BBC Three

The sparkling talent contest, popular in the US, will see ten Brits take part in challenges against each other and battle it out to avoid the weekly elimination of one participant.

Contestants will have their drag queen skills put to the test in the Maxi Challenge, the headline moment of each show, where they may have to perform, model or walk the runway.

“It is a dream come true to extend our royal family to the United Kingdom with our partners at BBC Three,” Ru Paul commented on the new adaptation.

Andrew Scott joins a returning cast which includes Olivia Colman (Godmother), Sian Clifford (Claire), Bill Paterson (Dad), Brett Gelman (Martin), Jenny Rainsford (Boo) and Hugh Skinner (Harry).

According to Executive Producer Lydia Hampson, Waller-Bridge began writing the new series in January this year, and the results, promises BBC Comedy boss Shane Allen, are “knockout”. 

Why will young people care about this? he asked at today’s Edinburgh International Television Festival, as he unveiled a slate of new programmes for the digital channel.

Billy Wizz

Among the commissions is a documentary telling the remarkable story of driver Billy Monger, one of Britain’s most exciting new racing drivers, who last year was involved in an accident which resulted in the loss of both legs.

The series, which explores the power of friendship between three young, ambitious women, will once again feature Synnove Karlsen as Holly, Sophia Brown as Louise and Rachel Hurd-Wood as Rachel.

Joining the original cast is an ensemble of upcoming British talent including Leo Suter (Victoria, Bad Education), Barney Harris (The Hollow Crown), Imogen King (Darkest Hour), Stuart Campbell (Outlander), Izuka Hoyle (Mary, Queen of Scots).

The series which was written by siblings Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper, who also serve as the leads is about the day-to-day of two cousins living in a rural village in the Cotswolds. 

The show has recently won three RTS Programme Awards; for Comedy Writer, Comedy Performance and Best Scripted Comedy. The show has also been nominated four times at the upcoming BAFTA and BAFTA Craft Awards.

It’s been a hectic series for the show’s stars, cousins Kerry and Kurtan, played by Daisy May and Charlie Cooper. There’s been fishing, tadpoles spawned in the pond, there was an incident with some aggressive sheep… A busy six weeks in the Cotswold town the pair call home – or rather it hasn’t. And that’s sort of the point.

The spy drama is a "laugh-out-loud funny and edge-of-your-seat gripping" dramatic thriller revolving around a psychopathic assassin and the women charged with hunting her down.

Although still early in his career himself, Brown has been making waves, having won the Bafta New Writing Prize of Drama in 2016, and been runner up in an Idris Elba-fronted writing competition, 'Write to Greenlight'.

Competitions are now key to breaking into the industry as a young writer, he believes. While in the past it was possible to get your break with a killer script and the right opportunity, now young writers need an ‘in’. Competitions, he believes, are the key.

The news was announced at the Edinburgh TV Festival during a panel discussion with Phoebe Waller-Bridge and BBC Controller of Comedy, Shane Allen.

It was revealed that the second series will arrive on the online platform in 2019, following a hugely successful first series about a sharp and crude twenty-something woman living in London who is trying to come to terms with a personal tragedy. 

The first series was adapted from Waller-Bridge's multi award-winning one-woman stage show of the same name, which was first shown at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013. 

Not everyone was happy with the Royal Television Society crowning BBC Three Channel of the Year. As one young viewer tweeted: “@bbcthree how can you win channel of the year, if you don’t actually exist on a channel?” 

The success of online-only, schedule-free BBC Three shows that our idea of what constitutes a channel is evolving.