BBC unveils WWI, Aussie epics

MIPTV: The BBC has commissioned two new dramas, one from Tony Jordan’s Red Planet Pictures and the other a project from Jimmy McGovern about the birth of Australia.

Ben Stephenson, controller of BBC drama commissioning, announced the two series here in Cannes today, as well as hinting at a third set in the US.

Red Planet’s The Great War (5×30’) is about two 18-year-old soldiers – one German, one British – and each episode will cover one year of the war from the point of view of each. The pair do not meet until the final episode, said Stephenson, when they’re involved in “an ultimate confrontation.”

“A piece like that shows how television is becoming so epic in its scale but always coming back down to what audiences are ultimately driven by, which is getting inside characters’ heads,” he added. “We’ve just commissioned it so we’re looking for partners at the moment.”

The pubcaster’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, will distribute the series, which will also be offered as a 2×90 mini, and is searching for third-party involvement.

Jordan (Hustle, Life on Mars, The Nativity) added in a statement: “The story looks at all aspects of the war – from the families left behind to the strategic decisions by generals that led to unimaginable bloodshed and the men fighting in the trenches. No one is unaffected by this global war.”

Stephenson also revealed another as-yet untitled drama written by Jimmy McGovern (Cracker, The Lakes, The Street,
Accused) and made by the scribe’s own production company, RSJ Films.

He said the series would be set around 1788, telling the story of convicts moving from England to Australia and setting up the first foreign communities there.

“It’s an enormously ambitious idea that’s going to shoot in Australia over the next year,” said Stephenson.

McGovern has already found success in Australia with Redfern Now, an Aboriginal drama he developed for ABC that secured a second season at the end of last year.

Stephenson said he believed that audiences were getting smarter, expecting more complex stories, wherever in the world they might be set.

He cited as an example upcoming New Zealand-set miniseries Top of the Lake, a BBC, UKTV and Sundance Channel copro from See-Saw Films and directed by Jane Campion.

Stephenson also said he was in conversations about the possibility of a US-set series – “not the type of drama that American TV would make but the type of literary drama the BBC has excelled in. I think we can bring all of our skills to some pieces of American classic literature. The world is becoming smaller and that’s very exciting for producers and writers,” he said.