My Brilliant Friend is ‘like flower blossom’

Transferring a book series as iconic as Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels was always going to be risky business but it has stayed faithful to the original.

My Brilliant Friend, a co-production between HBO and Italy’s Rai Fiction and Timvision, succeeds in bringing the Naples neighbourhood it’s set in to life.

Best-selling author Ferrante, who first released her novels anonymously, acted as consultant to the production team.

Italian director Saverio Costanzo wrote to the author in 2007 asking if he could adapt the story and was more than delighted to get his wish a decade later.

He said: “Witnessing Ferrante’s pages being brought to life was like seeing a flower blossom.”

My Brilliant Friend airs on Sky Atlantic on Mondays at 9pm.