The Stage

Makers of BBC’s Hotel Babylon to adapt airline and fashion exposés

Published Thursday 11 October 2007 at 17:15 by Matthew Hemley

Independent production company Carnival Films is to follow up its BBC1 series Hotel Babylon with adaptations of Imogen Edwards-Jones’ books Air Babylon and Fashion Babylon.

The first to make it on to the small screen will be Fashion Babylon, which is being developed for the BBC and is currently at script stage.

Air Babylon is still in the early stages of development.

Carnival Films’ managing director Gareth Neame told The Stage his aim was to make a “Babylon franchise”.

Hotel Babylon, which has its third outing next year, has been a major success for the production company and Neame said he hoped it would continue to run on BBC1 for some time.

He said: “Hotel Babylon is our most important show. It is just good fun and unashamedly entertaining. It has a very good cast and it has that popular appeal. I see no reason why it should not go on for some time to come. It has a very strong clear format and in this day and age giving a strong proposition to audiences is very important - everyone knows what that show is.”

Neame praised Edwards-Jones, who goes behind the scenes of each industry in her books, as a “brilliant investigative journalist”.

He said: “She is great at tapping these ideas and doing it in fun entertaining way. They are really good raw material for us.”