British spy Noor Inayat Khan's life getting a thriller series
A suspenseful series about an Indian-origin British spy is in the making. Noor Inayat Khan, the spy who helped the UK with information about the Nazi military in France before being captured in 1943 and executed a year later, will be played by Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto. This TV drama series, titled Spy Princess, still has a broadcaster to zero in on.
Thriller is based on a book by Shrabani Basu
It is based on the book titled Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu, who is also a consultant to the series written by Olivia Hetreed. It is expected to be an emotional thriller delineating the struggles of Khan. The series will be directed by Anand Tucker, while Andy Paterson of Girl with a Pearl Earring fame will produce it.
Khan was tortured for a year, before being killed
Paterson will have Red Room Films founder Claire Ingham as his co-producer, who has also initiated the project. The drama will show how Khan managed to fool the Nazis with her wits until she was caught because of a key attire feature. Khan was captured by the Gestapo and tortured for a year, before being shot in the head at Dachau concentration camp.
She was the daughter of an Indian Sufi mystic
It's hard to imagine the grit required for an Indian Sufi mystic's daughter to be a British secret agent, that too sans any ammunition. That was the power of Khan, who entered the Nazi-occupied French territory, with a life expectancy of just six weeks. Biographer Arthur Magida, who referenced a memoir by Khan's fellow resistance fighter Pierre Viénot, has wished the series the best.
How the color blue ultimately ditched Khan's fate
Magida used Viénot's memoir to pen Code Name Madeleine: A Sufi Spy in Nazi-Occupied Paris, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Madeleine was Khan's codename. The Nazis tracked her down after an attempt to disguise her identity failed because of the color blue everywhere in her attire, her favorite choice, a fact the Nazis knew. The agent was also played by Radhika Apte.
Khan was also played by Radhika Apte in 2019 film
Apte played Khan in the 2019 film A Call to Spy, which was released in June, and received multiple film festival awards. Talking about the scope of this project, Pinto—who is also its executive producer—said, "Her struggle to reconcile her values with the desire to find her own path and with her complex sense of duty is something I am so excited to explore."
