The Stage

Stars join Extras for BBC2’s autumn schedule

Published Thursday 20 July 2006 at 17:25

Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Ronnie Corbett and David Bowie have been confirmed to feature in the new series of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s Extras.

The comedy will be joined in BBC2’s autumn schedule by a third outing for The Catherine Tate Show.

Meanwhile, Tim Roth, Toni Collette and Chiwetel Ejiofor will star in a new drama from Abi Morgan, the writer of Sex Traffic. Tsunami - the Aftermath examines the results of the disaster on a group of characters.

Nuremberg is a drama-documentary starring Bob Pugh, Nat Parker and Ben Cross as Goering, Speer and Hess on trial, from the producer 2004’s Auschwitz series, Detlef Siebert. Michael Sheen will play the science-fiction author in HG Wells - War With the World.

Also featuring in the season will be Steven Spielberg’s drama mini-series Into the West. This culture-clash western makes its British debut following a run in America which gained 16 Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.

On the comedy front, Peep Show duo Robert Webb and David Mitchell return with That Mitchell and Webb Look, following their Radio 4 show That Mitchell and Webb Sound. Additional writing is from Dead Ringers’ John Finnemore, Peep Show’s Sam Bain and The Thick of It’s Jesse Armstrong. The season continues with Doctor Who’s Peter Davison starring alongside Pippa Haywood in a new sitcom entitled Fear, Stress and Anger, from creator Michael Aitkens.

Also announced is an as yet unnamed documentary from Lucy Blakstad which will follow the Royal Ballet School and star the former pupil and successful ballerina, Alina Cojocaru.