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BBC places Mammoth drama order

The BBC has ordered a seven-part World War Two drama from Victoria producer Mammoth Screen as part of a raft of scripted commissions by the UK pubcaster.

Piers Wenger

World on Fire (7×60’), written by Peter Bowker (The A Word) and produced by ITV-Studios owned Mammoth Screen for BBC1, was commissioned by BBC drama controller Piers Wenger.

Wenger also announced the commissions of The North Water (5×60’) from British-Australian prodco See-Saw Films, The Trial of Christine Keeler from London-based Ecosse Films’ and Trigonometry (8×30’) from UK indie House Productions.

World on Fire is being developed by Rebecca Keane, Mammoth’s creative director. The exec producers are Bowker, Helen Ziegler and Damien Timmer for Mammoth and Lucy Richer for the BBC.

The multi-stranded drama tells the story of WW2 through the lives of ordinary people from countries involved in the conflict. Filming for the series will begin next year in the UK and across Europe, and the show will be distributed by ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVSGE).

Ruth Berry, MD of ITVSGE, told C21 the show was “something else,” marking an extension of the “scale and ambition” that British drama has exhibited over the last few years.

“When you try to enter into a stage such as a world war, you’re setting yourself up for something that has great scale,” she said. “I’ve talked in the past about globalisation and barriers coming down for audiences, and we talk a lot about television being this fantastic medium at the moment and a go-to for telling stories in different ways. World on Fire is a breakthrough in that.

“There’s an opportunity for us to go far and wide in the way we sell it, just because of the nature of the story. In the global distribution business, to have a show that feels truly global and representative of so many different international voices, we’re super lucky.”

Berry added that ITVSGE hopes to take World on Fire to market by the end of the year.

The North Water, commissioned by Wenger and BBC2 controller Patrick Holland and based on the novel by Ian McGuire, follows the adventures of a surgeon who joins a whaling expedition as the ship’s doctor. It will be executive produced by Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Iain Canning and Emile Sherman for See-Saw Films and Lucy Richer for the BBC. Filming will begin in summer 2018.

Richer will also exec produce The Trial of Christine Keeler, a new account of 1960s UK political scandal the Profumo Affair, alongside Amanda Coe for the BBC and Kate Triggs and Douglass Rae for Ecosse Films. The six-part series was commissioned for BBC1 by Wenger and Charlotte Moore, director of BBC Content, with Endemol Shine handling international distribution.

Trigonometry, a romantic comedy involving a couple and their new flatmate, is exec produced by House Productions chiefs Tessa Ross and Juliette Howell alongside Tommy Bulfin for the BBC. A commission by Holland and Wenger, it will air on BBC2.

The new commissions follow Wenger’s announcement at the Edinburgh International Television Festival that he was keen to make BBC less darkly themed.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the role drama plays in people’s lives,” he said at the time. “There’s an awful lot of very dark drama across all the channels and I would like to see some more inspiring stories.”

The dramas also beef up the BBC’s scripted commissions, adding to The Three and The Serpent, which were ordered earlier this year.

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