Pig-Heart Boy

Last updated

Pig Heart Boy
Pig-Heart Boy.jpg
First edition (UK)
Author Malorie Blackman
LanguageEnglish
Genre Children's
Publisher Corgi Books (UK)
Doubleday (US)
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Published in English
1997
Pages256

Pig-Heart Boy is a children's novel by Malorie Blackman, which was first published in 1997. It shows the life of a teenage boy who undergoes a heart transplant. [1] [2] It was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and adapted into a television series, which was broadcast by Children's BBC in 1999. [3]

Contents

Thirteen-year-old Cameron Kelsey has a serious heart condition and really needs a new heart. He gets the opportunity to get a new heart but it’s not a human heart, it’s a pig heart. He under goes the surgery but it fails the heart doesn't work and he under goes different surgeries.

BBC television version

In 1999, the BBC made a six-part television adaptation of the novel. Although the television adaptation was overall quite faithful to the book, some aspects were changed, including some characters' names (for example, Dr. Bryce is labelled Professor Rae in the television version), and also the fact that Cameron had not been the first patient to have had a pig transplant with Dr. Bryce/Professor Rae. The series also ended with Alex being born, while the book merely ends with Cameron's decision to accept the second heart transplant.

The television adaptation won the BAFTA Award for Children's Drama in 2000. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Davies (writer)</span> British screenwriter and novelist (born 1936)

Andrew Wynford Davies is a Welsh screenwriter and novelist, best known for his television adaptations of To Serve Them All My Days, House of Cards, Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House, War & Peace, and his original serial A Very Peculiar Practice. He was made a BAFTA Fellow in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Broadbent</span> British actor (born 1949)

James Broadbent is an English actor. A graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in 1972, he came to prominence as a character actor for his many roles in film and television. He has received various accolades including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, an International Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award.

Kay Mellor was an English actress, scriptwriter, producer and director. She was known for creating television series such as Band of Gold, Fat Friends, and The Syndicate, as well as co-creating CITV's children's drama Children's Ward (1989–2000).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Richardson</span> Scottish actor (1934–2007)

Ian William Richardson was a British actor from Edinburgh, Scotland. He was best known for his portrayal of machiavellian Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's House of Cards (1990–1995) television trilogy, as well as the British spy Bill Haydon in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979). Other notable screen work included a portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in two films, as well as significant roles in Brazil, M. Butterfly, and Dark City.

PHB may refer to:

Carnival Film & Television Limited, trading as Carnival Films, is a British production company based in London, UK, founded in 1978. It has produced television series for all the major UK networks including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Sky, as well as international broadcasters including PBS, A&E, HBO and NBC. Productions include single dramas, long-running television dramas, feature films, and stage productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malorie Blackman</span> British writer (born 1962)

Malorie Blackman is a British writer who held the position of Children's Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults. She has used science fiction to explore social and ethical issues, for example, her Noughts and Crosses series uses the setting of a fictional alternative Britain to explore racism. Blackman has been the recipient of many honours for her work, including the 2022 PEN Pinter Prize.

Barbara Cox is a writer and script editor, mainly in British television, who has worked on such programmes as The Bill, The Paradise Club, Cardiac Arrest, Love Hurts, Dangerfield and Holby City.

<i>Vanity Fair</i> (1998 TV serial) TV series or program

Vanity Fair is a BBC television drama serial adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 novel of the same name broadcast in 1998. The screenplay was written by Andrew Davies.

Noughts & Crosses is a series of young adult novels by British author Malorie Blackman, with six novels and three novellas. The series is speculative fiction describing an alternative history. The series takes place in an alternative 21st-century Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aneurin Barnard</span> Welsh actor

Aneurin Barnard is a Welsh actor. He is known for playing Davey in Hunky Dory, Claude in The Truth About Emanuel, Bobby Willis in Cilla, Tim in Thirteen, King Richard III in The White Queen, William in Dead in a Week or Your Money Back, Gibson in Dunkirk, and Boris Pavlikovsky in The Goldfinch.

The British Academy Children's Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). They have been awarded annually since 1996, before which time they were a part of the main British Academy Television Awards. It currently includes categories for television productions, feature films and video games.

James D. Hardy was a United States surgeon who performed the world's first lung transplant into John Russell, who lived 18 days. The transplant was performed at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi on June 11, 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heart transplantation</span> Surgical transplant procedure

A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease when other medical or surgical treatments have failed. As of 2018, the most common procedure is to take a functioning heart, with or without both lungs, from a recently deceased organ donor and implant it into the patient. The patient's own heart is either removed and replaced with the donor heart or, much less commonly, the recipient's diseased heart is left in place to support the donor heart.

Claire Louise Rushbrook is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Roxanne in the film Secrets & Lies (1996), and for playing Linda Earl-Bouchtat in My Mad Fat Diary (2013–2015).

<i>My Mad Fat Diary</i> British television series

My Mad Fat Diary is a British period teen comedy-drama television series that debuted on E4 on 14 January 2013. It is based on the novel My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary by Rae Earl.

Levi David Addai is a British playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the award-winning Damilola, Our Loved Boy, the critically acclaimed Youngers and his stage plays 93.2FM and Oxford Street.

Organ transplantation is a common theme in science fiction and horror fiction, appearing as early as 1925, in Russian short story Professor Dowell's Head. It may be used as a device to examine identity, power and loss of power, current medical systems; explore themes of bodily autonomy; or simply as a vehicle for body horror or other fantastical plots. Organ transplantation in fiction is often used as horror and something that harms the people involved, in contrast to how organ donation is presented in real life, as something hopefully good for those involved.

<i>Noughts + Crosses</i> British television alternative history drama series (2020 & 2022)

Noughts + Crosses is a British drama television series based on the Noughts & Crosses novel series by Malorie Blackman. The series is set in an alternative history where black "Cross" people rule over white "Noughts". The first episode aired on BBC One on 5 March 2020, and the remaining episodes premiered on BBC iPlayer on the same day. In May 2021, the BBC announced that a second series had been commissioned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Bidwell</span> British screenwriter and playwright

Tom Dalton Bidwell is a British screenwriter and playwright.

References

  1. Lewis, Isobel (11 January 2022). "Pig Heart Boy author Malorie Blackman responds to news of US pig heart transplant: 'Called it'" . Retrieved 16 May 2024 via www.independent.co.uk.
  2. Kitty, Kung Fu (16 August 2014). "Pig Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman review" . Retrieved 16 May 2024 via The Guardian.
  3. "BBC children's to screen pig heart transplant drama". Broadcast . Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  4. "Children's : Drama in 2000". BAFTA . Retrieved 30 April 2019.