BBC Autumn Schedule Details

BBC One has unveiled details of its Autumn 1999 programme schedule. The channel promises rich and diverse dramas, mixed with new comedy and landmark science and factual programmes ‘not found on any other mainstream channel’.

Highlights of the £195 million schedule include a trilogy of programmes focusing on the effect conflict has on people during this century. All The Kings Men stars David Jason and Maggie Smith and follows the story of the Sandringham Company which disappeared in action in Gallipoli. Next up is Finest Hour, Brian Lapping’s personal account of eight months in 1940 when Britain faced the prospect of defeat by Hitler’s armies. To complete the trilogy is Warriors, which stars Ioan Gruffudd as a member of a peacekeeping force in Bosnia.

There is more period drama from the team that produce the successful Pride & Predjudice, called Wives and Daughters. Comedy duo French and Souanders star in Let Them Eat Cake, a sitcom set during the period Louis XVI reign. Caroline Quentin and Alan Davies return for another series of the ingenious Jonathon Creek. Following on from it successful debut last year on BBC Two Caroline Aherne and Craig Nash’s sitcom The Royle Family transfers over to BBC One.

In what is sure to be one the main talking points during the autumn season, former Prime Minister John Major gives a detailed account of his polictical rise and fall in The Major Years. Michael Palin continues his globetrotting with Hemingway Adventure, in which he traces the footsteps of the litarary luminary Ernest Hemingway. While Walking with Dinosaurs uses the latest computer animation to ‘bring the mysterious prehistoric world to life’.

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