BBC Three unveils new slate of programming
James R | On 02, Mar 2019
BBC Three has unveiled a new slate of diverse programming for 2019, from sketch shows and reality series to documentaries.
Following on from the announcement that BBC Three programmes will feature in a regular slot on BBC One, BBC Three has commissioned a wave of new content, introducing new talent in front of and behind the camera.
Heartbreak Holiday is a new digitally-led reality show centred on the theme of heartbreak, which will follow ten young Brits across Greece and has been developed by the BBC Three in-house production team. It will look at broken friendships, tensions within families, romance, issues of acceptance and identity with a cast of young people from all across the UK and will be the ultimate intervention for the group as it will leave no stone unturned in its mission to explore modern relationships.
Galdem Sugar is a shortform series commissioned by BBC Three that follows the personal lives of a cast of strong women, living, working and performing in London’s burgeoning grime scene. It is a constructed reality series that will shine a light on what it’s like to be a female artist in male-skewing industry – in a first for BBC Three, it will also have an accompanying podcast available on BBC Sounds.
Muzlamic will be a brand new sketch show exploring life through the eyes of young British Asians written by Ali Shahalom and Aatif Nawaz. Also in BBC Three’s comedy line-up is Ladhood, a new coming-of-age sitcom from BAFTA-nominated writer/performer Liam Williams.
BBC Three has also built itself a reputation for factual programming, something that will continue with The Man Who Used HIV As A Weapon, which tells the story of Daryll Rowe, the first person to be convicted in the UK for deliberately infecting others, and Coal Town Cops, the follow up to the hugely successful Valley Cops, which follows the work of Durham Constabulary, where the cops and criminals go back years and everybody knows everyone else’s business.
The Final Chapter: Life After My Brother’s Murder is Chanell Wallace’s first film after winning the BBC and Sheffield DocFest Northern Filmmakers Pitch 2018 with the idea for it. When she was 11 years old, her brother Daniel was stabbed and died. Now, more than a decade after his death, the murderer faces parole and Chanell will write a Victim Impact Statement that will feed in to the parole process. To do it, she needs to find out what happened to her big brother, why he died so violently, and get to grips with how she feels about the man responsible.
BBC Three has also announced that Blindboy Undestroys the World will be coming to the channel as a series, after a successful pilot about property, social housing and the rental crisis. Blindboy Boatclub, a polemicist, author and man who wears a plastic bag on his head, will take on issues including work and money, plus the chaos brought about by the internet, anxiety and modern slavery. From Sundog Pictures, Big In The Valleys is a documentary series that travels to the Welsh valleys, an area with a distinctive voice and close communities, and some of the highest levels of obesity in the country, to follow the everyday stories of under 30s living with obesity.
Finally, Stacey Dooley will return with two new documentaries. In Stacey Dooley And The Bounty Hunters: The Good, The Bad And The Deadly, Stacey goes stateside to shadow America’s modern-day bounty hunters on the job and to meet the people who take the law into their own hands, go after fugitives who have skipped bail, and bring them to justice – for a healthy sum. In Stacey Dooley: Face To Face With The Arms Dealers, she goes behind closed doors to follow one unique company as they are kit out armies, law enforcement agencies, private security companies and individuals with million dollar arms contracts.