Spain’s Borja González Santaolalla, who co-penned Jaume Balagueró’s movie “Way Down,” and Ángel Agudo, a scribe on Atresmedia’s “Luimelia,” have boarded the family TV series project “Harrogate Detective Agency” as its director and co-scribe respectively.
Inspired by Agatha Christie novels, the TV series project has been created by C.J. Navas and Juan Galonce at Alicante-based outfit Fuera de Series Producciones.
“Harrogate” is a eight-episode, 25- minute series that narrates the summer mystery adventures of three little sisters at their widower grandfather’s house.
It features among five TV short-form series projects that will be pitched on Wednesday, Sept. 15 at Conecta Fiction, the international TV industry event whose fifth edition runs onsite in Pamplona Sept. 13-17. The event’s conference strand panels will also be available online.
Set in Cabezo de Oro, a town in Spain’s Valencia region, the series tells how the three sisters discover their grandmother’s fondness for reading and how it prompted her to write, inventing a female figure – Adela Harrogate – who was the protagonist of all her stories.
Their grandfather will reveal to them his late spouse’s hobby – she was a great Agatha Christie’s fan – as well as the legend of a treasure that is believed to be buried in the town. A notebook titled “The case of the map without the X” catches especially the young girls’ attention.
They will embark on a search for the treasure that will allow them to help their grandfather avoid selling the family home and feeling alone again.
“Targeting 8-to-12s , the project is designed to also interest family audiences,” said Fuera de Series’ Juan Galonce, also ‘Harrogate’ co-writer.
“The variety of Agatha Christie’s and her winning way of solving cases, using logic and reasoning, together with recurrent protagonists such as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, are the fundamental bases of this project,” he explained.
Further literary influences for the TV fiction creators take in “The Three Investigators,” “The Happy Hollisters” and “The Famous Five,” all about a “group of children and/or young people who come together to solve events, small crimes or mysteries using logic, and the naturalness and spontaneity of their age, making each case an adventure,” Galonce added.
Amazon Prime Original series “Just Add Magic,” France 2’s “Les petits meurtres d’Agatha Christie” and Australian series “The InBESTigators” figure among the project’s TV inspirations.
Conecta Fiction 5 takes place onsite at Pamplona’s Baluarte in Navarre, a northern region of Spain, and over Sept. 13-24 online.