BBC One Makes Drama Commissions

LONDON: A trio of new series and two event productions have been ordered by the new BBC One controller Danny Cohen in his first round of drama commissions.

One Night, a 4×1-hour event drama, is a prime-time program set over one hot summer night about four very ordinary but different people whose fates are linked by a seemingly inconsequential event. Each episode is one character’s stand-alone story.

Call the Midwife, a 6×1-hour series, has been adapted by Heidi Thomas from Jennifer Worth’s best-selling memoir. The story provides a humorous outlook at midwifery and family in 1950’s East End London.

Also on the slate are Bound (working title), a 6×1-hour series about a group of women who have lost the men in their lives to Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Morton is a 8×1-hour series that centers on Sam, a spy and hunter who herself is hunted by an enemy more ruthless and determined than she’s ever known. The 3×1-hour Great Expectations, made by BBC Drama Production, is Sarah Phelps’ new adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic.

All five dramas were commissioned by Danny Cohen and Ben Stephenson, the controller of BBC drama commissioning. Cohen commented:  "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." Stephenson added: "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."