‘Reunion’: Warp Films’ Deaf-Led Revenge Thriller Breaks New Ground At Series Mania

Reunion is a revenge drama about a deaf man determined to right his wrongs and it breaks new ground for a mainstream drama with its cast and crew and bilingual mix of spoken English and British Sign Language.

Writer William Mager tells Deadline the show “starts as a typical thriller, but by the end it’s morphed into something much more emotional, much more personal.” The Sheffield-born deaf writer adds that the elements relating to the deaf character and community were “easy to write, because you’re writing your own truth.”

Playing in the International Panorama section at Series Mania, the drama follows Daniel Brennan (Matthew Gurney), a deaf man released from prison, and trying to find out about the events that led to his incarceration.

Speaking the morning after the world premiere, Mager and director Luke Snellin explained the inspiration for the series included classic revenge thrillers from the 1970s as well as westerns, resulting in a distinctive tone for the series, which is set in Sheffield, England.

“It’s funny to write something which is like all those classic films you grew up watching, and then just changing the main character to become a deaf person. That gives you so many new situations, so many new thoughts and stories to tell,” Mager explains.

Brennan is ostracized by both the deaf and hearing communities and his only meaningful relationship is with his estranged daughter, Carly, played by Lara Peake. The cast also includes Anne-Marie Duff, Eddie Marsan and Rose Ayling-Ellis. Sheffield based label Warp Films made the series for the BBC.

Featuring both British Sign Language (BSL) and spoken English, Snellin says: “One of the things I loved when talking to Billy [Mager] initially was that this was a show that contained a wealth of deaf characters and a real depiction of the deaf community. A lot of the time I’d seen deaf characters portrayed from a from a hearing character’s point of view.”

From a Warp perspective, Exec Producer Gwen Gorst explains the team was very keen to make sure that there was deaf crew “so it didn’t become just deaf cast, and then the crew being hearing.” She adds: “We tried and get as many deaf people as we could in each of the different departments so that the whole thing felt bilingual and integrated.”

BBC Studios is across international sales. It screened the show to a room of buyers at its Showcase event in London.

“When we invested in this show, we were backing a few things,” says Nick Lee, Commercial Director at BBC Studios. “We were backing scripts, we were backing a director, and we were backing Warp to create something that the market will sit up and notice.”

He adds: “It is a very satisfying revenge crime thriller and will be familiar to audiences. But yet, there is something so distinctive and unique and authentic, not just in the way that Sheffield is captured, but the way that it portrays the deaf community and one man’s experience.”