Altitude Films to adapt Eliza Clark’s ‘Penance’, Juno Dawson attached to write

The Ipcress File producer Altitude Television is developing Eliza Clark’s recently published novel Penance with screenwriter and bestselling author Juno Dawson for TV.

UK-based Altitude Television will launch the project at C21’s Content London, which begins this evening.

Described as a chilling, compulsive story of murder among teenagers on the eve of the historic Brexit vote, Penance is Newcastle-born writer Clark’s second novel and was published earlier this year.

Dawson, meanwhile, is a bestselling novelist, journalist, columnist and screenwriter and was the creator of the podcast series Doctor Who: Redacted.

Her books include This Book Is Gay and Clean and she won the 2020 YA Book Prize for Meat Market. Her first adult fantasy trilogy, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, launched in 2022.

The deal was brokered by Marc Simonsson of Mulcahy Sweeney Associates on behalf of Rachel Mann at Jo Unwin Literary Agency, and Gabby Kardar, development executive at Altitude Television.

Altitude Media Group was launched in 2012 by chairman Will Clarke and joint-CEO Andy Mayson.

The group is made up of Altitude Film Production, Altitude Film Sales with managing director Mike Runagall, Altitude Film Distribution with MD Lia Devlin, Altitude Factual and Altitude Television with MD Chris Clark. Since 2020, US-based investment group 30West has held a significant minority stake in the group.

Dawson said: “The first thing I did after finishing Penance was slide into Eliza’s DMs to ask if she planned on adapting the novel herself. Luckily for me, she was open to a collaboration.

“Penance is a challenging novel and a challenging adaptation, but that’s what makes the project so irresistible to me. How to capture the mystery, the sly satire, the character studies, and tell this story in a form that no-one has ever seen before?”