Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: HBO has given a pilot order to Getting On, an U.S. version of the award-winning BBC Four medical comedy of the same name. The project hails from Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen & Will Scheffer, who wrote the adaptation, and BBC Worldwide Prods.

Set in a women’s geriatric extended care wing of a down-at-the-heels hospital, Getting On follows put-upon nurses, anxious doctors and administrators as they struggle with the darkly comic, brutally honest and quietly compassionate realities of caring for the elderly in an overwhelmed healthcare system. The original series was created by and starred Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, who will serve as executive producers on the HBO adaptation. Olsen and Scheffer are executive producing the pilot though their Anima Sola Prods. banner, with SVP Lisa Bellomo producing. BBC Worldwide Prods.’ Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner also executive produce, along with the British series’ producer Geoff Atkinson. In addition to responding to the original series, Olsen and Scheffer had a personal connection to the subject matter. ”When we proposed the reformat to BBC Worldwide and HBO, the issues in elder care were very personal to both of us; Mark’s and my mother were in their 90s and attending to their care had come to be a big part of our lives,” Scheffer said. “Getting On nailed that world with its deadpan humor and deep humanity.” Getting On stems from CAA-repped Olsen and Scheffer’s overall deal at HBO. It joins another recently greenlighted HBO comedy pilot, Stephen Merchant’s Hello Ladies.

Getting On premiered in July 2009 to become BBC Four’s No 1 original comedy in its first season. A second season aired in 2010, when Brand won a best comedy actress BAFTA TV Award. Here is a scene from the show’s freshman cycle:

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