The Set Up Adapts Lisa Wilkinson's Titanic Bestseller for TV — SkimNews
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- The Set Up, the newly launched TV banner from Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky and Alison Hurbert-Burns, is partnering with journalist and author Lisa Wilkinson to adapt her book The Titanic Story of Evelyn for television.
- Wilkinson's book, published in April 2026, debuted at number one on the Australian bestseller list across all genres and tells the true story of Evelyn Marsden, the only Australian-born survivor of the Titanic.
- The narrative follows Evelyn from her work as an ocean liner stewardess, through her love affair with ship's doctor William Abel James, her survival of the sinking, and the couple's life across WWI, the Great Depression, and ultimately a home in Sydney's Bondi Beach.
- Wilkinson called the producers 'masterful tellers of women's stories,' citing their work on Big Little Lies and Colin From Accounts — the latter of which Hurbert-Burns commissioned as Binge's content chief before launching The Set Up.
- The joint statement frames the adaptation as 'the Titanic as we've never seen it,' told through Evelyn's eyes and those of the many extraordinary women aboard the ship, with a love story at its center.
- Papandrea, Hurbert-Burns and Hutensky will produce for The Set Up alongside Wilkinson, Nick Fordham and agent/producer Lee-Anne Higgins.
Why it matters: The Set Up's first major project pairs a proven prestige-TV production team — behind *Big Little Lies* and *Colin From Accounts* — with a #1 Australian bestseller and a journalist-turned-author with national name recognition, giving the adaptation both commercial reach and awards-season credibility before a script is even written.
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