Round up week 18 (28 April - 4 May)
Hannah Khalil
Digital Content Producer, About The BBC Blog
A round up of BBC announcements, press releases and blogs, plus some highlights from our TV, radio and online output from the last week.
Royal Wedding
The BBC is offering local communities a special one-off dispensation to mark the Royal Wedding of HRH Prince Harry and Ms. Megan Markle on Saturday May 19, allowing the public to come together and take part in the occasion, in addition, on Friday we announced our presenting line-up for the TV broadcast of the Royal Wedding of HRH Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Saturday 19 May.
BBC Arabic Festival 2018 Winners
Six award winners were announced at the fourth BBC Arabic Festival at the BBC Radio Theatre in London. The winning directors are from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Iran and include first-time filmmakers; in total there were 20 films in competition this year.
Announcements and blogs
Commissioning
Riding high on its multi award-winning programming, critical acclaim and growing share of audience, BBC Two this week unveiled a fresh raft of new commissions due to hit the screen over the coming months at an event hosted by Patrick Holland, Controller BBC Two.
Drama
On Monday, Patrick Holland, Controller of BBC Two, announced brand new original drama series Englistan, created by Riz Ahmed and produced by BBC Studios Drama London in association with Left Handed Films.
The network also confirmed this week that John Goodman and Michaela Coel are to star in BAFTA-winner Hugo Blick’s thriller Black Earth Rising.
Elsewhere, BBC One confirmed that McMafia will return for a second series. In addition, award-winning drama series, Call The Midwife, has begun filming for a Christmas special in 2018 and new series of eight episodes in 2019.
Comedy
BBC Two has announced brand new comedy Don’t Forget The Driver - written and created by acclaimed BAFTA nominated actor Toby Jones (Detectorists, Marvellous, The Girl) and Obie award-winning playwright Tim Crouch (An Oak Tree, Beginners, Adler & Gibb).
Meanwhile, a Q&A with Peter Kay and Sian Gibson for BBC Two's Peter Kay's Car Share Unscripted was published.
Elsewhere, BBC One confirmed Still Open All Hours will return in 2018 for a fifth series.
In addition, some of Britain’s top comedy talent have created four new short films for the BBC. Sara Pascoe, Tim Key, Nick Helm and Spencer Jones have written and star in the shorts, which have been commissioned by BBC Two and will premiere on BBC iPlayer on Saturday 12 May.
Entertainment
The Eurovision 2018 media pack was published this week.
Factual
BBC One confirmed a one-hour RHS Chelsea Flower Show special presented by Adam Frost and comedian Jennifer Saunders and produced by BBC Studios.
Then, on Friday, BBC One confirmed that Anthony Joshua will reunite with Wladimir Klitschko to retell the story of their epic 2017 fight in a very special documentary.
Music
BBC Music confirmed that they are once again heading to The Great Escape (TGE) continuing the partnership with the annual festival in Brighton between May 17-19, and taking BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra, BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Music Introducing with them.
International
The BBC World Service Director, released this statement following the death of BBC Afghan journalist Ahmad Shah.
This week BBC World service's Africa Eye - a new TV investigations strand for Africa launched with an in-depth investigation into the plague of addiction to cough mixture across Nigeria.
Meanwhile, starting Tuesday 1 May, and continuing weekly throughout the year, World Service confirmed that BBC Sport Africa will bring the issues, the personalities, the buzz, the key moments and the trends in sport from across the continent.
Elsewhere, on May 9, BBC World Questions comes to Prague to host a debate on the country’s political and economic future and to find out what Czechs themselves have to say about world events.
Blogs
BBC Radio 5 live digital pilots senior producer and #MumTakeover editor Jo Deahl blogged about engaging younger audiences and the return of the award-winning #MumTakeover to the network. We also published the weekly BBC iPlayer Highlights 5-11 May.
Broadcast Highlights
Yoko Ono
- The Naked Truth, from Sunday 29 April, BBC THREE
- Civilisations Stories, Monday 30 April, BBC ONE
- Britain's Best Home Cook, Thursday 3 May, BBC ONE
- Desert Island Discs Revisited: Yoko Ono, Sunday 29 April, BBC RADIO 4 EXTRA
- Composer Of The Week: Aaron Copland, Monday 30 April to Friday 4 May, BBC RADIO 3