Yrsa Daley-Ward’s acclaimed debut fiction novel The Catch – a genre-defying supernatural thriller exploring sisterhood, identity, and the radical act of choosing yourself – is in development for television with Osun Group. The series promises to deliver a haunting blend of family drama, psychological tension, and supernatural intrigue, and marks Daley-Ward’s debut as a television screenwriter.

Sheila Nortley, Head of Drama at Osun Group, has optioned the novel, marking the company’s first book-to-screen acquisition and its first scripted project to be announced from a growing development slate. The adaptation is in early development as returning series. Nortley and Daley-Ward first worked together in 2011 on the indie feature David is Dying.

The Catch follows estranged twin sisters Clara and Dempsey, whose lives are upended when Clara spots a woman in London who looks exactly like their long-vanished mother – unchanged by time and unburdened by motherhood. Clara, a celebrity author craving validation, is convinced this is their mother returned, while the reclusive Dempsey suspects a con. As the sisters collide over the stranger’s identity, they are propelled toward a reckoning that threatens their very existence and forces them to confront the wounds of their past. With kaleidoscopic imagination, Daley-Ward conjures a multiverse of daughterhood, longing, and self-determination, offering a bold, lyrical exploration of the sacrifices Black women make to live and create with impunity – and daring to ask, “How can it ever, ever be a crime to choose yourself?”

Based across London and LA, Daley-Ward first rose to prominence as a writer as a poet, pairing short, emotive, and deeply personal lines of poetry with a carefully curated visual Instagram feed. The Catch is her debut fiction novel, following her acclaimed poetry collection bone and her memoir The Terrible. She has also collaborated with Beyonce co-writing the award-winning film Black is King, a visual album inspired by The Lion King for Disney+. As an actor, her credits include Outer Range, World on Fire and the forthcoming The Collaboration.

Daley-Ward said: “The Catch asks, what if the person you fear most and the person you long for most were the same? I’ve often wondered what it would be like to meet my mother again, not as she was, but as I am. The TV adaptation takes that unsettling question and spins it into an edgy, psychological suspense about family, obsession, and the terror of recognition.”

Sheila Nortley, Head of Drama, Osun Group said: “The Catch is both vast and otherworldly, yet so deeply intimate and tragically human. Yrsa’s storytelling has a way of getting under the skin and holding a mirror up to our most uncomfortable truths. To have such a bold and inventive novel as our first scripted adaptation at Osun Group is both an honour and a statement of intent. I can’t wait to bring it to the screen.”

Daley-Ward, Sheila Nortley and Luti Fagbenle are Executive Producers. Osun Group is in the process of attaching a showrunner, director and on-screen talent.

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Categories: Press Releases

Tags: Drama, production