The Stage

Living to commission more original drama

Published Tuesday 31 August 2010 at 14:20 by Matthew Hemley

Digital channel Living has revealed it has ambitions to commission more original UK drama, following its broadcast of the six-part Will Young series Bedlam next year.

Living TV Group director of television Claudia Rosencrantz told delegates at this year’s television festival that Living had been searching for the “right piece” to launch it into original UK drama for two years.

She said once reaction to Bedlam is gauged following its broadcast in 2011, the channel will have a better idea of what kind of dramas it wants to commission. Because of this, she is not currently accepting scripts for shows in the genre.

“I think to be really fair it would be better not to pitch scripted shows yet - I think we want to see how we do with Bedlam and let that settle down,” Rosencrantz said.

“We do have ambitions to do more, and at that point we will brief out what we would like and are looking for. We are slightly terrified of 300 drama scripts coming in as we don’t have a drama department.”

Rosencrantz also revealed that Living’s first original comedy commission, Gail Tuesday starring Brenda Gilhooly, is going to be a one-off and does not signal the start of regular comedy shows for Living.

She described the show as an “accident”, claiming that Living had not gone looking for an original comedy.

“It is just a one-off. I really like it and am interested to see if people enjoy it, but we didn’t go out looking for our first scripted comedy - it came and found us,” she said.