Sky One’s The Take comes to DVD
Sky One’s hit drama series, The Take, adapted from the best-selling novel by Martina Cole, is coming to DVD next month and can be pre-ordered from the seenit.co.uk store.
The drama stars Tom Hardy (Bronson, Stuart A Life Backwards) as Freddie Jackson, who out of jail, has made the right connections and now he’s ready to use them. With his faithful cousin Jimmy (Shaun Evans) by his side, Freddie is ready to take on the world. His wife Jackie (Kierston Wareing) dreams of having her husband home but she’s forgotten the rows and the girls Freddie can’t leave alone.
At first Freddie gets everything he ever wanted and Jimmy is taken along for the ride, the two creating a growing crime empire that gives them all the respect and money they’ve hungered for. But behind it all sits Ozzy (Brian Cox) - a legendary criminal godfather who manipulates Freddie and Jimmy’s fates from behind the bars of his prison cell.
Bitter, resentful and increasingly unstable, Jackie sees her life crumble while her little sister Maggie’s (Charlotte Riley) star rises. In love with Jimmy, Maggie is determined not to end up like her sister. Freddie and Jackie watch Jimmy and Maggie achieve all the dreams that they themselves failed to realise: love, family, stability and respect. Freddie soon proves himself to be unpredictably violent and extremely dangerous.
A jealous resentment and an inability to control himself force Freddie to put both the business and family at risk. Torn between being loyal to a cousin he loves and being true to his own destiny, Jimmy is forced to decide between protecting Freddie or the life he has built with Maggie…
Ahead of transmission on Sky One, Cole, one of the UK’s most prolific crime writers and the author of fifteen novels set in London’s gangland, commented: “The Take was my era – I wanted to capture that. The times changed then – the family dynamics changed. Every now and then I like to go back and take people back to another era and show them how something began.”
Identity - ITV announces new six-part crime drama
Aidan Gillen and Keeley Hawes play police officers heading up an elite unit formed to combat the explosion of identity-related crime in Identity, a new six part ITV drama currently filming in London.
Lead by unit founder DSI Martha Lawrence, (Keeley Hawes - Ashes to Ashes, Mutual Friends), the team works on cases where making an identification is a significant part of solving the crime by outsmarting, hunting down and unmasking the modern day Jekyll and Hydes.
Gillen plays DI Michael Bloom, a former undercover cop who know’s how easy it is to lose your own identity when you’re living a lie.
Holly Aird (Torn, Waking the Dead) is Tessa Stein, IT expert in everything from trawling databases to cracking security codes. Completing the team are DS Anthony Wareing (Shaun Parkes - Moses Jones, Harley Street), who has his eye on promotion and a stance on cases that can err on the self-righteous, and DC Jose Rodriguez (Elyes Gabel – Waterloo Road, Deadset) cocky, self-assured yet with a seriousness and sensitivity that gives him insight into cases. As the series unfolds, DS Wareing becomes more and more concerned about Bloom’s methods and frustrated by what he sees as Martha’s blind and foolish indulgence of him.
Kate Bartlett, Controller of Drama at ITV Studios, says: “This is a unique crime series, with an exciting cast, that explores the theme of identity. The psychology behind the issue of identity opens up a whole world of stories. We take for granted that people are who they say they are and a person’s ID is sacred. However, when that trust is violated it can provoke a special kind of fear, one that cuts to the heart of our sense of self and the world around us.”
Freeman stars in body-swap drama
Martin Freeman stars as Danny Reed who wakes up after an accident to find he’s a gorgeous woman in her early 30s in Boy Meets Girl, a new 4 part drama from ITV which airs next month.
Finishing work for the night, Reed heads off to the electricity power yard to steal some copper wiring to pay off his debts. It’s raining as he climbs out of his ‘borrowed’ van. A few yards nearby him in the lay-by Veronica Burton (Rachael Stirling) pulls up having run out of petrol.
When a flash of lightning strikes the pylon and there’s a huge explosion and Danny wakes up in hospital and is horrified to discover he’s no longer Danny Reed - he’s now a gorgeous woman in her early 30s.
Totally freaked out, he struggles to get his head around the fact that his own body has disappeared without trace, and he’s inside someone else’s.
Danny’s first impulse is to find out where the person he used to be has gone. But what dawns on him fairly quickly is that no-one knows and no-one is missing him apart from friends Pete (Marshall Lancaster) and Fiona (Angela Griffin). He seems to have simply disappeared, but that doesn’t stop him trying to find out where Danny went. In the meantime, Danny has to get his head round being stuck as Veronica – which means learning to be a woman, a fashion journalist, and living a totally different life with Veronica’s boyfriend Jay (Paterson Joseph).
As he begins to live Veronica’s life and meet her friends he starts to realise that she was having an affair with her best friend’s boyfriend and is less than enthused by her job as a fashion journalist. Meanwhile, Veronica is completely disorientated in her new male body and at a loss as to what to do, she’s forced to beg on the streets. At Veronica’s flat that night, as Jay makes it clear to a horrified Danny (Veronica) that he’s looking for romance, Danny spots his old self on the news in the middle of an angry demonstration.
ITV1, Friday, 1 May 2009, 9:00PM
Four new cases for Inspector George Gently
Martin Shaw is to return for four new, feature-length George Gently dramas, the BBC announced yesterday. The first two of the new films will air in May and sees the show renamed as Inspector George Gently.
