Archives for March 2011

Spring is here, the sap is rising and I am delighted to say that BBC Four has a whole host of wonderful and entertaining shows lined up this season.

A BBC Four audience is one that gets its kicks out of delighting in discourse. I believe that all human life can be found in almost any subject - it just requires some imagination and an insatiable curiosity.

And there's plenty on offer over the next six months to hopefully slake that thirst.

One of the most exciting new shows is Scrapheap Orchestra, a 90-minute film based around a plan to construct an entire orchestra's instruments out of rubbish.

Not some environmental axe being ground, just a fun and sometimes insightful exercise in unpacking what makes instruments work. How do they produce sound, from a violin to a trombone, a drum to a timpani?

And this final 44-piece orchestra is going to prove that it can play proper as it were, by putting on a concert this summer and playing the 1812 Overture.

Another charmer on offer is a wonderfully spirited reassessment of British painting in the 20th century, British Masters.

While the rest of the world was busy discovering itself in abstraction, the British - from Paul Nash and Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland and Francis Bacon to David Hockney and Lucian Freud - were linking up with a very British painterly sensibility and producing some of the greatest figurative and landscape works of art of the 20th century.

And who better than art historian Dr James Fox to explore what he believes is an extraordinary flowering of this painterly genius?

By way of contrast, Regency is a three part series on that most dashing of periods - the British Regency of 1811 to 1820.

The mainstream is where BBC Four plies its trade, except the channel reflects that mainstream back in a nuanced, opinionated and provocative way.

And I'm delighted that the irrepressible Dr Lucy Worsley will explore a decade of riotous creativity, passions and, by no means least, outrageous behaviour.

At the heart of her series stands the compelling central figure of George, the Prince Regent himself. Have fun! Lucy certainly does.

It is spring, after all, and I was keen that the channel reflected what a wonderful moment in the year this always is - a new start, Easter and rebirth acknowledged and now a wonderful, glorious warming of the earth around us.

So to This Green And Pleasant Land, part of BBC Four's landscape moment.

Until relatively recently the idea of depicting what the countryside actually looked like was considered, if considered at all, frankly, bizarre.

This Green And Pleasant land recounts how gradually the glories of our natural surroundings took centre stage.

Look out, in the same season, for Tom Fort's heart-warming film about one of my favourite roads, the A303. It is a journey that spans 94 miles, four centuries and one man's motoring love affair.

To accompany this, we have not just Julia Bradbury back in her walking boots tramping along canals in Canal Walks, but a whole week on Iceland - with some fabulous scenery and scary tales from the Viking age.

There's also a whole season on plants and flowers headed up by our new series Botany: A Blooming History.

And there's tons more. In Afterlife, we're building an installation in Edinburgh's Zoological Gardens, filling it with loads of household goods and food and then turning up the heating to watch how things rot, decompose and, amazingly, go on to form the cornerstones and new building blocks of new life - very BBC Four.

Plus there's a film about Terence Rattigan, Rattigan by Benedict Cumberbatch, a season on how Britain filmed and documented itself, and a Luxury season.

And Timothy Spall's back on his boat, with his partner Shane, continuing his idiosyncratic sail around Britain in Timothy Spall: Somewhere On The Irish Sea.

But enough of the lists, the best news is that The Killing is back.

After screening the most talked-about crime thriller in British television for years - The Killing 1 - I am delighted to say that this intense, complex and enthralling drama series is back, Shetland sweaters, Sarah Lund and all.

So relax and enjoy the turning of the seasons with BBC Four.

Richard Klein is the controller of BBC Four.



Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

32 Brinkburn Street is a new BBC One daytime drama timed to coincide with the 2011 census. It is set in two time periods, 1931 and 2011, with each episode covering 24 hours.

The drama follows the lives of two generations of one family who live in the same terraced house in Manchester, comparing and contrasting the problems they face and how they deal with them.

This was a wonderful production to work on as a designer.

Initially, the producer, director and I proposed a colour tone to run throughout the entire piece. It was important that the drama would flow when cutting between the two time periods.

The colour palette, and some lovely transitions by the director, Dan Wilson, ensured that the drama felt like one piece rather than two stories merely stitched together.



