The BBC has greenlit four new dramas from first time television writers, as part of a move to develop and back new talent, according to drama boss Piers Wenger. The commissions include an adaptation of Kit de Waal’s My Name is Leon from Shola Amoo; Sex Education director Alice Seabright’s debut Chloe; The Responder, a […]
EDINBURGH: The BBC’s drama and factual controllers, Piers Wenger and Alison Kirkham, announced a host of new programming coming to the pubcaster at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. New dramas include Scottish series The Cry and The Victim, as well as Jeff Pope’s new series about convicted serial killer Stephen Port, are coming to the […]
UK channel BBC One has commissioned a pair of dramas, one based on a trilogy of Sarah Lotz books called The Three. The other is an original script titled The Serpent, and comes from Ripper Street’s Richard Warlow. The Three follows a mystery that begins after three children miraculously survive four plane crashes, with a […]
British detective drama Luther will return to BBC One in the UK and BBC America in the US for a fifth season. It had been unclear if the series, which stars Idris Elba (The Wire) as gruff policeman John Luther, would be back on screens after a short fourth run in December 2015. However, UK […]
Hugh Grant is returning to TV for the first time in 20 years. The actor, best known for his roles in iconic feature films such as Four Weddings and A Funeral and Bridget Jones’s Diary, has been lined up to play former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe in BBC1 three-part drama A Very English Scandal. […]
The BBC has announced a raft of new drama series including Duty/Shame, a copro with Netflix about a Japanese detective who travels to London looking for his missing brother, and rejigged its scripted team. Duty/Shame (aka Giri/Haji) was one of eleven new dramas for BBC One and one apiece for BBC Two and internet service […]
The BBC and HBO have co-commissioned an eight-part drama from scribe Sally Wainwright about the life of 19th century landowner Anne Lister. Shibden Hall is set in Britain’s Industrial Revolution, following the unlikely story of Anne Lister, a real-life Halifax industrialist who dressed like a man and planned to marry a wealthy woman as part […]
Game of Thrones star Kit Harington is set for a 17th century-set thriller drama based around the Gunpowder Plot for UK pubcaster the BBC. Harrington will star alongside Peter Mullan (Top of the Lake), Mark Gatiss (Sherlock) and Liv Tyler (Lord of the Rings) in Gunpowder, which is for BBC One. Harington developed the series […]
Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch is to produce and star in a BBC One adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel about the loss of a child. Cumberbatch’s new indie, SunnyMarch TV, is coproducing The Child in Time with another fledgling prodco, Pinewood Television, and Masterpiece, the drama commissioning arm of US pubcaster PBS. Studiocanal, which has […]
Channel 4’s drama chief Piers Wenger is leaving the UK broadcaster to join the territory’s pubcaster, the BBC. Wenger (pictured) has beaten off competition to land the role of controller, BBC drama commissioning, which is th most high-profile position in British sciripted television. He begins this autumn. In turn, Channel 4 has promoted deputy head […]
