BBC orders Windsor biopic, renews A Word

The A Word is set for a second season on BBC1

UK pubcaster BBC1 has commissioned a one-off drama that chronicles the life of actress Dame Barbara Windsor.

Babs will be penned by Dickensian creator Tony Jordan and produced by BBC Studios in association with Jordan’s Red Planet Pictures

The drama will detail the performer’s lonely childhood and complicated relationship with her father through to her doomed marriage and rise to fame.

Dickensian creator Tony Jordan

Babs will go into production later this year for broadcast in 2017. Executive producers are Lorraine Newman and Hilary Salmon for the BBC and Jordan for Red Planet Pictures. The show was ordered by Charlotte Moore.

The commission comes after Jordan’s large-scale drama Dickensian was dropped by the BBC last month, as revealed by C21 at MipTV.

In related news, the BBC1 has greenlit a second season of The A Word, its remake of Israeli show Yellow Peppers.

The second 6×60’ season of the Fifty Fathoms and Keshet UK series will be distributed by Keshet International. It comes as the first season is set to launch on SundanceTV in the US on July 13.

The A Word centres on the messy, extended Hughes family which has a child newly diagnosed with autism at its centre.

BBC1 is also set to air Us, a multi-part adaptation of Nick Payne and David Nicholls’ novel about a failing marriage, produced by Drama Republic.

On BBC2, The Boy With The Topknot will be produced by Parti Productions and Kudos. The 1×90’ special is based on Sathnam Sanghera’s memoirs of being a second-generation Indian growing up in Wolverhampton in the UK.