BBC Drama's

Can anyone tell me why BBC Northern Ireland has comissioned The Innocence Project and yet it seems to be filmed entirely on location in Manchester? I would have thought it would have been a BBC Manchester programme.

It's a bit like the drama quite a few years ago "The Preston Front" which was filmed in Manchester and Preston and yet produced by BBC Pebble Mill (Birmingham)?

Why are some BBC Drama's commissioned/produced by other regions from where they are actually filmed/set in?

Weren't Yorkshire Television responsible for The Darling Buds of May, set in Kent?

A story which may be of interest... from the Sunday Times earlier this year.

BBC accused of snub to Belfast
Carissa Casey
BBC Northern Ireland is spending £5m on the latest series of Murphy’s Law, but critics say its only connection with Ulster is the accent of the lead actor, James Nesbitt.

To add further insult, the six-hour drama about an undercover cop is being shot in Dublin, even though the story is based in Belfast.

This has incensed the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission (NIFTC), which accused the BBC of “misleading accounting” in relation to its drama output in the province.

Click for full story

I sometimes think people take "regional" production too literally.

BBC Birmingham's factual dept make shows all across the UK - Trawlermen and Coast are both BBC Birmingham shows and don't have to be filmed in the West Midlands.

Similarly BBC Birmingham used to produce All Creatures Great and Small - shot in the studios at Birmingham - and that was not set in the West Midlands.

BBC Birmingham also produced Howards Way, set on the South Coast, but that was shot at Pebble Mill as well.

Just because a drama is commissioned by a department outside London, it doesn't mean it has to be shot in that region. I'm sure London commission dramas set outside the South East, and there is no reason why BBC Wales couldn't commission a drama set in London (in fact they have, on many occasions)

The point about having drama and other programme departments outside London isn't just to make the programmes physically in the region they are based in, it is to provide productions made by people across the UK, with different opinions and experiences. (Nothing to stop a Mancunian working for BBC Scotland on a drama set in Plymouth...)

Or indeed Manchester, as was the case with 'Life on Mars'.

BBC Scotland produce Film 2006, but it isn't made in Scotland.

Why is there an apostrophe in the thread title "BBC Drama's"?

It makes no sense.

Yes - I thought that too, but I didn't want to mention it for fear of being taken to task for pedantry.

Another example of the "grocer's apostrophe" I believe....

What I'm getting at it just a bit plain weird that Northern Ireland is producing a drama nowhere near its homebase - in fact it is actually on a different Ireland. #(edited at 0105am - so no-one spotted by blatant spelling mistake - neither did i until now!!!!! - I should have said - " in fact it is actually on a different ISLAND")

I can understand when a big production base such as Manchester or London produces a drama from another part of the country where there is no, or little, production base but to so-call "invade" another major production base does seem a bit ludicrous.

I can't understand as to why BBC Scotland produces Film with Jonathan Ross when, I'm sure, Barry Norman presented the show it was produced by London. Is it a case of fiddling the figures as to the pecentage of programmes that are produced in the regions rather than just in London?

Couldn't The Innocence Project had been filmed in Ireland rather than Manchester ? - I bet it would have been even cheaper to make as well!


With regards to the apostrophe I was always taught at primary and secondary schools and at university it should be used in the context of plurals - if this is wrong the please excuse my ingnorance/niaivity!!!

Weird to you, but not uncommon.



It's used when a letter or a number has been omitted, or is used before or after s to show possession.