BBC Two Commissions A Raft Of New Comedies & Dramas
BBC Two went on a bit of a commissioning spree yesterday announcing a raft of new comedies & dramas coming over the next year or so. These include a new comedy from Toby Jones, a legal comedy starring ‘Humans’ Katherine Parkinson, an international thriller starring John Goodman and Michaela Coel, and a drama created by Riz Ahmed. And for those without Sky, they’ve also picked up Season 1 of Donald Glover’s critically acclaimed ‘Atlanta’!
Comedies
‘Don’t Forget the Driver’ is written and created by acclaimed BAFTA-nominated actor Toby Jones (‘Detectorists’, ‘Marvellous’, ‘The Girl’) and Obie award-winning playwright Tim Crouch (‘An Oak Tree’, ‘Beginners’, ‘Adler & Gibb’). The dark comedy set in sunny, seaside Bognor Regis, explores what it means to live, work and parent at a point when the entire UK population is having to come to terms with the changing colour of their passports.
The show tells the story of coach driver and single dad Peter Green (Jones). His is a life of ordinary routine; clip-on ties, limp packed lunches, vehicle checks, round-trip coach journeys ferrying church groups to donkey sanctuaries and Japanese tourists to Canterbury Cathedral. Green is at full stretch just about coping with his disaffected daughter Kayla (bored to a state of almost total inertia in a place that has nothing for her) and Audrey, his mum, whose life is rapidly descending into confusion and fear. The discovery of a dead body on the docile Bognor shoreline and an unsettling meeting with a new arrival in town throws Green’s life into chaos – a lost soul in need of assistance, who he could help. But will he? Can he?
‘Defending The Guilty’ comes from Big Talk Productions (‘Rev.’, ‘Mum’, ‘Cold Feet’, ‘Friday Night Dinner’) and is written by Kieron Quirke (‘Cuckoo’) based on the book ‘Defending The Guilty: Truth And Lies In The Criminal Courtroom’ by Alex McBride.
Will Sharpe (‘Flowers’), plays Will Packham – an idealistic pupil barrister being shown the ropes by his cynical, worldly-wise pupilmaster Caroline, played by BAFTA Award winner Katherine Parkinson (‘The IT Crowd’, ‘Humans’). Mistakenly believing that his role is to serve justice (“No Will, a Barrister’s job is to win”), Will must navigate his way through a criminal justice system seemingly designed to be as opaque and confusing as possible. While also dealing with his fellow pupils, each of them after the same single job at the end of their training and more than happy to stab each other in the back to get it. Can he succeed and hold on to his principles? Or will the system claim another victim?
Additional cast includes Gwyneth Keyworth (‘Wasted’, ‘Black Mirror’) as Danielle, Prasanna Puwanarajah (‘Doctor Foster’, ‘Patrick Melrose’) as Ashley and Hugh Coles as Liam.
‘The Other One’ is created by Holly Walsh (‘Motherland’, ‘Psychobitches’, ‘Dead Boss’), written by Holly Walsh and Pippa Brown, and produced by Pippa Brown (‘Psychobitches’, ‘Bad Education’, ‘Bounty Hunters’).
Cathy’s dad just died. Colin was the most caring, generous and funny man you’d ever meet. He was a brilliant husband and father, and now he’s bloody died. Kicking the bucket was the most selfish thing he ever did.
But Colin had a massive secret. He had a mistress; which is weird because people with a subscription to ‘Which?’ magazine aren’t usually risk-takers. And not only that, Colin had another daughter with this woman – born exactly a week after Cathy. To cover his tracks Colin decided to call both daughters Catherine, so as to reduce confusion and getting caught (you know, like how married men buy their lover their wives’ perfume – but way worse). His other family – Marilyn and Cat – live 13 miles away in a neighbouring town.
Neither Cathy nor Cat were aware the other existed until Colin’s funeral. And this is where everything kicks off – the Cat is well and truly out of the bag.
