Novelist and screenwriter Ronan Bennett is to write a new television series for the producers of Downton Abbey about the legendary photographic agency co-founded by Robert Capa, Magnum Photos.

Bennett, who wrote the acclaimed Channel 4 series Top Boy, has been asked to bring the drama and passion behind the photographic co-operative to the small screen as it approaches its 70th anniversary.



The idea for the series came from Matthew Whiteman, who wrote the outline and treatment on which Bennett’s screenplay is based.



The success of programmes such as advertising-based show Mad Men has proved how the events of the late 20th century can be chronicled through the eyes of the creative industries.

‘Magnum is too important to fail. It will be saved and it is prospering’ Read more

And Magnum, founded in 1947, by Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymour, has had its own dramatic history.



Its annual general meetings were famous for drinking, fights and tantrums, with warring factions at its London, Paris and New York bureaus battling for supremacy.



Because it was a co-operative owned by the photographers it was also dogged with financial problems but despite that has produced some of the greatest war and art photos, from Capa’s controversial Spanish Civil War photograph “Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death” to Eve Arnold’s portraits of leading figures of her day such as Malcolm X.

Magnum chief executive officer David Kogan said: “We’ve done a deal with Carnival who have signed up to do one series but we obviously hope it will be more than one.

“We’re going to be doing effectively the history of Magnum starting from 1947, which is so incredibly dramatic. There are also those fateful days in 1954 when Werner Bischof and Capa were found to have been killed. The history of Magnum is unbelievably dramatic.”

He said the company is supplying Carnival with material to help put together the project: “We have a very close relationship with them and are involved in giving them material, we’ll see what they make of it. It’s a damn good story. And great for us.”

Carnival Films managing director Gareth Neame said: “Magnum is an extraordinary and unique organisation, with a powerful history and an amazing story to tell. We can get right inside the key events of the second half of the 20th century through the lives and lenses of these photographers in a bold and completely original way. We are enormously excited to be working with them on a drama which will bring such a cool and compelling story to a much wider audience.”

Carnival has not yet announced which broadcaster will air the drama.

