{"id":23686,"date":"2022-10-13T09:00:36","date_gmt":"2022-10-13T07:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1720264"},"modified":"2022-10-13T09:30:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T07:30:09","slug":"bastard-son-the-devil-himself-makes-big-changes-from-half-bad-book","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/bastard-son-the-devil-himself-makes-big-changes-from-half-bad-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Bastard Son & The Devil Himself makes \u201cbig changes\u201d from Half Bad book"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Morgan Jeffery\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 13 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Based on the 2014 novel Half Bad<\/a>, Netflix<\/a>\u2018s new YA fantasy series The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself<\/span>\u00a0has been described as a \u201cspiritual adaptation\u201d by writer Joe Barton.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barton (The Lazarus Project<\/a>) told RadioTimes.com<\/a> that he had originally been approached by The Imaginarium \u2013 a production company co-founded by Andy Serkis \u2013 about adapting Sally Green\u2019s book back in 2016.<\/p>\n

Back then, the plan was to turn the novel \u2013 which is set in a world where witches live amongst us and are divided into two rival factions \u2013 into a film.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote the screenplay but we couldn\u2019t get it made \u2013 as most films don\u2019t get made,\u201d Barton explained. \u201cI slightly forgot about it and then it wasn\u2019t until just after [Barton\u2019s 2019 BBC\/Netflix thriller] Giri\/Haji had come out that The Imaginarium came back and asked if I\u2019d be up for trying it for TV.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey basically just took the first 60 pages of the feature script and and took that around town and used that to pitch.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Barton says the process of then getting a green light from Netflix was \u201creally quick\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d slightly sort of put it aside in my head, and then suddenly it was happening. So it was exciting \u2013 I had to get my head back into the world very quickly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

The protagonist of both the novel and the show is Nathan Byrne (played in the adaptation by Jay Lycurgo), a teenager who along with allies Gabriel (Emilien Vekemans) and Annalise (Nadia Parkes) embarks on a quest to find his father \u2013 a powerful and cruel witch.<\/p>\n

Once the series adaptation was ordered, Barton said he \u201cwent back and did a load of rewriting on it\u201d, with the final product changing \u201ca lot\u201d from the movie script and also incorporating some \u201cbig changes\u201d from the source material.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a spiritual adaptation, really \u2013 it\u2019s the main three characters that are in the book and the world that Sally sets up, but in the book, Annalise isn\u2019t in it a huge amount. It\u2019s more Nathan and Gabriel that go on this journey and then she appears at the end \u2013 we wanted to bring her in and keep her in it more, because I always liked the idea of these three kids and their interactions and the complexities of their relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Nadia Parkes as Annalise and Jay Lycurgo as Nathan in The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself.<\/span><\/figcaption> Netflix<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also stuff in the books that is great but we couldn\u2019t do \u2013 there\u2019s a whole section in Liverpool, for example,\u201d Barton continued. \u201cLike with any adaptation, you change a bunch just to make it fit, unless you\u2019re doing Harry Potter or something where people just want the exact book on screen \u2013 this was more taking the characters and playing around with them a little bit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Perfecting the first episode of The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself was \u201ca really difficult task\u201d, according to Barton, since there\u2019s \u201cso much backstory, so much lore\u201d present in the book. \u201cYou\u2019re not just setting up a character, you\u2019re setting up the world and the rules of the world,\u201d he explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the edit room for, like, 21 weeks, which is the longest I\u2019ve ever been in post-production on one episode. We ended up shooting additional stuff \u2013 we went in afterwards and added scenes. <\/span>We wrote about 20 different versions of a prologue and epilogue, which we didn\u2019t end up using\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult and we had, like, 100 different versions of [the first episode]. Luckily, we were given the time and the resources get it right, both in the scripting and in post-production, but it was really one of the hardest episodes to write. There was a lot of banging our heads against the wall and I was relieved when it was finished!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One notable change from the book is the eye-catching new title for the Netflix series, which the production team landed on after considering \u201ca long list of potential titles\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some really terrible ones \u2013 like, \u2018Son of a Witch\u2019 and \u2018Bad Lad\u2019,\u201d Barton laughed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[The final title]<\/span> was on this massive list and the first time I looked at it, I thought it was too long and too weird, but it sort of stuck with us. It\u2019s a line of dialogue from the first episode, so that\u2019s how it got in there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n