BBC Blogs - About the BBC - Northern drama surge

Scan the TV schedules this week and you will understand what I mean.

Flick through the BAFTA and Radio Academy nominations too and it will underline our range and quality in drama.

Red Productions, based at MediaCity, have bragging rights on both ITV and BBC One: Prey, made in Manchester, plays on Monday nights on ITV with John Simm and is already a big mainstream hit; over on BBC ONE Happy Valley – from the Last Tango in Halifax combo, writer Sally Wainwright and actor Sarah Lancashire – both also BAFTA nominated – is winning its slot strongly on Tuesdays, telling stories of West Yorkshire's drugs underbelly.

Drama North, the BBC's in-house TV drama makers, are behind In The Flesh, the Lancashire zombie series on BBC Three which just started its second season on Sundays – a strong piece of telly, but also a great story of talent discovery and development. Dominic Mitchell is a first time writer from the Lancaster area and just won the BAFTA TV national drama writer award for the series – developed by the BBC writers' room new talent initiative and brought to the screen by Drama North. It is imaginative stuff – catch it on BBC iPlayer, if you missed the start of series two.

There are many other big BBC drama projects to look out for soon too. This week we screened From There to Here (pictured) at an event at the National Football Museum in Manchester, a series for BBC One whose triggers are the 1996 Manchester City Centre bomb and that year's Euro football tournament, penned by acclaimed Stockport-born writer Pete Bowker. Just around the corner are Kay Mellor's In The Club from her prolific Rollem Productions Leeds company; Jimmy McGovern's Common from Liverpool's LA Productions;Our Zoo, a drama series about the birth of Cheshire Zoo, being shot from Warrington to the Wirral; and Derbyshire's chronicle of 20th century life The Village – series two currently in production – starring Maxine Peake.

Radio production plays an important part in the drama ecology here too. Ian Kershaw penned Lost and Found about his wife Julie Hesmondhalgh's relationship with her father. It starred Hull's finest Sir Tom Courtenay and is up for a Radio Academy Award soon.

Why is it the North of England spawns such drama, writing, production and acting talent?

I don't know of another UK region that has quite so much happening at both established and breakthrough levels. We know that Northern soaps like Coronation Street play a huge part in developing on and off air talent and the BBC's training schemes can certainly make a difference too. In June Manchester City Council's Space Project in the east of the city adds another 55,000 square feet of shooting stage studios to our drama economy, capitalising on tax breaks that result in more and more home-grown and international drama being made in the UK and the North. It's great for skills development, jobs and investment.

Spring sees big events landing across the region too – not just BBC Sport's annual foray to the Sheffield Crucible for the World Snooker Championships and that stunning comeback win for Mark Selby.

At Easter, 5,000 worshippers and visitors came to our South Shields collaboration with The Cultural Spring in the first of their big arts projects The Great North Passion. Regional TV audiences for the programme were triple the national average for the broadcast. Next up for the North East is our Newcastle-Gateshead half term holiday visit from CBBC Channel for several days of live output that should make wonderful free entertainment for thousands of the region's school kids. The event builds on the growing reputation of the North East for children's drama production, with hit titles Wolfblood, The Dumping Ground and Hatty's War shooting in the NE too.

All of that just ahead of Liverpool's spectacular World War One Royal de Luxe parades in July and Match of the Day's 50th anniversary celebrations in Salford later this summer. More on those anon.

It has all the makings of a dramatic BBC year across the North.

Peter Salmonis Director, BBC North