ZDF Boards BBC’s ‘Shy & Lola’ With Bel Powley, Hayley Squires

EXCLUSIVE: German network ZDF has boarded the BBC’s upcoming drama Shy & Lola starring Harry Potter’s Bel Powley and The Night Manager’s Hayley Squires.

ZDFneo is now aboard in association with the series from Baby Reindeer maker Clerkenwell Films and Amanda Coe, which stars Squires and Powley as the titular characters. They are two very different women who are forced to become allies when a murder entangles them in the criminal underworld operating in Shy’s small coastal town in the North of England. Beginning as exploited novices, the unlikely duo turn out to have a talent for crime.

Squires plays a cleaner scraping by and dreaming of a new life in Portugal while Powley is an ex-model-turned-grifter who arrives in town with trouble at her heels. I, Daniel Blake star Squires plays Sally Price-Jones in The Night Manager for the BBC and Prime Video, which will air Season 3 soon, while Powley can soon be seen playing Aunt Petunia in HBO’s Harry Potter.

Shy & Lola is the latest show to involve both the BBC and ZDF as the pair solidify a partnership. They have a high-end drama pact together already, which has produced the likes of Killing Eve origin story Honey, although we understand Shy & Lola is not part of this official pact. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is another show the pair have worked on together, along with the upcoming The Reluctant Vampire.

BBC Studios also has a long-term partnership with ZDF and will be selling Shy & Lola along with Channel 4’s Break Clause, which is also being co-produced with ZDF.

Shy & Lola will be one of BBC Studios’ key shows at MIPCOM next month. It was revealed to Deadline on a hefty slate by BBC drama boss Lindsay Salt several months back, who has previously said Coe’s “superb scripts will surprise and amuse viewers in equal measure.”