There are five brand new dramas coming to BBC1, details of which can be found on the press release. To summarize: One Night is a four-part drama that sounds like the movie Go, showing how four strangers' lives intersect over the same summer night; Call The Midwife is a six-part adaptation of Jennifer Worth's memoir about 1950s midwifery; Bound is a six-part drama about a group of women who all have to deal with the fact their husbands have been imprisoned; Morton is an eight-part drama from Frank Spotnitz (The X Files) about a female spy who finds herself a target; and Great Expectations is a new three-part adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, to mark its bicentenary.
Danny Cohen, Controller of BBC One:
"I hope that these commissions begin to express the range and creative ambition we want BBC One drama to capture in the coming years. There are great opportunities here for new writers, as well as a new commitment to blue-collar drama, and classic period pieces."Ben Stephenson, Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning:
"This raft of original drama shows the ambition of BBC One in the future. Alongside new works by world-class established talent, it is thrilling to have Paul Smith and Julie Geary writing their first original dramas."All of those dramas interest me to some extent, which is great. I'm particularly excited by the possibilities of One Night if it's done well, as I tend to enjoy ambitious stories where disparate tales eventually wind together. It could even be stripped Monday to Thursday, couldn't it?
Also, a welcome surprise to see X Files/Millennium legend Frank Spotnitz delving into UK drama. Morton doesn't sound very original on the surface, but I'm just intrigued about the prospect of an American working in the British industry. It might create a "best of both worlds" scenario.
How about you? Do any of these announced drama projects excite you, based on the limited information available? If so, which ones, and why?
