BBC drama is actively looking for shows from underrepresented groups, including Asian creatives and writers with disabilities, the broadcaster’s director of drama Piers Wenger said on Wednesday.
Wenger also teased a major creative partnership with Netflix, which will involve people with disabilities that will be revealed on Thursday.
“I’m particularly looking at the moment for stories from Asian, Southeast Asian writers. I think they’re really underrepresented, and obviously, disabled writers,” Wenger said.
Wenger was speaking at an Edinburgh TV Festival session on Wednesday.
“The sweet spot for us is always an idea that feels slightly out of the box, but that has the potential to hit with a mainstream audience,” Wenger said. “Those ideas that feel like they just sit on the edge of the mainstream, but if they’re made with love and conviction, we can bring a big audience to a story they might otherwise have missed, so that that’s our job.”
“You can prove is any idea as long as it feels like something you haven’t seen before,” Wenger said. About the previously revealed project with “I May Destroy You” creator Michaela Coel, Wenger said, “We are at relatively early days — she has been working on it pretty much hard on the heels of ‘I May Destroy You’ going out but Michaela likes to think and research and really feel her way into a subject. My strong instinct and based on the conversations I have had with her is that it will be every bit as radical as ‘I May Destroy You.'”
When asked about a possible seventh season for immensely popular police show “Line of Duty,” Wenger was tight-lipped and deferred to show creator Jed Mercurio’s standard “No comment” statement.
Wenger was particularly enthused about “A Very British Scandal,” written by Sarah Phelps (“The Pale Horse”), starring Claire Foy (Emmy winner for “The Queen”) as the Duchess of Argyll and Paul Bettany (“WandaVision”) as the Duke of Argyll. The show focuses on the couple’s divorce, one of the most notorious legal cases of the 20th century.
The show is Blueprint Pictures’ follow up to the Emmy and BAFTA winning “A Very English Scandal.” “It’s every bit as bold and provocative and completely irresistible as the first one was,” Wenger said.
