Netflix starts production on series adaptation of My Brilliant Career

Netflix is adapting Miles Franklin’s seminal novel into a streaming series, with production beginning in Adelaide.

The series will star Philippa Northeast as Sybylla, Franklin’s free-spirited heroine who chafes against expectations of a rural life with dreams of a more extraordinary life.

When she leaves to live with her well-off grandmother, she meets two men, the wealthy Harry and a jackaroo named Frank.

Franklin wrote the book in the 19th century when she was still a teenager and it was published in 1901 after she contacted Henry Lawson. It is considered one of the most iconic works of Australian literature.

The new series will span six episodes and will also star British actor Christopher Chung, best known for his role in spy drama Slow Horses, Four Weddings and a Funeral’s Anna Chancellor, Andor’s Genevieve O’Reilly, Jake Dunn, Kate Mulvaney, Sherry-Lee Watson, Miah Madden, and Alexander England.

The adaptation was created by Liz Doran, who worked on Please Like Me and Barons, with Alyssa McClelland and Anne Renton to direct. Jungle Entertainment is the production company.

Doran said in a statement, “It’s been a privilege to work with so many incredible creatives on this reimagining of Miles Franklin’s rollicking tale of a young woman’s quest to determine her own life.”

My Brilliant Career had previously been adapted as a 1979 movie by Gillian Armstrong and is one of the best regarded films of the Australian New Wave, a period of artistic excellence that also birthed the likes of Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mad Max, Wake in Fright and Gallipoli.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where is was in competition for a Palme d’Or, and Judy Davis won a BAFTA for her performance as Sybylla. The film also starred Sam Neill, Wendy Hughes and Robert Grubb.

Last year, the Melbourne Theatre Company mounted a musical stage production of the title.

Franklin was born in 1879 and grew up on a property in the Brindabella Valley in NSW. After the publication of My Brilliant Career, Franklin lived in the US and the UK, returning to Australia in 1932.

She was active in literary circles and encouraged other young female writers. Her other works include All That Swagger, My Career Goes Bung, Bring the Monkey and Old Blastus of Bandicoot.

She established the Miles Franklin literary prize with a bequest in her will. Since its first year in 1957, winners have included Patrick White, Thomas Kenneally, Ruth Park, David Malouf, Helen Demidenko, Peter Carey and Anna Funder.