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BBC’s Mallorca order marks Cosmopolitan first

UK pubcaster the BBC has ordered a 10-part daytime crime drama from former BBC exec Ben Donald’s Cosmopolitan Pictures.

Ben Donald

The Mallorca Files is set among the eponymous Spanish island’s expat community and features a British detective and his German counterpart clashing over their very different approaches to policing the island.

The show being written by Dan Sefton (The Good Karma Hospital) and will be coproduced by Cosmopolitan, which launched in 2014 with backing from BBC Studios (fka BBC Worldwide) and Clerkenwell Films with Donald, who was BBC Worldwide’s exec producer for international drama prior to going it alone.

The Mallorca Files will be distributed by BBC Studios, with production starting in November. It will air on BBC1 in 2019, with all 10 episodes also landing on VoD service iPlayer on the day of its linear debut.

The show has been commissioned by controller of BBC programming and daytime Dan McGolpin.

Donald said: “Right from the beginning I’ve wanted to make a series like the cop shows I grew up with and loved, with a pair of loveable characters people are drawn back to and want to hang out with; a show that is unashamedly entertaining and, quite honestly, a fun antidote to the pretty bleak world out there.

“In its funding, this series represents the very best of what coproduction can do to add value for the UK audience and licence fee payer. I’ve always wanted to find a way to bring the Anglo-German relationship on television out of sketch comedy and into the 21st century.”

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