The street location in Droylsden, Manchester was chosen before I was on board but the main house was found by the director, location manager and myself simply by knocking on doors in that street.

At the very last minute, just when we thought that the house we needed didn't exist and we were unhappily considering various alternatives, we happened across resident Derek's house which had the perfect layout to suit our script.

We were so happy as the entire drama hinged on finding this house!

The street itself is very well preserved; it even still has Victorian street lamps so this made my life a lot easier!

The residents gave us a warm welcome even when we knocked on their door at eight in the morning to ask if we could put up period netting in their window as their house was in shot!

And Derek was amazing; we removed almost all of his belongings, even his bed, so that we could recreate 1931 in his house - we did walk his dog though!

As you can imagine, a lot more of my time went into creating 1931 than it did 2011 as it had to be thoroughly researched first.

My starting point was Manchester library and its archive of photographs of Manchester residents.

There were some really good street scenes and I was able to get a good sense of the time and the people who lived in it.

Another fantastic source particularly for referencing a working class home in this period (it was a little later, 1939) was a photographic book by Bill Brandt, Homes Fit For Heroes.

Most design books representing this era tend to illustrate the current trends of the day which would really only have been relevant to the wealthy (influences which would eventually filter through to the masses but many years later) whereas this book showed how working class people of this time really lived, in a minimalist, practical way.

If you look closely, you'll see objects in practical places gleaned from Bill Brandt's images to give the sets a sense of being lived in.

Gracie's handbag is kept on a nail by the cooker where she can see it, scissors and shoe brushes are on a nail by the fire where they can be found easily every day.

The period props were sourced from a few places in Manchester (prop houses, coin collectors etc) but in particular we used a prop house in Lincolnshire which has several floors of props covering several periods.

You travel from the 1920s to the 1960s by simply opening a door. They can supply almost anything from wallpaper to carpet, to washing powder boxes to lollipops.

It's an amazing place to wander around and I could easily have spent all day exploring except that we (me and my production buyer, Ron Pritchard) had one day to travel four hours each way and to choose props for seven weeks of filming!

We had to choose our props wisely in order to keep to our budget and I chose not to use authentic period wallpaper as this is particularly expensive.

Instead I searched around to find modern wallpaper of the correct tone for our piece and which had a flavour of the period - rather than merely being a historical reproduction.

This would then be aged down - a painting term meaning to dirty the walls with dark washes of paint and which can be done lightly or heavily depending on the effect I'm after, ie, the attic set needed to feel like it hadn't been lived in for decades and was subsequently heavily aged down.

The most interesting space to design was the 1931 kitchen set; I inherited the blueprint of the space from Derek's 2011 kitchen but after that point I could take it anywhere.

Ron and I happened across a range that matched Derek's and which our special effects team brought to life with fake coals and gas bars, an item which brought a lovely atmosphere to the set.

By having a fire fuelled this way, we ensure that the size of the flames can be controlled at all times and that the correct safety measures are put in place, such as having fire extinguishers to hand and keeping the gas bottle at a safe distance outside the studio.

Dennis Henshaw (the construction manager) and his team did a wonderful job in bringing my drawings to life and helping to transform Derek's house into Gracie's house.

I was very fortunate to have a fantastic art department supporting me and a wonderful crew to work with making this one of the most enjoyable productions to date!

Andrea Hughes is the production designer on 32 Brinkburn Street.

32 Brinkburn Street begins on Monday, 28 March at 2.15pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times, please see the upcoming episodes page.

Karen Laws, the writer of 32 Brinkburn Street, has written a post about the creation of the drama on the BBC Writers' Room blog.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

A record number of you (well over 400) posted your appreciation on Sanjeev Bhaskar's post on this blog for our recent daytime drama The Indian Doctor, so I'm absolutely delighted to tell you first that I have just recommissioned it for a second series.

I can also reveal that our wonderful World War Two period drama Land Girls is also returning for a third series.

I commission programmes on BBC One and Two daytime, and it's fantastic to see a series resonate so strongly with you, our viewers.

Bringing more drama to daytime is something I care passionately about.

Sanjeev Bhaskar, who played Prem Sharma in The Indian Doctor, replied to your comments on this blog, saying he was humbled and overwhelmed by your support, and I know he is delighted that the series is returning.

