Elizabeth is Missing green-lit for BBC1 adaptation

Emma Healey’s bestselling 2015 novel Elizabeth is Missing (Viking) will be adapted by "Swallows and Amazons" screenwriter Andrea Gibb into a 90-minute film for BBC One.

Healey’s debut combines a mystery plot with an exploration of one woman’s struggle with dementia.

The film will be written by Gibb and made by STV Productions with executive producers including Sarah Brown and Andrea Gibb for STV Productions and Elizabeth Kilgarriff and Gaynor Holmes for BBC One.

Gibb wrote the 2016 adventure film "Swallows and Amazons" based on Arthur Ransome’s classic children’s book.

She said: “I am honoured to have been given the opportunity to adapt this beautiful story. Emma has created an extraordinary heroine in Maud - she’s funny, tenacious, loyal - while also giving us a moving portrait of dementia from the inside out.”

Controller of BBC drama commissioning, Piers Wenger, said: “Part detective story, part portrait of a fracturing mind, Andrea Gibb’s witty, sensitive adaptation of Emma Healey’s novel brings this first-hand account of experiencing dementia to life.”

Casting for the four dramas will be announced in the coming months.

Elizabeth is Missing has sold 424,694 copies in paperback and 17,519 in hardback, according to Nielsen BookScan.

Healey’s second novel, Whistle in the Dark, will be published by Viking in May.