The Stage

BBC Two to boost number of female comedians

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

BBC Two controller Janice Hadlow has revealed she wants to increase the number of women who appear in the channel’s comedy and entertainment shows.

Although she said she felt the channel was “getting there” in terms of the numbers of women who appear in programmes the channel broadcasts in both genres, she said she “completely agreed” with claims made at this year’s festival that more could be done.

She pointed to the likes of comedians Miranda Hart and Ruth Jones, both of whom are to host chat shows for BBC Two in the future, as examples of “two interesting women doing interesting things”, and also revealed she had recently commissioned an improvisation format which she said had a “strong female presence”.

“We are on our way - we are getting there,” Hadlow said.

Addressing delegates at this year’s television festival, she also revealed she has ambitions to find a returning drama series for BBC Two, describing this as “a very powerful” aspiration for both her and BBC controller of drama commissioning Ben Stephenson.

However, she added: “What we have to do first of all is to get a more consistent presence of drama on BBC Two.”

Going forward, Hadlow said she would like BBC Two to commission more single dramas, labelling these “a really important part” of the channel’s line-up, and added she would like to see more literary adaptations broadcast.

She said: “We can’t compete with BBC One on that - we won’t be doing another version of Emma. But I think there is interesting territory for BBC Two to explore in terms of the connection between drama and books.

“We don’t have to just think about GCSE-examining kind of books - we can throw our net much wider and think about what kind of books work.”