A BBC Press Office
press release notes that Worldwide "has concluded a two-year agreement with SKAI, the new Greek terrestrial television channel launching on 1 April 2006, to televise over 500 hours of drama, factual and news and current affairs programming. The titles range from dramas such as Spooks and Doctor Who to documentaries, including Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, Space Odyssey - Voyage to the Planets and three history titles looking at the Ancient Wonders of Jerusalem, Greece and the Holy Land. In addition, the deal, which guarantees at least 250 hours of BBC programming a year for the next two years, includes some of the best titles from the BBC's wildlife and news and current affairs archives, with the most popular programmes from such titles as Panorama, Correspondent, Wildlife on One and Natural World. For SKAI it is important to be able to rely on a constant supply of programming of consistently high quality: 'SKAI aims to reach a large proportion of discerning viewers with a brand of highly successful and informative programming," said Dora Pakas, Managing Director of SKAI. 'We firmly believe that this partnership with BBC Worldwide will secure for our viewers a broad range of documentaries, dramas and factual programming that will educate, fascinate and entertain. We look forward to continuing this strong relationship with BBC Worldwide in the future,' she concluded. Ben Donald, BBC Worldwide Head of Northern Mediterranean, said: 'This deal includes an extraordinary range of quality television and shows the BBC at its very best - gripping family drama, epic historical documentaries, glorious wildlife programmes and insightful current affairs titles. It is fantastic to start our relationship with SKAI with such high-profile programming.'"
David Tennant has done an exclusive interview with the fans at the unofficial website
david-tennant.com in which he reveals, "Billie and I are on set together all the time so she's my constant pal. We get on really well, she's very funny and we have a real laugh. It obviously helps to be working with someone that you get along with so well. ... It's not overwhelming. It's a bit weird, but it's not that bad, I can still travel on the tube. Obviously it is a bit strange that the press like to take an interest in things that I do. Billie has been great though because obviously she has been dealing with it since she was about 13 or something."
More reviews of
Noel Clarke's film "Kidulthood" which opens Friday.
EntertainmentWise says, "'Kidulthood' probably won't gain the international acclaim that 'Four Weddings' got but its imminent release in the UK has got the press excited and is a positive sign that there is a new era dawning for British filmmaking About as far away from 'Notting Hill' as you can get in terms of subject matter; geographically 'Kidulthood' couldn't be closer. Set just one change and a couple of stops on the tube away on the council estates of Ladbroke Grove, the film presents us with a day in the lives of a class of troubled teenage school children.... Written by Noel Clarke (winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for most promising new comer in 2003), who also plays Sam, and based on his real life experiences, this film feels like an honest portrayal of the lives of 'disadvantaged' teenagers in London. The film bursts with energy, driven on by the music of Dizzie Rascal and The Streets amongst others, and it ends perfectly with a scene equally infused with hope and despair. Check it out." Also,
Times Online says "While the UK's film industry complains about the difficulty of financing local feature films, spare a thought for film-makers whose vision doesn't reflect that of London's film-funding establishment. After a near four-year struggle from first draft to screen, the director Menhaj Huda and actor-screenwriter Noel Clarke see their West London teenage grime drama Kidulthood released this week. .. Now that Kidulthood is finally released, Clarke is in demand as a screenwriter, with a major TV project in progress, while Huds is thinking big. 'My motivation comes from Luc Besson more than anyone else. He managed to change French cinema from being arty and sexy to cool, and he's still doing it with The Transporter and Unleashed. Look at Unleashed: filmed in Glasgow, virtually a British cast. Why can't we do films like that?'" The
Financial Times says, the film "is pacy, racy and full of promise: 90 minutes in the company of multi-ethnic schoolkids doing what kids do in cruel Britannia. There are drugs, sex, bullying – girl-on-girl is even worse than boy-on-boy – and gang warfare. You believe every minute, just as you do when someone corners you in a dark alley and indicates an interest in banging your head into the ground. Menhaj Huda directed. Noel Clarke wrote the script and plays the main role. They should be given a sackful of money to make more films." However,
The Evening Standard says, "We know that they will all suffer something like damnation. But the film is never put into an effective social or political context. What we get instead is a portrait of disaffected youth but with no clue about its cause or what we should do about it. Which isn't quite enough."
TV Zone magazine (issue 200) has an interview with
Julie Gardner, executive producer of the new series. Some of it is online at their
websitewhich notes, "The common thread linking these three programmes is the involvement of BBC Wales's Head of Drama, Julie Gardner. In taking on the Doctor Who commission, she has had a large part to play in the current vogue for TV drama – 'British' being the key word, as one of the distinctive features of the current wave of drama commissions is the move towards production in the regions… 'There's a determination to do more out-of-London production,' says Gardner. 'There is an absolute determination to represent as many areas of the UK as possible, which is absolutely right for a public service broadcaster. From where I sit, I think the most important thing is the stories that writers want to tell, and the confidence that I hope they now feel in coming to me with ideas that sound quite mad, or quite bold. Some of those stories are set in Cardiff, like Torchwood; at the same time, they can come to me with ideas like Casanova, that filmed out of Manchester and filmed in Venice and Dubrovnik. I think it's confidence, really; it just opens things up and gives people the flexibility to work wherever they want to, with the people they want to.'" The magazine also lists their TV Top 200 of the Best ('from iconic moments, to stand-out episodes, to classic series') and their number 1 is Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child: ""A police box in a junk yard - somewhere it has no business to be. And it definitely shouldn't be vibrating... Doctor Who really had to have the top slot - and not just because it defined the childhood of every member of the TV Zone team. Not just because it was the little series that lasted far longer than even its most fervent champions could have dreamed, and then refused to accept its death sentence and then came back in the process shook up every television industry expectation. It's more than that. It's one of the three great popular cultural myths of the last 200 years, along with James Bond and Sherlock Holmes. Star Trek fans will rail at its exclusion from that list... To the general public, Trek means Kirk and Spock and maybe Picard, and no-one has been foolish enough to suggest recasting them (yet). But you can recast Holmes, and Bond, and the Doctor, and they remain as as successful as ever, as new actors bring new aspects to the character that's grabbed the public's attention. And it all starts here. Two ordinary Humans, realising too late where their curiosity has led them. A frightened, paranoid old man, who's yet to experience the friendships that will turn him into a hero. A voyage into Time and Space that beat anything Hollywood had to offer, according to a reviewer at the time... and an episode that still enthralled when a Guardian reviewer finally saw it 18 years later, courtesy of a BBC2 repeat. The best moment in television's history? Well, possibly not. But the one that should definitely be cherished above all? Definitely."
(Thanks to Steve Tribe, Peter Weaver, and Paul Engelberg)
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