The Indian Doctor also impressed the critics, winning a coveted Royal Television Society award last week, which all the team are absolutely thrilled with.

There is a long way to go before The Indian Doctor hits your screens again - probably early next year - so we're still busy working out the new storylines.



However, many of the characters will be returning. You can catch a taste of the first series here:

In the meantime, we also have two new dramas starting on BBC One afternoons which you might be interested in catching.



Next Monday, 32 Brinkburn Street kicks off.

Starring Eva Pope and Jack Deam, the drama is set around a dark secret at the heart of two generations of the same family, living in the same house in 1931 and 2011.

Moving between two very different eras, we've worked hard to bring something unique.

If you want to know more about Brinkburn Street, then take a look at the set designer Andrea Hughes' post, which is coming up on this blog on Monday.

Andrea gives a fascinating insight into how she researched and found inspiration for the 1931 set.

I think the series trailer here sets the scene perfectly:

Finally, from Monday, 4 April we have Justice, a new fast-paced contemporary drama set in Liverpool, starring Bob Pugh, Gary Mavers and Gillian Kearney (plus legendary boxer John Conteh - watch out for him).

Inspired by a real community justice centre in Liverpool, you can see a sneak preview on the BBC Press Office website.

I know many of you who commented on Sanjeev's post (julieapp #1, traceyanne #377, WiganBob #394 and maurobsop #416 to name a few) were disappointed that our dramas aren't shown in peak hours, so please don't forget to set your recorders, or catch it on iPlayer.

Also check your TV guides, as many of our dramas do get repeated later on - Land Girls is being repeated soon on BBC One - so keep a look out for that.

Liam Keelan is the controller of BBC Daytime.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

This is what I call squeaky bum time. A few days to go before transmission of the first instalment of my two-part version of DH Lawrence's Women In Love.

Some press coverage has started to emerge and plenty more will be lined up behind it. Not to mention the opinions of numerous academics and Lawrence experts the world over.

Squeaky bum? This is full on fear.

It's always like this as a production nears its airing, but my emotions around Women In Love seem particularly raw.

I think it's partly the time it's taken to write - a tad over six years by my reckoning - and partly the fact that it's my first adaptation, so I feel I need to be nervous for both me and dear old Bertie.

Above all, though, I'm anxious because I'm as proud of this production as I am of anything I've ever written. And I want people to engage with it.

Not because of a terrible and unedifying need for attention either (though clearly that is there) but because I want people to go back to DH Lawrence and read his books again.

And to do that, I need the audience to watch these films and realise that Lawrence is so much more than his popular image, which is of a man who was obsessed with sex and anti-women and... and that's about it really.

Because, the truth is, he's a brilliant writer who tackled many complex issues, who put women at the very core of so much of what he wrote, and who examined sex in detail.

Not because he was Dirty Bertie, as he has been dubbed, but precisely because he wanted to get away from the prurient arched-eyebrow approach to sex and the human body which so characterised (does it still?) the tutting English.

For Lawrence, all life should be an attempt to live outside the mind and the consciousness. He wanted people to find a way to transcend, to be truly free.

He suspected that death and the orgasm were the two occasions when this happened. So, naturally, much of his work focuses in on these two themes.

But it is not the sum total of his output. Far from it. And I hope you'll watch these two films and realise that is true.

One final thing, though. Don't sit there with a tattered copy of The Rainbow or Women In Love in front of you.

Everything which is in the books is in my films. But it's in there differently.

William Ivory is the screenwriter of Women In Love.

Women In Love is on BBC Four at 9pm on Thursday, 24 March. For further programme times, please visit the upcoming episodes page.

Listen to William Ivory discuss adapting Women In Love on Radio 4's Front Row.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

I was approached by the BBC's Religion and Ethics department back in 2009. They explained they were looking to work with a specialist on Bible's Buried Secrets, a documentary series about the Bible and archaeology, and that I'd been recommended to them.

Now, I know I'm a bit of a geek, but I'm always amazed at how many of my students say at the end of a lecture they had no idea the Bible was so cool and exciting.

But it really is. And I was so pleased that the BBC thought so too.

