‘Mad Men’ Actor Adapting Baby Deaths Probe Book as Feature After Son’s U.K. Hospital Death

British actor Jamie Thomas King is adapting James Titcombe’s memoir Joshua’s Story: Uncovering the Morecambe Bay Maternity Scandal for the big screen.

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King, best known for star turns in Mad Men and The Tudors, is penning a screenplay for Trust , a movie to be produced along with wife and Canadian actress Tamara Podemski as part of their newly-launched Blackbird Productions banner.

“Right now, I do not have intention to act in or direct the project. But yes, I became interested in the subject following Benjamin’s death and subsequent lawsuit,” King told The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday.

In 2016, the preventable death of their second son, Benjamin, due to medical negligence occurred five days after Podemski gave birth after a delayed caesarean section. The star of Reservation Dogs and Outer Range at the time had been 14 days overdue and was rushed to the Royal United Hospital in Bath, Somerset, only for emergency surgery to be postponed.

Titcombe’s Joshua’s Story book, published in 2015, recounted his own son Joshua dying when he was only nine days old in 2008 at Morecambe Bay Hospital in the U.K. Joshua Titcombe’s death, due in part to an infection missed by medical staff, prompted a landmark independent Morecambe Bay Investigation report in 2015 that pointed to medical failings causing the unnecessary deaths of one mother and 11 babies.

King’s other credits include ABC’s Private Practice , CBS’ Elementary, BBC’s Call The Midwife and movies like Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner and Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailer, Soldier Spy.

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The first movie project from Blackbird Productions is director Michael Greyeyes’ The Light Before The Sun , which stars King as a famous self-help guru returning from a book tour to a house suddenly filled with an estranged friend, played by Rick Roberts.  The two friends then spiral into a drug-induced contemplation of the human condition.

The Light Before The Sun is set for a world premiere at the Hamilton Film Festival next month.

Other projects in development at Blackbird include a 10-part comedy Happily Ever After, created by Noelle Carbone and Podemski, who will star alongside King. Podemski is also at work on another 10-part comedy The Sellouts , created by and set to star Tamara Podemski, Jennifer Podemski and Sarah Podemski, otherwise known as The Podemski Sisters.

Tamara Podemski is also in development on a feature film, Little Rock Talent Show. Her other screen credits include HBO’s Run and CBC’s Coroner and The Rez series. She also won a Sundance Special Jury Prize for acting for her role in Sterlin Harjo’s Four Sheets to the Wind.

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