BBC delivers major update on sci-fi romance adaptation based on beloved best-selling novel

In good news for anyone who's not done with yearning after Bridgerton season 4 and Wuthering Heights, the BBC adaptation of The Ministry of Time is officially moving forward and is due to start filming this year.

It was announced in 2024 that Kaliane Bradley's bestselling sci-fi romance will be brought to screens by Normal People writer Alice Birch, with Lindsay Salt, the director of BBC Drama, confirming to Deadline that the show is "gearing up to shoot later this year".

However, we'll have to wait a bit longer to find out who will take on the roles of the unnamed protagonist and Commander Graham Gore, as she added that casting is not yet set.

Bradley's debut novel is set soon after the invention of time travel and follows a government employee known as a "Bridge", whose job is to integrate a first-time time traveller (an "expat"), who would have died in their own time, into the modern world.

But complexities that our protagonist could never have expected arise when she meets Graham Gore, an explorer who would have died on Franklin's Expedition to the Arctic, with the pair having to tackle how Britain has changed when it comes to the likes of race, imperialism, gender, religion, and sexuality.

Author Bradley said at the time of the BBC commission: "I could not be more excited for The Ministry of Time to find a new home on screen, with the dream-come-true combination of A24, the BBC and the brilliant Alice Birch.

"I'm sure Graham Gore would have been delighted too, once someone had explained to him what all that meant."

Screenwriter Birch added: "I'm so thrilled to be adapting Kaliane's beautiful, funny, joyful, moving, intelligent book with the BBC and A24. Reading it was an exhilarating, thrilling and heartbreaking experience and I'm so excited to bring this story to the screen."

The Ministry of Time is available to buy now.

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