Airdate: The Child in Time

UK telemovie The Child in Time, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, screens next week on BBC First.

It also features Kelly Macdonald and Stephen Campbell Moore.

Novelist Ian McEwan, said: “I’m thrilled to have my novel in the hands of such a high level creative team. I have fond memories of Benedict playing a brilliant and key part in the movie adaptation of Atonement. Now, it’s a great honour to have this actor of such immense resource, experience and subtlety in the lead role of The Child in Time.”

Described as a “lyrical and heart-breaking exploration of love, loss and the power of things unseen,” this aired in Britain in September.

Stephen Lewis, a succesful writer of children’s books, is confronted with the unthinkable: he loses his only child, four year-old Kate, in a supermarket.

In one horrifying moment that replays itself over the years that follow, Stephen realises that his daughter is gone. With tenderness and insight, the drama explores a marriage devastated by the loss of a child. Kate’s absence sets Stephen and his wife, Julie, on diverging paths as both struggle with an all-consuming grief. With the passage of time, a balance of sorts returns, until hope surfaces and triumphs unexpectedly.

Tuesday, February 27 at 8:30pm on BBC First.