New BBC Dramas from Sally Wainwright, Nicôle Lecky

The BBC has revealed a raft of new drama commissions, including Hot Flush from BAFTA-winning writer Sally Wainwright.

Hot Flush centers on the lives of five women of a certain age who come together to create a makeshift, butt-of-the-joke punk-rock band to enter a talent contest, but when they rehearse together, they discover that they have a lot more to say than they ever imagined, and this is the way to say it. The six-part drama from Doctor Foster producer Drama Republic will air on BBC One and be available on BBC iPlayer.

Wainwright, writer and executive producer, said: “I’ve been wanting to write a series like this for a long time. It’s a celebration of women of a certain age and all the life stuff they suddenly find themselves negotiating/dealing with. The show is also my own personal homage to Rock Follies of ’77 and the feisty Little Ladies who woke me up to what I wanted to do with my life when I was 13. I’m thrilled to be working with Charlotte again at the BBC, looking forward hugely to working with Lindsay, and utterly delighted to (finally!) be working with Roanna again at Drama Republic.”

BAFTA-award-winning writer Nicôle Lecky dives into the world of teenage girls and their mothers in a new as-yet-untitled BBC mystery thriller. From Firebird Pictures, the six-part series for BBC One and BBC iPlayer introduces Lorna, a self-made and successful black businesswoman from South London who has worked hard to be where she is, and best friend Juliet, a white woman born into the privileged gated community they both call home. Daughters Grace and Allegra are BFFs, and life is to die for. A safe haven for the super-rich and their little darlings, Primrose Estate is a place where bad things never happen. That is until Grace and Allegra are implicated in a shocking scandal at their exclusive private school, and Juliet and Lorna are forced to take sides, pushing their friendship to the extreme.

Lecky said: “I am truly thrilled to be working with the BBC again alongside the incredible Liz Kilgarriff and the team at Firebird Pictures. Creating the world so far has been a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to finding our four amazing female leads in Juliet, Lorna, Grace and Allegra. Dark humor, big twists and bags of attitude are what make this show so juicy—not to mention a killer soundtrack and wardrobe. I can’t wait to bring it to the screen.”

Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who, The Cry, The Serpent) is starring as rookie detective Ember Manning in The Jetty, a new thriller from writer Cat Jones and producers Firebird Pictures. In the four-part series for BBC One and BBC iPlayer, a fire tears through a holiday home in a scenic Lancashire lake town. Detective Ember Manning must work out how it connects to a podcast journalist investigating a missing persons cold case and an illicit ‘love’ triangle between a man in his twenties and two underage girls.

Coleman said: “I’m delighted to be returning to the BBC to be a part of The Jetty, with Firebird Pictures at the helm, bringing the story of Ember Manning to life. I look forward to exploring Cat Jones’ darkly probing scripts alongside Marialy Rivas’ eloquent vision.”

The BBC also commissioned Virdee, a new detective series based on A A Dhand’s best-selling crime novels and starring Sacha Dhawan (Doctor Who, The Great, Wolf). It comes from the newly formed production company Magical Society, led by Paul Trijbits (Jane Eyre, The Letter for the King, The Casual Vacancy). The new six-part drama for BBC One and BBC iPlayer introduces Detective Harry Virdee (Sacha Dhawan), a Bradford cop disowned by his Sikh family for marrying Saima, who is Muslim. With his personal life in chaos, he must hunt down a killer targeting the Asian community.

Dhand said: “Like me, DCI Harry Virdee is a proud Brit who dreams big, and while he is passionate about his heritage, it is not something that solely defines him. He refuses to be shackled by the past and believes in merging worlds, cultures and identities, no matter the cost. Hey, aim big or go home—this is Yorkshire.”