Returning alongside Shaw is Lee Ingleby as the ambitious and undisciplined Detective Sergeant John Bacchus.
In the first two films Shaw and Ingleby are joined by a strong cast of guest stars including: Sharon Maughan (Holby City), Jill Halfpenny (EastEnders), Mark Williams (The Fast Show, Harry Potter), Paul Copley (The Lakes), Mary Jo Randle (EastEnders), Tracey Wilkinson (Bad Girls), Nicola Burley (Souled Out) and Brendan Coyle (Lark Rise To Candleford) as suspects and victims.
Guest stars in the second two films include: Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval), Tariq Jordan (Law And Order), Tim McInnerny (The Devil’s Whore, Blackadder), Tom Goodman-Hill (The Devil’s Whore) – and, at last, we meet Mrs John Bacchus played by Melanie Clark Pullen (EastEnders, A Dinner Of Herbs).
Series writer Peter Flannery says: “The joy of writing the Gently stories lies in the period and the place. The place because it’s where I grew up; the period for the same reason, plus it gives me a chance to write about a country on the cusp of change.”
BBC Commissioning Editor, Polly Hill, says: “I’m delighted that Inspector George Gently is returning to BBC One for four more films. Martin Shaw and Lee Ingleby have created a unique partnership and I know that drama fans will welcome their return.”
BUY GEORGE GENTLY ON DVD FROM THE SEENIT STORE
Fifth series for BBC One’s Waterloo Road
Waterloo Road, the BBC One school-based drama, is to return for a fifth series, the BBC confirmed yesterday.
The new 20 part series will see Headteacher Rachel pushed to the limit as she deals with a merger between Waterloo Road and a local school.
Both staffroom and playground become the scene of clashes of culture as the two very different sets of teachers and pupils struggle to adjust to change.
Ben Stephenson, BBC Drama Controller, commented: “Waterloo Road consistently delivers an entertaining mix of bold characters, powerful issues and compelling stories to a mainstream audience and plays a vital role delivering younger, more diverse audiences to the BBC, I look forward to it returning for a fifth series later this year.”
Returning cast members include Angela Griffin, Denise Welch, Jason Done and Philip Martin Brown.
Executive Producer Sharon Hughff said: “We’re delighted with the recommission. Waterloo Road is an excellent show and I am looking forward to working with the team to produce another exciting 20 episodes.”
BUY WATERLOO ROAD SERIES 1 - 3 ON DVD
Hustle to return in 2010
The do-gooding conmen of Hustle will return for a sixth series in 2010, the BBC has confirmed. The series stars Adrian Lester as Mickey “Bricks” Stone, s Robert Vaughn, as veteran grifter Albert Stroller, and Robert Glenister, as fixer extraordinaire Ash “Three Socks” Morgan.
The fifth series of the hit drama, which concludes tonight, saw the arrival of brother and sister duo Emma and Sean Kennedy (Kelly Adams, Holby City and Matt Di Angelo, EastEnders).
Hustle creator, writer and executive producer, Tony Jordan, says: “We are really pleased with the way that series five has been received, it’s always difficult to maintain a drama’s following when you’ve been off air for a period of time. Having a fabulous actor like Adrian Lester back in the fold has really helped.”
“I’ve already got some great ideas for series six, so I can’t wait to get cracking on the scripts.”
Polly Hill, BBC Commissioning Editor of Independent Drama, says: “The success of the present series is testament to Tony Jordan’s brilliant scripts, the remarkable team at Kudos and a wonderful cast.”
“We look forward to seeing what 2010 will hold for Mickey and the gang.”
The series is produced by Kudos Film and Television in association with Red Planet Pictures.
BUY HUSTLE ON DVD
Foyle’s War to explore post VE Day Britain
ITV has confirmed the return of Anthony Horowitz’s Foyle’s War. The drama, which stars Michael Kitchen, will return with three new style episodes set in the period after VE Day.
Like everyone else, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle needs to feel his way in this new world. Keen to retire, but bound to his old job by the shortage of senior men, Foyle is thrust into the dangerous worlds of international conspiracy and execution, military racism and national betrayal.
Producer Jill Green says: “This fascinating period post-VE day has rarely been featured on TV and once more Foyle’s War will be unearthing true stories that reflect tougher, moodier times.”
On TV: Minder
I’ll start by confessing that I approached Five’s remake of Minder from a position of deep scepticism, but even the expectation of it not being very good hadn’t prepared me for its sheer awfulness.
Shane Ritchie’s periodic lapses into an apparent impression of George Cole were ill judged and just drew attention to the absence of any high calibre on-screen talent.
The fight sequence in the opening moments looked like something an am-dram society would be embarrassed to put on and the whole episode appeared to have been filmed at about 7am on a Sunday in the City.
This was cliche ridden ‘drama’ at its worst - dodgy coppers who’ve never heard of the rules of evidence, bent councillors and flash villains were all present and accounted for.
Speaking of this week’s bad guys, they were less menacing than the Driscoll Brothers which can’t be good.
As for the sequence in the Battersea Power Station, is it really the case that members of the public can just drive into the middle of this near-construction site? And what was with the nonsense of the airplane noise in the modern, double glazed apartment.
The London (and world) these characters and plots can realistically inhabit no longer exists. Whereas the original Minder was rooted in a world of reality, this version is residing in panto land.
Most of all, the biggest barrier to this series succeeding is that TV already has a stylish, well written, drama about kind hearted conmen and by any measure you care to use, Hustle outclasses this ill advised remake.