BBC Greenlights ‘Hot Flush’ Drama Series From ‘Happy Valley’ Creator Sally Wainwright Along With Jenna Coleman, Nic?le Lecky, Sacha Dhawan Projects – Edinburgh TV Festival
The BBC has greenlit its latest drama series from Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright along with projects created by and starring the likes of Jenna Coleman, Nic?le Lecky and Sacha Dhawan.
Set in Happy Valley home Hebden Bridge, Wainwright’s Hot Flush centers on the lives of five women of a certain age who come together to create a makeshift, butt-of-the-joke punk-rock band in order to enter a talent contest. When they rehearse together, they suddenly discover that they have a lot more to say than they ever imagined, and they have found the way to say it.
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Wainwright had previously cryptically teased Hot Flush when she told the BBC’s Today program she had been learning the drums in preparation for her next project, and she described it as a “celebration of women of a certain age and all the life-stuff they suddenly find themselves negotiating/dealing with.”
Doctor Foster producer Drama Republic is behind the six-parter, coming a few months after millions tuned in each week to watch the final season of Sarah Lancashire and James Norton-starrer Happy Valley. Wainwright’s other credits include Gentleman Jack, Last Tango in Halifax and upcoming Disney+ series The Ballad of Renegade Nell.
Jenna Coleman in ‘The Jetty’
The drama was unveiled by the BBC at the Edinburgh TV Festival alongside several others including detective thriller The Jetty starring The Serpent’s Coleman.
Cat Jones is penning The Jetty, which will follow Detective Ember Manning, who has to work out how a fire at a holiday home connects to a podcast journalist investigating a missing persons cold case and an illicit ‘love’ triangle between a man in his twenties and two underage girls.
The show is being produced by BBC Studios-backed Firebird Pictures, which is also making an untitled series from BAFTA-winning Mood creator Lecky for the BBC.
That mystery thriller follows Lorna, a successful Black businesswoman from South London who has worked hard to be where she is – and best friend Juliet, a white woman born into the privileged gated community they both call home. When their daughters are implicated in a shocking scandal at their exclusive private school, the two friends are asked to take sides.
Lecky’s critically-acclaimed musical drama Mood was a surprise BAFTA TV winner ahead of the likes of This is Going to Hurt and A Spy Among Friends.
Finally, the pubcaster is adapting AA Dhand’s bestselling crime novels into another detective series starring Doctor Who’s Dhawan, who recently led BBC thriller Wolf.
In Virdee, which is being penned by Dhand, a Bradford cop wth his personal life in chaos must hunt down a killer targeting the Asian community. The show is being produced by Magical Society in association with Screen Yorkshire.
Meanwhile, the BBC has renewed comedy-thriller Black Ops for Season 2, a show that creators recently told Deadline shows Black British culture has reached a “really sweet spot.”
Away from scripted, the corporation unveiled a documentary on assisted dying hosted by Silent Witness star and campaigner Liz Carr, which is titled Better Off Dead? (working title).
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