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The BBC has ordered a half-hour drama series that will feature characters from Charles Dickens books.
Dickensian, written by Tony Jordan and produced by Red Planet Pictures, “will bring the world of Dickens to life in a drama populated by the vivid characters from his classic books” who will meet “in the most surprising of ways,” the British public broadcaster said Thursday.
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It said the number of episodes for the ordered series would be confirmed later. It also didn’t specify any Dickens characters that will be featured in the show. Among the 19th century English writer’s best-known creations are David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and Ebenezer Scrooge.
The Dickens show is part of a slate of four BBC dramas unveiled Thursday as the last commissions from Danny Cohen in his role as controller of flagship network BBC One. He has been named director of BBC Television. Cohen commissioned the new shows with Ben Stephenson, controller of BBC Drama Commissioning.
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The other new dramas are six-part hour-long show Our Zoo, the true story of a man who created a zoo in the 1930s and the impact it had on his family, romantic saga Poldark, which is set in late-18th century Cornwall, and From There To Here, a family saga set after an IRA bombing in 1996.
Stephenson called the new shows “an exciting clutch of authored drama for BBC One.”
Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
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