Crown director Daldry to bring Shuggie Bain to screens, Boycott lets slip
STEPHEN DALDRY is to direct the TV adaptation of Douglas Stuart’s Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain, it was revealed last night.
Stuart was being interviewed by Rosie Boycott at a 5x15 event last night when Boycott told listeners: “And we know — because when we were chatting before we went on air — that you’re about to have a film soon of Shuggie Bain, and it’s going to be directed by Stephen Daldry, who in fact held up your script that you’d written”. Stuart let out a short laugh.
In December, Hollywood producers A24 and Scott Rudin Productions acquired the rights to Shuggie Bain with a view to turning it into a TV show. Stuart was to adapt his work himself. Later that month there were reports that The Crown director
Daldry was in “early discussions” to work on the adaptation. It appears Baroness Boycott may have jumped the gun on the announcement when she revealed pre-broadcast conversations featuring Stuart and Daldry, who also spoke at the event.
Stuart told the audience that publishing his novel had, until last year, been “a dream furloughed for me”. The Scot lives in New York where he spent decades working in fashion. He said he is now “trying to make the pivot to writing full time”.
When asked by Baroness Boycott whether Shuggie Bain had changed his life, Stuart said that “it’s trying to change my life but right now I’m stuck on the sofa” due to the pandemic. Vaccines and Stephen Daldry might help with that.