[Red Moon]

BBC1 unveils heavyweight winter schedule

BBC1 has lined up a raft of big dramas for its winter 2008 season, including an adaptation of the novel The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and a new version of Sense and Sensibility.

Singer Jill Scott will take the lead role of Precious Ramotswe in the Botswana-based version of Alexander McCall Smith's best-selling novel, which will be directed and written by Anthony Minghella and co-written by Richard Curtis.

The drama is billed as a "poignant and amusing" story chronicling the adventures of Precious and "capturing the spirit of Botswana".

Building on the success of current period drama Cranford, BBC1 will air two new costume pieces in the early months of next year - Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford.

Andrew Davies has adapted Sense and Sensibility, which will star David Morrissey, Dominic Cooper, Janet McTeer and Mark Gatiss.

The BBC previously screened adaptations of Sense and Sensibility in 1971 and 1981, while a Hollywood version starring Emma Thompson appeared in 1995.

Julia Sawalha, Dawn French, Liz Smith and Ben Miles will appear in Lark Rise to Candleford, an adaptation of Thompson's memoir of her Oxfordshire childhood at the end of the 19th century, seen through the eyes of a teenage girl.

BBC1 will also broadcast a dramatisation of the story of Jesus Christ from three different points of view in The Passion, which will be will be scheduled across a week in the runup to Easter next year.

The drama has been written by Emmy award-winner Frank Deasy, whose credits include Prime Suspect 7, and will star Soundproof's Joseph Mawle as Jesus and James Nesbitt as Pontius Pilate.

Ashes to Ashes, the eagerly-awaited follow up to Life on Mars, will also hit screens.

The drama, made by production company Kudos, will see brash detective Gene Hunt transferred from 1970s Manchester to 1980s London.

Two-part crime drama Kiss of Death, written by Waking the Dead's Barbara Machin, will star House of Elliott and CSI star Louise Lombard in a story that flips back and forwards through time, while Mistresses, a tale of four friends who experience love and infidelity in different ways, will feature Sarah Parish, Sharon Small, Orla Brady and Shelley Conn.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Carlyle will feature in thriller The Last Enemy, written by Prime Suspect 6's Peter Berry, about a man whose search for the truth about his brother's death catapults him into an international conspiracy, while Martin Shaw features in two-part supernatural thriller Apparitions, written and directed by This Life's Joe Ahearne, about an exorcist battling demons.

Sir David Attenborough returns with the final chapter of his overview of life on earth, with the BBC Natural History Unit-produced Life in Cold Blood looking at cold blooded reptiles and amphibians.

In what are billed as TV firsts, wild rattlesnakes will be seen hunting, anacondas will give birth underwater while a male frog will also be seen "giving birth".

In entertainment, Graham Norton will host the Saturday night show The One and Only, which puts top tribute acts through their paces.

Source: Guardian

[MarkWaldorf]

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