'Patience's Lead Writer on Adaptation, Collaboration & Creativity

Like all the talent I’ve had the fortune of interacting with at Telly Visions, writer Matt Baker is a warm and generous interviewee. Lead writer on Season 1 of Patience, you no doubt also know him from his work on Hotel Portofino, Professor T, and Suspect, to name a few. Patience marks the fourth adapted series Baker has worked on and the first to feature a neurodiverse central character. Diverging somewhat from its source material (Astrid), Baker chose to focus heavily on Patience’s inner life, her home setting, and her backstory. It makes for a richly crafted character, one who is authentically portrayed both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

Adapting a hit series into an English-language version takes a considered approach. Baker spoke about how any adaptation begins with an “honest assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the source material you're working with.” Baker recognized the popularity and praised the original series’ originality and character work. But he conceded that “you don't try and adapt something unless you think you can improve it.”

He noted how some of the stories in Astrid followed a “slightly less rigorous logic than UK or US audiences expect from their police procedurals.” Baker compared the adaptation process to restoring an old building: “You keep the outer frame and the bits of it people love and recognize, but you can almost entirely remake the interior of the building, provided you do it sensitively.”