I was also delighted at the prospect of joining the BBC's team of religion presenters.

Over the next few months, we discussed possible topics for each episode.

One of the things we all agreed on was the importance of showing that biblical scholarship often asks very different questions of the Bible than people might expect.

It's not motivated by confessional concerns, but it deals with the Bible as a collection of ancient writings from ancient cultures - much like the Odyssey or the Iliad.

So scholars approach the Bible in ways similar to those they'd use in dealing with any ancient literature: who wrote this and why?

Is it a reliable source of history? If not, why not? How can archaeology be used to piece together a more reliable view of the past?

This is what's so exciting about studying the Bible, and this was one of the things I was keen to show with the topics we selected: David's empire, God's wife, and the Garden of Eden.

I've published work on all three topics, and I regularly lecture on them, so it was then a question of figuring out how to make the scholarship accessible, exciting and visually engaging.

I was brought up in a secular household and I'm not a believer, but I've always been fascinated by ancient religion.

My passion for the Bible springs directly from the fact that it's such a fantastic and diverse collection of texts that can tell us something about the beliefs, concerns and cultures of the people who wrote them.

But that doesn't mean that these people's views are representative of an entire society.

In fact, many scholars agree that the Bible was written by small groups of elites, whose views were likely to be very different from the other people in their own societies.

It's this diversity that I enjoy exploring in my research, and this is what I wanted to focus on in the series.

The other thing I wanted each programme to do was highlight the cultural richness of the worlds from which the biblical literature came.

The Bible itself contains many different versions of the past it seeks to describe, and some of these are often the stories that are more commonly overlooked.

So the legitimate nature of the worship of the goddess Asherah was an obvious story to tell in the documentary series, as was the alternative view of the Garden of Eden presented in biblical books beyond Genesis.

Obviously, I know that not everyone will like the series. Some people might find it challenging to their faith or their own understanding of the Bible's cultural legacy.

But I hope that the series will be of interest, especially to those people who might think the Bible is boring or irrelevant. I hope they will watch the series and be intrigued.

Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou is a senior lecturer in the Hebrew Bible and the presenter of Bible's Buried Secrets.

Bible's Buried Secrets is on BBC Two and BBC HD on Tuesdays at 9pm. The series is available in iPlayer until Tuesday, 5 April.

For further programme times, please visit the upcoming episodes page.

For reasons of sensitivity, comments on this blog post will be pre-moderated. What's pre-moderation?

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

One of the joys of developing television shows is the freedom to write a stupidly ambitious idea on two sides of A4, safe in the knowledge that it probably won't happen.

However, in this instance, BBC Three and Comic Relief had other ideas and on 2 January 2011 we decided, with less than two months to go, to create the BBC's first ever 24-hour online panel show marathon - and 24 Hour Panel People was born.

The next step was relatively straightforward. All we needed to do was bring the biggest comedy talent in the UK to BBC Television Centre on the same day and convince them to perform live to the world, without the protection of being edited.

We'd then build a set that could transform into 20 different sets, show the inner workings of making a TV show, broadcast it on the web, and do all this while still protecting the BBC's reputation - easy.

With Comic Relief at our side, our production team began contacting every production company that owned the most iconic panel and comedy entertainment shows across radio and TV.

From Angst (who make Mock The Week) to Zeppotron (8 Out 10 Cats), they all agreed to help and without their blessing this show would not have got off the ground.

For us, it was important to be as faithful as we could to these iconic shows.

The final piece of the puzzle was to find a comedian who was willing to front the entire 24-hour broadcast and put their comedy name on the line - step forward Mr David Walliams.

It's hard enough preparing for one panel show recording. David had to prepare for 20 or more.

But he did it, and remained charming and, more importantly, funny throughout. Well done David.

While the production team were in full flow, the BBC's online team and editorial policy were busy re-writing the rulebook left right and centre. This kind of online event had never been done before by the BBC.

They had their work cut out deciphering how to make the live stream available to as many people across the globe as possible whilst managing the large amounts of viewer interaction through tweets and emails.

And, crucially, what measures could we put in place to have adult content available at two o'clock in the afternoon?

