BBC One

RTS Masterclass: How to create a hit TV drama

Shakespeare & Hathaway (Credit: BBC)

How do you go about creating a new TV drama for a worldwide audience? “It has to have something recognisable globally; it has to show good old England – you need to harness a global brand,” reckoned Jude Tindall.

The writer and producer Ella Kelly were sharing their secrets with students at an RTS Midlands masterclass at the University of Wolverhampton in mid-February.

Attenborough returns with new BBC wildlife documentary Dynasty

Dynasty (Credit: BBC One)

Each episode will follow an individual animal – lions, hunting dogs, chimpanzees, tigers and emperor penguins – at the most critical period in their lives as they navigate the world’s rapidly changing habitats.

This series will show for the first time what an animal must do to create and maintain a dynasty, and leave a legacy in nature.

Made by the team behind Blue Planet II, the most watched programme of 2017, the BBC aims to recapture its success with new ‘intimate animal dramas’.

Who's who in Troy: Fall of a City

Troy: Fall of a City (BBC/Wild Mercury Productions)

The eight-part series, written by The Night Manager’s David Farr, will portray the epic story of a battle between mortals and gods – and the turbulent romance which sparks the Trojan War.

Told from the perspective of the Trojan family at the heart of the siege, Troy: Fall of a City follows the love affair between Queen Helen and Prince Paris. The romance and subsequent elopement triggers a war between the Trojans and the Greeks as Helen’s jilted husband King Menelaus seeks to get his wife back.

BBC One confirms return of crime drama Death in Paradise

Ardal O’Hanlon will be back in 2019 as happy-go-lucky detective DI Mooney in the programme, currently airing its seventh series on BBC One.

O’Hanlon joined the show in 2017, replacing Kris Marshall who had played DI Humphrey Goodman for three series.

Set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint-Marie, DI Mooney heads up a team of detectives solving murder mysteries among the idyllic beaches and lush forests of the Caribbean.

Martin Clunes stars in new BBC One comedy Warren

The new original series centres around the egotistical and self-assured Warren, who thinks the world is out to get him. The six-part series was penned by up-and-coming writers Jimmy Donny Cosgrove and Paul McKenna.

Warren grapples against problems and misunderstandings of his own making which often have chaotic and disastrous consequences for those around him, but especially for himself.

BBC announces adaptation of Le Carré's The Little Drummer Girl

The series is a collaboration between BBC One, AMC and The Ink Factory, who previously worked together on 2016's award-winning spy drama, The Night Manager.

​​Set amidst rising tensions in the Middle East during the 1970s, the show will star Florence Pugh as a young brilliant actress named Charlie, who is preparing for her ultimate role.

New drama brings army life in the sixties to BBC One

The six-part drama is based on writer Peter Moffat’s childhood experiences growing up in a unit of Royal Military Police, and his mother’s struggle to act as army life demanded and be who she wanted to be.

The Last Post is set in Aden, Yemen, and shines a light on army life in the 1960s, juxtaposing the glamour and sexual liberation of the decade with the extreme dangers of war.