The St Trinians’ screenplay writers will adapt Stephen Clarke’s best selling comedic novel about a British man’s experiences of working in Paris, for German company UFA Cinema.

Nick Moorcroft and Piers Ashworth - the writing team behind St Trinians and Burke And Hare – are to adapt Stephen Clarke’s best selling British comedy novel A Year In The Merde.

First published in 2004, A Year In The Merde follows a twentysomething Brit who is recruited by a French entrepreneur to head up the marketing for a chain of British tea rooms in Paris, highlighting the cultural differences between the British and the French along the way.

The screenwriting duo have been brought onboard by German production company UFA Cinema, who optioned the book rights. Thomas Peter Friedl and Ulrich Schwarz are producing for UFA.

Moorcroft, who coincidentally has just moved to France himself, told Screen: “It’s a comedy of errors and a classic fish out of water comedy which looks at the 300 years of Anglo-French rivalry. It’s perfect material.”

Moorcroft and Ashworth, who wrote Burke And Hare and St Trinians for Ealing Studios, are currently working on another screenplay for Ealing, Fisherman’s Friends, about the real life group of Cornish sea shanty singers who made it big in the UK pop charts.

They are also currently working on the screenplay for A Lion Called Christian for producer Neil Moritz and Columbia Pictures.

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