As with everyone on this production, they rose to the challenge and, whatever we asked for, they figured out a way to do it.

And finally, logistics (hurray). There's really not enough time or need to explain the ridiculous logistics of putting on a 24-hour event.

For me, a symbol of just how organic and changeable this event was is best summed up by the board in our production office.

The production team would refer to "the board" with the same hushed reverence the Toy Story aliens referred to "the claw". That board would change every minute of every day.

In our office you would constantly hear phrases like, "If Sir David Frost says yes, but Keith Lemon says no, then let's move Jedward to Blankety Blank and then get David Tennant to play Give Us A Clue and see if Stephen Fry will hang around for Just A Minute. Has anyone spoken to Clive Anderson, Christopher Biggins or Jimmy Carr?"

I'll never be really clear whether we controlled the board or the board controlled us - it was one of the most organic shows I've ever been involved in.

Five weeks later, and through everyone's hard work, on 5 March at midday, we began our live 24-hour broadcast on the web.

Throughout the day we broke online records across the board for views and tweets.

We also discovered that the online audience loved seeing the behind the scenes of the production so we tried to adapt accordingly.

I only really got a sense of how the whole machine was working together at around 3am while eating a beef lasagne (I know).

I wandered into the stream team's online area and saw the world reacting to what we were putting out. Who'd have thought Nicholas Parsons would be a global sensation?

Here's David Tennant in one of our backstage pictures - you can see the whole set on BBC Comedy's Flickr account. I hope they convey a little of the sense of the day.

Twenty four hours later, it was over, and this incredible team from the runners, the art department, to the studio crew and our own production team had done it. They were, as my series producer would say, "amaze-bags".

Then, after little sleep, it was straight off to the edit with the unenviable task of trying to make the whole 24-hour experience fit into five half hour shows for BBC Three and a little over a week to do it.

It's almost impossible to sum up an event like this in five half hours of TV because it was so much more.

It was an incredible one-off broadcast that featured so many talented people behind and in front of the camera with several factions of the BBC working together in coffee-fuelled harmony.

If you watch the cut-down shows on BBC One on Friday, in iPlayer then I hope they raise a smile and make you donate.

If you watched all 24 hours, then thank you, you were part of a ridiculous and magnificent thing.

But please remember there was only one real reason we all did this - to raise as much money as possible for Comic Relief.

Update: I have just discovered a note in my back pocket that was handed to me at 3am during the broadcast. It reads, "The marching band cannot return tomorrow but we still have the motorised bed on standby." Brilliant.

Andy Brereton is the executive producer of Comic Relief's 24 Hour Panel People.

Half hour episodes, first shown on BBC Three, are currently available in iPlayer.



Find out how David Walliams got on in part three of Comic Relief on BBC One at 11.05pm on Friday, 18 March.



A compilation of episodes of 24 Hour Panel People is on BBC One on Friday, 25 March.

For further programme times, please visit the upcoming episodes page.

For more information on Comic Relief please visit the BBC's Red Nose Day site.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

One of the most common complaints to BBC television in recent years has been that some people find it hard to hear the dialogue in our shows.

They cite many reasons for this, the most common among them being background music being too loud.

As a result of these complaints in 2009, Jay Hunt (my predecessor as controller of BBC One) launched an extensive study into why people were experiencing these difficulties.

BBC Vision's Audibility project was a huge undertaking. It involved using our 20,000-strong panel of TV viewers across the age, geographical and social demographic and a good deal of technical experimentation.

This included an engineering analysis of programmes, remixing soundtracks on clips and much more.

We also worked with the Voice Of The Listener And Viewer, Channel 4 and the Royal National Institute For Deaf People to find out once and for all what it is that can make it hard for viewers to hear the dialogue in our programmes properly.

The results were surprising. It turns out that audibility is not just about background music, as many had thought.

In fact issues range from clarity of speech - namely mumbling, muttering and muffled voices - to unfamiliar accents. Background noise such as traffic was also an issue.

However what we discovered was that it was a combination of factors could really create problems - for example a mumbling actor, recorded in a noisy environment with added music.

What struck me is that many of the problems could be resolved long before a single frame is shot if more emphasis was placed on planning for clear sound.

