Journalist and podcaster Dolly Alderton’s memoir Everything I Know About Love is set to become a BBC TV drama, much to the delight of millennial women everywhere.
Released in 2018, Dolly’s debut book quickly became a go-to for women in their 20s who were navigating the strife that comes with forming careers, relationships and friendships during your transition into full-blown adulthood.
Now, it’s coming to the small screen, and the show’s plot will centre around the story of two best friends (named Maggie and Birdy) who move to London – in search of a wild time, of course – and find their friendship tested when one finds themselves a steady boyfriend.
Much like the book, it will cover the ups and downs of life as a young woman in the big city, including excruciating dates, heartbreaks and flatshares – with the true magic of female friendship anchored at its core. A Sex and the City for the millennial generation, looking at how you survive this pivotal decade.
Dolly has been working on this adaptation for nearly four years, presumably since the book was finished. She has stated in an Instagram post that the show will be “semi-fictionalised”, in a jokey reference to any men she’s dated who may be interested or concerned.
“It’s a messy, boisterous, joyful, romantic comedy about two best female friends from childhood and what happens when they move into their first London house share and the first phase of adulthood,” she has added in a statement. “I cannot stress enough how thrilled I am that it is being made by Working Title and the BBC.”
Fellow Sunday Times bestselling author Candice Carty-Williams – who wrote 2019’s iconic book Queenie – will also be taking on her first TV project with the BBC, which will also be set in the capital. She will be working on Champion, the story of family rivalry in the music industry and “a love letter to Black-British music, set in south London”.
We’re going to see a lot of stories coming from London’s women on the BBC, as Theresa Ikoko – writer of BAFTA award-winning film Rocks – will adapt soon-to-be published Wahala, which she has described as “Big Little Lies meets Girlfriends meets Peckham”. Also exploring the story of female friendship in London, Wahala follows what happens when a wealthy woman infiltrates a group of three thirty somethings, exposing all manner of secrets and lies.