McGuinness’ thriller Riviera heads for Cannes

Julia Stiles in Riviera, the programme created by former U2 manager Paul McGuinness.

THE movers and shakers from the world of TV who descend on Cannes early next month for the international TV programme market MIPTV will be served up a very interesting Irish-French offering. Sky Vision’s new series Riviera will premiere at the event. Pitched as “an intoxicating thriller set on the opulent Côte d’Azur, playground of the world’s super-rich”, it was dreamed up by former U2 manager Paul McGuinness.

McGuinness, who must have one of the best contacts books in the entertainment industry, brought on board two of Ireland’s biggest writing and directing talents — Booker Prize-winning author John Banville and Crying Game director Neil Jordan. Filming took place in the South of France last summer, with Bourne Identity star Julia Stiles leading the cast.

This is McGuinness’s first foray into scripted television, but he has been involved in the movie and film industry through his shareholding in Ardmore Studios, which is currently on the block. He was also an early investor in TV3. And it appears McGuinness has quite an imagination. According to the promotional bumf for Riviera, “the sun-drenched luxury of the South of France provides a deceptive backdrop for the dazzling depravity of the morally ambiguous characters, locked in a web of complex relationships.”

Stiles plays the wife of billionaire art collector Constantine Clios, who is killed in an explosion aboard the yacht of a Russian arms dealer oligarch. When she tries to find out what happened she “discovers a world of lies, double-dealing and criminality”.

Zai Bennett, Sky’s director of programming, has high hopes for the series. “Riviera is a stunning, slick and sexy drama that we can’t wait to bring to screens,” he told me.

Stiles and her co-stars Adrian Lester and Iwan Rheon are due to be in Cannes to promote the show, as will McGuinness.

It will be broadcast by Sky Atlantic in Ireland, the UK, Italy, Germany and Austria this year, with rumours that it will hit our screens in June.

The screening takes place on April 3 — let’s hope the locals enjoy the Irish take on the French underworld.