For example, has the director chosen the right location and what are the implications for getting good sound? Has the person looking after sound had training and the right level of experience? Are the presenters briefed to recap if they feel key messages are not clear?

If a contributor may be difficult to understand, can they be in vision as much as possible so viewers can see their lips move?

In testing, when we remixed sound tracks on video clips; with the music taken down a notch the results were fascinating.

Reducing the music by just one point, four decibels, when the programme is finally mixed allowed many more people to understand what was being said without compromising the editorial vision.

This was particularly true for people who had any form of hearing loss.

One invaluable piece of information I've learned along the way is that age-related hearing loss can begin as early as in our 40s. Many of us are completely unaware that our hearing could be deteriorating and think the issue is with TV programmes.

But for me, this is something we need to be aware of - particularly those making programmes for mainstream channels like BBC One.

The result of this research is that we now have a 'best practice' guide for programme makers available on the BBC Academy's College of Production website.

This gives clear guidance on the small things that programme makers can do to make a big difference to the audience's ability to hear and therefore enjoy our programmes to the fullest possible extent.

My thanks to all our partners involved in this project. It has been a fascinating and very useful study.

Danny Cohen is controller of BBC One.

Further guidance has now been published on the BBC's Editorial Guidelines website.

It's a wet Friday morning at our studios in West London and it's my last day on series nine of Waking The Dead.

We have just delivered 10 hours of primetime drama to BBC One - the final ever series.

It's been a lightning five years since I started on series six and my mind turns to what I'll take away from the experience of working on a forensic crime drama.

For a start, I could probably kill someone 20 different ways now and have an above average chance of getting away with it. It's good for you to see the different ways your licence fee goes to work, I think.

Oh wait, I've just thought of a downside. With the amount of gruesome script research I've done on my BBC computer, I'm probably on every government, police and Ministry Of Defence watch list, so maybe not a good idea after all.

Danger lurks at every turn. This series we have a scene where a corpse has a distinctive imprint on its skull. Eve works out it's where the head hit a manhole cover after the victim was run over.

After researching this element of the story, I will certainly think twice before putting the word 'manhole' into Google again, I can tell you.

One of my abiding memories from my time on the show is the day we filmed a scene in a mansion that involved a naked decomposing prosthetic corpse suspended upside down from a first floor balustrade.

The victim's silicon skull had been filled with jam to encourage the maggots to stay put (maggots love jam, apparently - who knew?).

In addition, the fly and maggot wrangler (yes, it's a real job) released hundreds of blowflies as the camera manoeuvred its way through the hallway, avoiding the dead taxidermal dog lying on the floor.

It was at this point I was told the owners of the house were coming home early in the hope of meeting Trevor Eve.

Now, we are always completely upfront with potential location owners about our intentions. However, I wasn't convinced they'd be prepared for the harsh reality of the situation when they returned home.

So, as I stood by to welcome them back, the crew flew into action (like the last five minutes of an episode of Changing Rooms), using fly spray, vacuum cleaners and dustpans and brushes.

This was one occasion where we weren't able to say that "no animals (flies) have been harmed during the making of this film."



This last series of Waking The Dead certainly provides us with the opportunity to do something special, and hopefully surprising.

There are brief references to Mel Silver, Stella Goodman and Boyd's son Luke, not in a reverential way, but as a way of prompting audience memories.

Do you remember Boyd buying an enormous yellow model aeroplane in series five - Towers of Silence - when Grace's back was turned?

The plane has been knocking around the prop store for five years.

When we see Boyd's home for the first time this series, I suggested the yellow plane should be evident.

It's one of many small details for regular fans of the show. See if you spot it.

It's great working on such a highly regarded show. It's the producer's job to galvanize a film crew of 60 people.

I try to provide an environment where the writers and the crew feel empowered to create compelling stories with dark locations, great sets, stylish costumes, authentic looking corpses and atmospheric lighting set-ups.

My job has been made so much easier because the quality you see on your television screens, in turn, attracts high calibre actors and crew year after year.



Quite simply, quality stems from quality.

The decision was made to finish and it certainly feels that we're finishing on a high, having not outstayed our welcome. Would you agree?

Boyd is about to come up against the biggest challenge of his life this series. Will he prevail?

