BBC Two has launched its Original British Drama campaign for the autumn and Christmas season. The 60-second video, available to view on YouTube and between selected programmes on BBC channels, offers viewers a glimpse of the shows that will keep them company as the evenings start to get colder and darker.
The series showcased in the trailer include The Fall, the channel’s most successful drama series in years, starring The X-Files actor Gillian Anderson and Fifty Shades of Grey and Once Upon a Time star Jamie Dornan. The show was a huge hit with viewers last year and has since been acquired by streaming giant Netflix as one of their original series for the American market.
Other series include Peaky Blinders, which adds Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Bronson) to its already impressive cast (which includes Cillian Murphy and Helen McCrory), Guy Hibbert’s two part drama One Child, and Jimmy McGovern’s international period series Banished starring Russel Tovey (Doctor Who, Looking).
This slate of new dramas continues the BBC’s push towards original, fresh and exciting content in order to compete with popular shows from international broadcasters, particularly the US and Scandinavia. Final air dates for all the series featured in the trailer are yet to be confirmed but they are all expected to air at some point during the current autumn/Christmas season, with the exception of Banished, which will premiere on BBC First (the corporations new subscription service for the international market) and BBC Two in 2015.
