Banijay Rights confirmed the return of the drama series, “Runners." “It is thrilling to be working with John Preston again on this phenomenal real-life story,” Ellie Wood, Executive Producer, said.
“Running" is written by John Preston and executively produced by Clearwood Films’ Ellie Wood. It’s the third collaboration between Banijay, Stonehouse, and The Dig. Banijay Rights has agreed to distribute the title globally. “This show is deeply researched, packed full of character, humor and written in John’s inimitable tone," Wood said. "The fact that the philandering novelist who wrote Tom Jones also created the world’s first police force is just one of many surprises in this fascinating drama.”
The series follows the world’s first police force from the team behind Stonehouse and The Dig, showing the Bow Street Runners at one of the most pivotal points in British history. In the late 1740s, London was the most rapidly expanding city in Europe and engulfed by a colossal crime wave. With the city sliding ever closer to anarchy, author Henry Fielding, then Chief Magistrate of London, did something no one had previously dared to do before: he founded the world’s first-ever police force, The Bow Street Runners.
The story will tell of how a group of six police officers, none with any training or experience, set about imposing law and order on a completely lawless society and embarked on solving the case. “The founding of the first ever police force is one of the most astonishing stories I have ever come across,” John Preston, Writer and Executive Producer, said. “The idea that a band of six people could take on the might of London’s underworld is so rich and dramatic that it often beggars belief.”