You can judge for yourselves if we've got it right. I hope you'll let me know as I'd be very interested to hear.

Colin Wratten is the producer of Waking The Dead.

Waking The Dead is on BBC One and BBC One HD at 9pm on Sunday, 13 March.

For further programme times, please visit the upcoming episodes page.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Rastamouse. For those not yet in the know, he's all about Makin' A Bad Ting Good. As are Dinamo Productions, the Welsh company behind the stop motion animation for this new hit children's programme.

We bartered some cheese in exchange for an interview with joint managing director Aron Evans.

Rastamouse is a new children's animated series following the eponymous crime fighting, guitar playing, skateboarding hero and his band of mystery solving, friends and reggae-playing musicians - the Easy Crew. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look on BBC iPlayer.

The stop motion animation series is based on the books written by Genevieve Webster and Michael De Souza, and the character of Rastamouse is voiced by British actor and presenter Reggie Yates.

Read more and comment on Laura's post.

Laura Chamberlain is assistant producer on the BBC Wales Arts blog.

The last week has been strange. People have been coming up to me in the small bookshop I work in, looking me in the eye, and saying, "Are you Evie Wyld?"

My first impulse is to lie, say something like, "No, she left ages ago, she was no good." Or, gangster-style, "Who wants to know?"

But, after a bit of panicking, I've eventually nodded.

This is partly because I'm a grown-up and admitting who you are is all part of that.

But it's mainly because, very kindly, Roz, the owner, has a pile of my book at the counter with a sign saying, "Look it's Evie, she works here," with an arrow pointing towards me.

I feel any attempt to lie would be temporary at best.

The reason this has been happening is that I've been chosen as one of the BBC Culture Show's 12 most promising British novelists.

When we met for a photo shoot, the writers I spoke to agreed it's lovely, if a little odd, to be appearing on television.

Most novelists are generally happiest on their own, writing rather than talking.

However, of course, having spent three years writing something, it's wonderful to have people who know what they're talking about say it's worth reading.

I'm especially glad that people have said such complimentary things about the handling of landscape in the book, as that strange, fierce countryside of Australia was something I really wanted to explore.

One of the questions I get asked a lot is how I managed to write in the voice of a man.

It was great, therefore, to find that someone else on the list, Rebecca Hunt, wrote hers as a dog - a male dog.

When I was first thinking about how I might do justice to a story about war and silence, I would always imagine what my Australian uncle, who fought in Vietnam, might think about it. Knowing that he approved was a huge relief.

Having those customers in the shop punch the air and say congratulations is too.



Evie Wyld is one of the authors featured in New Novelists: 12 Of The Best From The Culture Show.

New Novelists: 12 Of The Best From The Culture Show is available in iPlayer until Saturday, 12 March, and is part of Books On The BBC 2011.

Alex Clark, part of the judging panel for New Novelists: 12 Of The Best From The Culture Show, has also written on the BBC TV blog about her experiences on the programme.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The wizards at The Culture Show are a kindly bunch; they know that reading novels en masse is a task made all the more pleasurable if it can be done in warm weather and preferably in a deckchair.

So last August, when I took delivery of my first batch of books to judge for the New Novelists: 12 Of The Best from The Culture Show, I was particularly delighted to be able to head for the garden, turn off my phone and start reading.

In all, there were 57 debut novels under consideration, and we read them in various combinations.

There were 24 books in my first tranche, and I couldn't wait to begin them. I've judged several literary prizes, including The Man Booker Prize, and that first moment - when you don't have a clue what you're about to discover - is always thrilling; but all the more so when the books are by first-time authors.

You won't have read any of the writer's previous books, because there are none; and you can't be influenced, however unconsciously, by reputation or author interviews or book reviews.

And there's always the thought that you might be about to get your first taste of a truly great writer of the future.

After that initial period of reading, the judging panel had two lengthy meetings and an awful lot of email exchanges in between, before we finally got to our dozen writers.

The idea was not to find an overall winner but to establish a list of the brightest new literary fiction talent, at the same time as revealing the process of how such book lists come to fruition.

Those eligible for this new British writers' shortlist had to have written and published their debut novel in the UK within the last two years.

