Guest Blog: Kevin Sampson on getting The Killing Pool from novel to TV

In this second guest blog, author Kevin Sampson talks about the unique features of his novel The Killing Pool and how the characters and setting were important features that helped retain the integrity of his creation, even when translated onto the small screen.

There are certain elements, I feel, that are fundamental to The Killing Pool making distinctive and memorable television drama. The key thing is the casting – specifically the role McCartney himself. He’s such a lonely yet iconic figure – kind of a modern-day, Wild West lawman. In my imagination, Mac looks something like the David Bowie of today. He’s about 50, lean and well-dressed. We’re blessed in the U.K with plenty of charismatic actors blessed with high cheekbones, a piercing stare and androgynous good looks. There’s Ewan MacGregor, James McAvoy, Cillian Murphy, Sam Riley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers…each could make a compelling Mac.

The great advantage of having 8 x 1 hour episodes is the ability to expound and unravel the story in all its brooding complexity, week on week. There are characters whose page-time is limited in the novels; Shakespeare, for example, and his short-lived paramour Melo Pop both have a major impact, much of which takes place off the page. But given the time and the scale an 8-part series affords, these characters’ back stories can properly come to life. In a sentence a two of the novel we learn that Melo is a 14 year-old clubber who breezes past doormen and commands the room; on screen, we can see it. We can better understand the way her story weaves into the bigger narrative.

Music is another hugely important component. I love the way a series like The Sopranos, for example, juxtaposed Tindersticks’ Tiny Tears with Tony’s first and most graphic emotional breakdown in the shower; the way they used John Cooper-Clark’s Chickentown over a climactic montage. If you’re intelligent, intuitive and sensitive with your underscore, you potentially have an additional artistic impetus to bring into play – along with the more orthodox elements of script, cast, director, DoP et al.

And the setting, of course, is paramount. The McCartney novels are rooted in the gangs’ Liverpool base. The stories will often span out across other worldwide drug-dealing capitals, but Liverpool is always the home port. But when it comes to the TV adaptation, there is a Liverpool that television viewers seldom see. I’m keen to avoid the clichés of the Liver Building and the touristic hub of The Cavern Quarter, and set The Killing Pool among the backstreets of Liverpool 8, or the huge container city of the northern docks. These mean streets are every bit as evocative as New York or Marseille, and the challenge is to mythologise this little-seen flipside of Liverpool in the same way The Wire did with Baltimore. The magic – or the witchcraft – is in creating a backdrop that exudes its own special atmosphere, and that atmosphere becomes a notable part of the drama you’re creating. Think of the desolate swampland and back bayous of True Detective; the seedy Parisian banlieux of Spiral; the rain-slick streets of Copenhagen in The Killing.  There’s something beguiling about these settings that adds its own special intensity to the drama. Can Liverpool, and The Killing Pool offer something else – something new?

It’s a tall order. If making the transition from book to screen is hard enough in film, it’s even tougher adapting a well-loved book for television. Our friends in the North have set a certain standard with the original, Norwegian Wallander series, starring Krister Henriksson. Again, it’s that subtle melding of great cast, setting, atmosphere, camera-work – not to mention Henning Mankel’s wonderful source material. The other outstanding TV adaptation is The Wire, although the team behind the series have used David Simon’s brilliant Homicide (and its companion piece The Corner) more as reference material than a strict book-to-screen bible. The Wire has it all – great storylines, great setting and a cast of instantly iconic characters you care about sufficiently to make a date with them week in, week out. 

The U.S side of the TV consortium that is making The Killing Pool series wanted to relocate the story to Boston. We held out for Liverpool not out of blind loyalty, but because we believe Liverpool will turn out to be the star of the show. We’ll see.

Thanks so much to Kevin for guest blogging here on The Crime Warp. Just to keep you up to date with the latest on Kevin's books - The House on the Hill is his latest novel which is now available in hardback. The Killing Pool will be published in paperback on 28^th August.  In case you want to get a peek at what the TV dramatisation looks like, here's a promo video from Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRbE5QJRV1U
 

Romancrimeblogger