acknowledged funding high-end dramas is challenged, she said demand for major series remains strong.
“If someone says to you, ‘You can’t make period dramas, no one’s buying them… You can’t make fantasy, no one is buying it.’ You can’t make a drama set in finance. Make it. Just find a way to make it,” she said.
As such, Tranter’s Sony-owned Bad Wolf is also known for productions such as Industry, His Dark Materials and Doctor Who, making it one of the UK’s most prolific drama producers across genres of the past decade.
James Gandolfini’s influence
Earlier in her talk at the Excelsior Westin Hotel in Rome, Tranter played the audience an extended clip of The Night Of, the HBO drama starring Riz Ahmed about a man who is accused of murdering a woman after a one-night stand. Based on a BBC series, Criminal Justice, the series was big hit in 2016 and earned five Emmy wins.
She recalled how the HBO production became challenged when James Gandolfini, who had championed the project, unexpectedly passed away while away on holiday in Italy in 2013. He had played Ahmed’s defense lawyer in a pilot and was an exec producer on the show, and his passing left Tranter, then new to the U.S. system having only recently moved from the UK, and series creator Steven Zaillian at a crossroads.
“I got really lucky that Steven took on the show, and then I got even luckier that James Gandolfini came in to play the role of John Stone,” she said. “And then James unexpectedly died and the whole project got put on hold for a while. Then, as in life sometimes happens, one door closes and another opens. John Turturro, who is the most brilliant actor and the nicest of men, came in, and so we continued making The Night Of.”
Tranter revealed that her experience producing The Night Of also influenced her decision to launch a major production studio in Wales, where the Bad Wolf era of Doctor Who was filmed.
“After Jim’s death, I continued to work with a lot of his crew,” she explained. “He was very, very loyal, and his crew were very loyal to him. so a lot of his Sopranos [crew] worked on The Night Of, and I got to know and understand a lot of them from New Jersey. I understood what it was like to work within the community, and I began to think of Wales and the passion of the crews that I had worked with in my time.”
Earlier this month, Deadline revealed the production companies vying to become the next producer on Doctor Who when it returns in 2028. Bad Wolf and showrunner Russell T. Davies both dramatically exited in June. Tranter was not quizzed on the current Doctor Who situation on stage.