The Other One stars Siobhan Finneran (‘Downton Abbey’, ‘Happy Valley’), Rebecca Front (‘The Thick of It’, ‘War and Peace’), Ellie White (‘Inside No 9’, ‘The Windsors’), Lauren Socha (‘Misfits’, ‘Catastrophe’) and Amit Shah (‘Stag’, ‘W1A’).
Dramas
‘Black Earth Rising’ is an international thriller written, directed and produced by BAFTA-winner Hugo Blick (‘The Honourable Woman’, ‘The Shadow Line’) and stars Emmy and Golden Globe-winner John Goodman (‘The Big Lebowski’, ‘Roseanne’) and BAFTA-winner Michaela Coel (‘Chewing Gum’, ‘London Spy’). They are joined by Olivier award-winners Noma Dumezweni (‘Harry Potter & the Cursed Child’) and Harriet Walter (‘The Crown’, ‘Downton Abbey’), alongside Tamara Tunie (‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’, ‘The Devil’s Advocate’), Lucian Msamati (‘Taboo’, ‘Kiri’) and Abena Ayivor (‘A United Kingdom’).
Playing out across the UK, Europe, Africa and the USA, Black Earth Rising explores issues of justice, guilt and self-determination. The story centres on Kate Ashby (Coel) who was rescued as a young child during the Rwandan genocide and adopted by Eve Ashby (Walter), a world-class British prosecutor in international criminal law. Kate was raised in Britain and, now in her late twenties, she works as a legal investigator in the law chambers of Michael Ennis (Goodman). When Eve takes on a case at the International Criminal Court, prosecuting an African militia leader, the story detonates, pulling Michael and Kate into a journey that will upend their lives forever.
‘Englistan’ is created by Riz Ahmed (‘The Night Of’, ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’) and follows the story of three generations of a British Pakistani family, the Latifs: Jamal and Fatima, their children Ashraf, Razia and Asim, and their grandchildren Zahed, Naseem and Ayesha. We follow them as they pursue their dreams over four tumultuous decades, navigating shifting circumstances and evolving loyalties.
Englistan will re-frame recent British history, and shine a light on the forces that have made our society what it is today. The viewer follows the Latifs through political movements and economic boom and bust, through gang-land rivalries and assimilation into the heart of the establishment, through spiritual soul-searching and religious conflict. The family will question what it means to be true to oneself, to belong and whether ‘home’ is a country, a community, or something much more personal. Above all this is a story of family, of the enduring love a family provides, how it sustains us, restricts us, and defines us for better or worse.
‘Death And Nightingales’ is adapted by Allan Cubitt from Eugene McCabe’s modern Irish classic, Death and Nightingales is a riveting story of love, betrayal, deception and revenge, set in the beautiful, haunting countryside of Fermanagh in 1885. A place where neighbours observe each other and inform, a world of spies, confessions and double-dealing; where a pervading sense of beauty is shot through with menace and impending doom.
Set over a desperately tense 24-hour period, it’s Beth Winters’ 25th birthday – the day she has decided to join the charming Liam Ward and escape from her limited life and difficult and complex relationship with her Protestant landowner stepfather Billy. As decades of pain and betrayal finally build to a devastating climax, this powerful and gripping drama illuminates tensions that tear both families and nations apart.
‘Doing Money’ is written by Gwyneth Hughes and directed by Lynsey Miller, The drama is a shocking true story about slavery in modern Britain. This fact-based one-off drama follows the heart-breaking and compelling story of Ana, a young Romanian woman snatched in broad daylight from a London street, trafficked to Ireland and used as a sex slave in a series of ‘pop up’ brothels. Ana’s story offers a tense and thought-provoking thriller, with fascinating insights into the difficulties of policing a form of modern slavery that hides in plain sight. It exposes just how big business “doing money” is.
No news on exactly when each of these shows will air, but keep an eye on the site and on BBC2 over the next few months for more info.
