Piers Wenger: Last News

The BBC has unveiled Lindsay Salt, Netflix UK scripted commissioner, as its next Director of Drama.

Sex Education producer Eleven is behind a British/Australian drama series about a group of expats in the 1950s for the BBC and Aussie SVoD Stan.

Conversations With Friends,” the upcoming series adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, will premiere on May 15 on Hulu, BBC announced today, in addition to dropping a new trailer for the show.The series follows 21-year-old Frances (Alison Oliver), who, after three years, is still best friends with her ex-girlfriend, Bobbi (Sasha Lane). The two are inseparable, but at one of their poetry performances in Dublin, they meet Melissa (Jemima Kirke), an older writer who is taken by them.

Naman Ramachandran “Floodlights,” a feature-length single drama for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer tells the story of Andy Woodward, the former professional soccer player whose revelations about the sexual abuse he suffered as a youth player sent shockwaves throughout the industry. In 2016, Woodward went public about sexual abuse by his youth coach, Barry Bennell.

Naman Ramachandran BBC head of factual Tom McDonald is joining National Geographic in the newly created role of executive VP, global factual and unscripted content, reporting into Courteney Monroe, president of National Geographic Content.In the New York-based position, which he will take up in June, McDonald will work alongside Carolyn Bernstein, executive VP, scripted and feature documentaries. Reporting into McDonald will be Alan Eyres, senior VP, development and production, unscripted; Janet Vissering, senior VP, development and production, wildlife/natural history; and Michelle “Meesh” Upton, senior VP, production management.McDonald will be responsible for leading the development and production of all global unscripted series and specials across all programming categories and formats, which feed Disney Plus and National Geographic’s linear channels.

Naman Ramachandran BAFTA-winning writer and disability rights advocate Jack Thorne’s (“Help,” “His Dark Materials”) BBC drama “Best Interests” stars Michael Sheen (“Good Omens”) and Sharon Horgan (“Catastrophe”).Sheen and Horgan play married couple Nicci and Andrew, who have two daughters, Katie played by Alison Oliver (“Conversation with Friends”) and Marnie played by Niamh Moriarty (Thorne’s play “A Christmas Carol”). Marnie has a life-threatening condition.

Naman Ramachandran The BBC has revealed the first images from the keenly anticipated series adaptation of “Everything I Know About Love,” based on journalist, author and podcaster Dolly Alderton’s internationally bestselling memoir of the same name.Images have been revealed of Emma Appleton (Maggie), Bel Powley (Birdy), Marli Siu (Nell), Aliyah Odoffin (Amara) and Connor Finch (Street).“Everything I Know About Love” won a 2018 National Book Award for autobiography and was shortlisted for the 2019 Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year in the British Book Awards.The romantic comedy drama about female friendship provides an unflinching account of surviving your 20s.The seven-part series for BBC One will be directed by China Moo-Young (“Intergalactic,” “Harlots”) and produced by Working Title Television (“We Are Lady Parts,” “Hanna”), which is part of Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group. Set in a 2012 London house-share, with flashbacks to suburban adolescence in the early 2000s, the series is a deep dive into bad dates, heartaches and humiliations and asks whether platonic love can survive romantic love as the protagonists grow up.The series is executive produced by Jo McClellan for the BBC, Dolly Alderton, and Surian Fletcher-Jones, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner for Working Title Television; and produced by Simon Maloney.

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC is developing A24 and Scott Rudin Productions’ adaptation of 2020 Booker Prize winner Shuggie Bain, Deadline can reveal.

A24, the indie studio behind “Moonlight” and “Lady Bird,” has tapped BBC executives Rose Garnett and Piers Wenger to oversee its international film and TV slate.The appointments are a major coup for A24 — and a heavy loss for the BBC — given Garnett and Wenger are the go-to execs in the U.K. for film and scripted television, respectively, anywhere the Beeb is concerned.Garnett most recently served as director of BBC Film, where she has overseen a slate of movies including “The Power of the Dog,” “The Nest” and “Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always.” Prior to that, she worked at Film4 where she helped produce the likes of “The Favourite,” “Room” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri.” Wenger served as director of BBC Drama, where he has overseen such hit television series as “I May Destroy You,” “Bodyguard,” “A Very English Scandal” and “Normal People.” Previously he was head of drama at Channel 4 where he commissioned “Humans,” “National Treasure,” and “The End of The F**cking World.”Both Garnett and Wenger will leave the BBC in May.

A24 has made two splashy international hires in the shape of BBC executives Rose Garnett and Piers Wenger who will join the ambitious U.S. distributor and producer to oversee their growing international film and TV slate.

K.J. Yossman Oscar Kennedy (“Ladhood”) and Jack Rowan (“Noughts + Crosses”) have joined new BBC comedy horror series “Wrecked.”Described as a “tense thriller” set aboard a cruise ship, the six-episode series is both comic with a “slice of slasher.” It is currently in production in Northern Ireland. Kennedy stars as Jamie, who infiltrates a cruise ship called The Sacramentum, in a bid to find his sister, who has gone missing after working aboard the ship on a previous tour.As Jamie is initiated into the 3,000-strong crew he meets the different factions it’s comprised of, from the theater workers to the “mafias” and low-paid staff, and their life of partying and excess.

EXCLUSIVE: Sherlock and Good Omens star Siân Brooke is to lead BBC One police thriller Blue Lights from the creators of The Salisbury Poisonings, with filming kicking off in Belfast.

The BBC has unveiled its next generation of drama commissioning and writing talent, three Assistant Commissioners including an Industry Script Exec along with 16 scribes for its Drama Room Writers 2021-22.

It has been on our screens for years but now Line of Duty writer Jed Mercurio is reportedly undecided on whether to bring back the show for another season.

I May Destroy You.The new show was announced as part of the BBC’s new slate of forthcoming TV projects, but drama controller Piers Wenger said the specifics of Coel’s new project remain very much under wraps.“It’s truly in Michaela’s head and it’s not for me to second guess that too much at this point. It’s at relatively early stages, but I wanted to let the fans of I May Destroy You know that there is a new show coming along,” he told Deadline.Wenger added: “What relationship that show will have with the original series, [is for Michaela to decide].“There’s a relationship between Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You.

Michaela Coel is working on a new series for the BBC that the British broadcaster has said could have links to the I May Destroy You universe, her blistering drama about a woman piecing together the events of her sexual assault.

The BBC is to air a new drama tracing the life of Jimmy Saville.

Radio Times : "With the finale of series four showing Georgie ready to move on with her life, it feels like the right time for us to do the same.

The BBC said it is hoping to resume filming on soaps including EastEnders “as soon as possible”.

By Tim Dams