From award-winning director Dan Reed (This World), Leaving Neverland (w/t) documents the accounts from James Safechuck and Wade Robson as they describe the sexual abuse they went through as children by Michael Jackson.
At the time of the allegations, Safechuck was 10 years-old and Robson was seven as they were befriended by Jackson during the height of the music star’s career.
Co-produced with The Open University, Icons will tell the history of the 20th century through the people who shaped it, inviting the public to vote on 28 icons shortlisted by a panel of academics.
Each episode will focus on different categories of excellence, including leaders, explorers, scientists, entertainers, activists, sports stars, and artists and writers.
The series follows influential figures such as Nelson Mandela, Marie Curie, Billie Holiday, Martin Luther King Jr and Virginia Woolf.
Emily Brontë superfan Lily Cole hosts a one-off documentary, The Secret World of Emily Brontë, exploring the Yorkshire landscape that influenced Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.
Cole also makes her own film in this special, Balls, which reimagines Heathcliff’s early life in Liverpool.
Jonathan Ross hosts new documentary Morecambe & Wise in America, which will focus on the comedy double act’s attempt to break America.
Iconic duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise’s working relationship is explored in this three-part series, which features over an hour’s worth of footage never seen before in the UK. Morecambe & Wise in America follows the pair on a series of trips they made to appear on one of the USA’s largest variety show, The Ed Sullivan Show.
Alesha Dixon and Diversity’s Jordan Banjo are set to present Syco Entertainment’s latest talent show The Greatest Dancer for BBC One.
A coming-of-age sitcom written by Lisa McGee, Derry Girls aired back in January on Channel 4.
Social history series A Tabloid Empire (working title) will cover the period from 1997 to 2012, looking at how the popular press exerted astonishing power over British politics, public policies and everyday life. It will also chronicle the succession of scandals which hit Murdoch's businesses and culminated in the Leveson Enquiry.
Training Teachers to Kill shines a light on the very real debate taking place in the US today, where school boards are considering arming teachers to protect students from future gun attacks.
Featured is Butler County Ohio, where the debate is raging due to a devastating mass shooting that took place there two years ago. The documentary will see the town’s Sheriff putting up billboards in an effort to persuade the community to arm teachers.
Some feminists might choke at the idea that the highly controversial Barbie doll was actually invented by an ardent feminist. This was one of many fascinating insights to emerge from an RTS event devoted to a new feature-length documentary Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie.
The film examines the changing face of Barbie from a feminist – and occasionally anthropological – perspective since the doll’s debut in 1959.
The duo were in conversation with Alex Graham, joint chief executive of Two Cities Television, who argued that True Vision “takes on the really important subjects, whether that’s poverty or human rights or inequality, but in a way that takes you directly into the heart of the human stories”.
