Drama & Comedy

Drama development remains a priority for Â鶹Éç Scotland. In 2010/11, new original drama will be commissioned to sit alongside River City. For network, Single Father, with David Tennant (for Â鶹Éç One) and Lip Service (for Â鶹Éç Three) will be broadcast later this year, as will The Deep, the drama set in the icy depths of the Arctic Ocean. Filming will start in Italy in spring 2010 on the dramatisation of three novels by Michael Dibdin.

On radio, 12 new dramas, the majority from Scottish writers, will be commissioned for Radio Scotland and we will continue to provide dramas and speech programming for the Â鶹Éç's network radio channels, including Â鶹Éç Radio 4.

In comedy, second series of Gary Tank Commander, Limmy's Show and Burnistoun have been commissioned, part of our strategy to create distinctive, innovative comedy on Â鶹Éç Two Scotland. The channel will also air a number of comedy pilots over the course of the year.

A similar strategy will apply on Radio Scotland, where the station will seek to reach out across the generations. Eight new comedy pilots will be transmitted, with a view to two new comedy series being commissioned. The station will continue to work with new and established stand-up comedians, playwrights and novelists in Scotland with a view to creating original sitcom, sketch, comedy drama and other innovative hybrid formats.

Children's

Entertainment and Factual programmes for audiences of CBeebies and CÂ鶹Éç will continue to define the department and its work. Nina and the Neurons on CBeebies and Ed & Oucho's Excellent Inventions on CÂ鶹Éç established our reputation for revealing science as imaginative and creative. We are developing new series to continue exploiting the common ground and talent we share with production teams in the Factual department.

Studio gameshows and adventure games have been a bedrock for the department and the biggest launch of the year will be for Mission 2110 on CÂ鶹Éç. For transmission this year, the new multiplatform adventure game builds on the skills and specialist knowledge we have developed over the last seven years in making the multi-award-winning Raven and showcases the multiplatform capabilities of Â鶹Éç Scotland. We are exploring opportunities to partner with other public service broadcasters in Europe on future series.

CBeebies continues to thrive with more work this year than ever before. The next big push is to develop and produce a new, channel defining landmark series in Scotland. On CÂ鶹Éç the priority is to build on our ground-breaking comedy series Hedz and OOglies. Hedz won a BAFTA for best children's comedy and the next step will be to build on this by exploiting the opportunities presented by the Edinburgh Fringe and the Glasgow Comedy Festival.