BBC2 Looking for Drama

BBC2 are looking for new half hour drama series to air in a regular 10pm spot

The extra hours will be funded by the new £7m injection of cash for BBC2 drama over the next three years.

BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow also called for more “character-led” pieces with the potential to become long-running fixtures in the schedule, comparable to This Life or Our Friends In The North.

She also reiterated her plea for genre dramas in the vein of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and singled out the Ecosse Films adaptation of Kate Atkinson’s Behind The Scenes At The Museum as a particularly promising drama in development.

Ben Stephenson, controller of drama commissioning, said he wants to bolster the corporation’s roster of “sophisticated” returnable series to fill out the middle ground between its highbrow, short-lived singles and serials, and the more populist continuing drama series.

BBC2 had a hit with the six-part Desperate Romantics, but its drama slate is otherwise dominated by so-called “event dramas”.

The highlights of its winter/spring drama season are Royal Wedding, a one-off by Tiger Aspect, and the two-part adaptation of Martin Amis’ Money, produced in-house.

BBC2’s winter/spring slate, unveiled yesterday (Wednesday), will also see Melvyn Bragg return to BBC television after an absence of more than 30 years. Bragg, who will quit ITV next year when it ends The South Bank Show, will front a doc on the King James Bible and a “major” series on class.

Hadlow said: “We’re still working through the detail of this, but Melvyn intends to examine class - upper, middle and working class - through all forms of culture, with a final programme on what has happened to our ideas of class in the last 50 years or so.”

Bragg added that it is “difficult to think of two richer projects”.

(Source Broadcast)