Blog posts by year and monthJuly 2010
Posts (14)
I'm still amazed, horrified, and moved by the pitches in Dragons' Den
I can't believe I am in my sixth series of Dragons' Den. After many hours, days, weeks of sitting in a darkened Den and listening to countless pitches ranging from the brilliant to the frankly absurd, it still amazes me to see how relevant and refreshing the programme remains. Fellow Dragons...
The Great Outdoors: Can rambling ever be cool?
Being a comedy writer is quite a sedentary job, and the advent of email made it worse as we don't even get to nip to the Post Office to send off scripts any more. Eventually they will find a way to make coffee via USB and then we will never leave our chairs again. But you have to be active -...
Your preview of BBC Three's new season
Can I introduce BBC Three's new autumn showreel to you? This season we are excited to bring young audiences a unique range of thought-provoking factual programmes, innovative British drama, and unique comedy and entertainment. 2010 has been a very successful year so far. Young audien...
Sherlock: For Holmes and Watson, the game is afoot
I still have the first Sherlock Holmes book I ever owned. It had a purple spine (the purple of one of Holmes' dressing gown, I liked to imagine), a Sidney Paget illustration on the front and a wonderful introduction which ended with the magical words, "I wish I were reading these stories for the...
Danielle Lineker on My New Stepfamily
Lingerie model Danielle Lineker (neé Bux) was a single mother to one small daughter until she married Gary in 2009, and became a stepmother to his four teenage sons - the eldest being only 12 years younger than her. Danielle talked to me about making the BBC Three documentary, My New Stepfami...
On Hannibal's Trail: Cycling from Spain to Italy via the Alps
My brother Sam is the brains, or lack thereof, behind BBC Four's On Hannibal's Trail. After a cycling holiday in the Pyrenees his suggestion for our next trip was following the 2,500 mile route Hannibal took when he invaded Italy. Sam is an archaeologist and one his heroes is Hannibal - the ...
BBC Two: Your sneak preview of new programmes
If you're interested in a sneak preview of what will be hitting your screens on BBC Two later this year and in early 2011, here's a quick peek at some of our highlights. Watching it now, I don't think there's any other channel that would offer such a diverse picture of what intelligent T...
The One Show and The Open go into High Definition
For those who missed it, last night saw the debut of The One Show in High Definition (HD). It has been a challenging process of migration. As loyal viewers will know, it is a busy show with lots of different types of subjects covered, and many different production teams compiling the report...
The Silence: From classroom to film set
"Miss, where does beef come from?" one pupil asked me. "Cows," I replied, grateful that I knew the answer and that I wasn't being tested of my knowledge of the latest single by Alicia Keys. Ten minutes later, when we've settled into the year eight novel, Montmorency, another question pops...
Between Life And Death: Why medicine is art as much as science
About 18 months ago, I was approached by the BBC asking whether we would be interested in making a programme about critical illness, death, and dying. I work as a consultant in the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit (NCCU) at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. Our unit is one of the largest i...
