New BBC Scotland channel programming details revealed
Emeli Sande will search for buskers to join an orchestra, while Jamie Sives and Mark Donnar will star in a new four-part drama.
Singer Emeli Sande picking buskers to perform with an orchestra and a new drama featuring stars from Game of Thrones and Line of Duty are among the latest shows announced for the new BBC Scotland channel.
Street Symphony begins in the Read All About It singer’s home town of Alford, near Aberdeen, and moves to Inverness, Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The 31-year-old chooses her five favourite street performers to join her and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on stage in concert at Glasgow City Halls.
Ms Sande said: “I’m so excited about getting out onto the streets of Scotland to hear first-hand the talent that’s out there.
“Plucking the talent found on street corners and putting it into a big melting pot with a full-on symphony orchestra is going to be mind-blowing.”
Written by Neil Forsyth, it follows two brothers who accidentally run over and kill an old man while driving home from a wedding.
Mr Bonnar said he is “hugely excited” to be part of the show, adding: “Neil has managed to write a captivating and breathless thriller which, even in its darkest, most dramatic moments, maintains a pitch black sense of humour.
Other programmes announced include The Grey Area, an hour-long drama following a rapper, addict and teenage misfit as they struggle against gang violence in drugs in Edinburgh and Yes/No – Inside the Indyref, a three-part documentary featuring key players from the opposing campaigns during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
An eight-part documentary on The Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital and a six-part series on Scotland’s busiest railway station, Inside Central Station, will also be part of the new programming.
They will join previously announced shows, including the final series of Still Game, a nightly hour-long news broadcast and a Question-Time style debate programme, on the new channel which is due go on air at 7pm on Sunday February 24.
Steve Carson, BBC Scotland’s head of multi-platform commissioning, said the new channel aims to plug a gap where audiences in Scotland did not feel their lives were adequately reflected on screen.
He said: “I thought that’s a gap, and that’s an opportunity and that’s essentially what we’ve built the channel around. The channel is very much focused on the here and now and contemporary Scotland.
“Fundamentally we’re about making 900 hours of original content for Scottish audiences about the here and now.”