So with these criteria in mind the publishing houses were approached and asked to submit one author each, although additional writers put forward were also considered.

The chair, John Mullan, journalist and critic Sam Leith, author Helen Oyeyemi, Culture Show editor Janet Lee and I then whittled down the entries to the 12 we considered most outstanding.

It's safe to say we didn't always agree, but that's exactly the point of having a panel - fiction isn't something you can judge by rigid criteria, and a novel that elicited exactly the same response from every reader would be a bland creation indeed.

But I think what we were all impressed by was the range of work on offer - from comic flights of fantasy to tender love stories, from sharply imagined historical fiction to acute observations of contemporary life.

I'm very pleased with our final selection, but it's by no means the last word on brand new fiction - and I'm sure you can add plenty of your own favourites.

Alex Clark is part of the judging panel for New Novelists: 12 Of The Best From The Culture Show.

New Novelists: 12 Of The Best From The Culture Show is on BBC Two at 9pm on Saturday, 5 March, (World Book Night) as part of the Books On The BBC 2011.

Immediately before the programme on BBC Two are two Culture Show specials: A Million Books For Free at 7.30pm, presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon and The Books We Really Read at 8pm, presented by Sue Perkins.

Evie Wyld, one of the 12 novelists selected for the programme, also also written for the BBC TV blog on her experience of being filmed for the show.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Sky At Night has been a part of my life for years. My school had an observatory and the astronomy club devoured episodes old and new, so it was an enormous honour to be asked to appear on the programme.

When I first appeared, in 2000, the programme was still shot in a corner of one of BBC Television Centre's enormous studios.

But when producer Jane Fletcher took over in 2002 we moved to the homelier surroundings of Farthings, Sir Patrick Moore's home in Selsey, West Sussex.

By then I'd joined Patrick as co-presenter, reporting on missions to Mars and Saturn as well as trying to talk coherently about the mysteries of cosmology.

Luckily, the show has a fantastic relationship with the scientists who appear on it, most of whom jump at the chance to spend time in Patrick's home, full of astronomical books and curios of all sorts.

It's our ability to sit down and find out what's exciting these passionate, clever people that's one of the secrets of the show's longevity.

The other reason the show reaches its 700th episode on Sunday is, of course, Patrick.

When he speaks, people listen because they're confident they will understand his explanations, whether he's talking about the Moon or black holes.

We needed every ounce of that ability to deal with some of the questions that we had for the 700th programme, which ranged from enquires about alien life to questions about why Venus' thick, sulphurous atmosphere is so different from that of Earth.

The idea to ask for viewers' questions for our 700th episode came from a conversation amongst the team, but I'm really surprised and pleased how well it's come out.

The filming was a real highlight of my time on the programme. Our expert panel, which included Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, Brian Cox and even Jon Culshaw, did a fabulous job of working through the questions.

I think everyone involved - except possibly Patrick, who knows everything already - learned something along the way.



Hopefully the programme will be remembered as a high point in The Sky At Night's 54-year run, but there have been lows too.

Patrick has learned to laugh at the 50th programme, when an attempt to show live images through a telescope was stymied by clouds, [see Cloudy Skies clip] but for me I think the worst was the programme where we had to report the loss of British Mars probe, Beagle 2.

There have been plenty of successes, though, and our view of the universe is very different today from when the first programme went out.

The pace of change is accelerating all the time, and I for one can't wait to see what the universe looks like after another 700 programmes.

Dr Chris Lintott is the co-presenter of The Sky At Night.

The Sky At Night's 700th episode is on BBC One and BBC One HD at 11.25pm on Sunday, 6 March. There is a special extended hour-long edition on BBC Four at 7.30pm on Tuesday, 8 March.

For further programme times, please visit the upcoming episodes page.

Watch Sky At Night episodes from 2001 to 2008 on the BBC Science website and see the moon landings on The Sky At Night on the BBC Archive.

The Sky At Night co-presenter Paul Abel was a guest on Shaun Keaveny's 6 Music breakfast show on Wednesday. You can listen to the show at 6 Music's website until Tuesday, 8 March.

You can view and add your own astronomy photos to The Sky At Night's Flickr group.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.