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Life On Mars writers return to BBC1

BBC1 in the UK has commissioned a raft of new drama, factual series and comedies including a new fantasy series from the writers of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival today, BBC1 controller Charlotte Moore revealed several projects the channel has in the works to air at the end of this year and in early 2015.

The Living and The Dead (6×60′) was written by Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham and focuses on the occult and supernatural in 1880s England.

The series is produced by BBC Wales Drama in association with Monastic Productions and is a coproduction with BBC America.

BBC1 has also greenlit From Darkness by writer Katie Baxendale, a crime drama about a female detective bullied out of the police but forced to return when bodies from one of her previous investigations start to be found.

The series is being developed by Drama North from an original pitch as part of a BBC Writers Room scheme.

A Song For Jenny (1×75′), meanwhile, is a provocative factual drama written by Frank McGuinness that explores a woman’s response to her daughter’s murder in the July 7 London bombings.

The programme is being produced by BBC Drama Production in Northern Ireland and will air on BBC1 in July next year to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Moore said she wants to introduce new tones to BBC1 in factual and has greenlit four-part series 24 Hours In The Past, which will give viewers an idea of what it was like to be poor in Victorian Britain as six celebrities live in such conditions for four days and nights.

Darlow Smithson is producing with Fi Cotter Craig and Rachel Morgan executive producing.

In comedy, the channel is moving ahead with Mountain Goats (6×30′), a studio sitcom that began life as one of the BBC’s Comedy Playhouse one-offs titled Miller’s Mountain earlier this year. The show focuses on a group of mountain rescue volunteers in the Highlands of Scotland and is produced by the BBC in-house and BBC Scotland, with Donald McLeary writing the script.

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