ITV Winter Schedule Offers ‘Best of British’ For Xmas & New Millennium

From the swanky, hard-to-find surroundings of Vinopolis in south London, ITV’s director of programmes David Liddiment yesterday unveiled details of the channel’s winter 2000 output.

Promising that the new schedule contains a rich and diverse line-up of programmes, Liddiment kicked off the programme launch with a further statement about the demise of News at Ten and the channel’s new evening schedule. Making reference to recent press reports of political unease regarding ITV’s news output, he claimed that ITV has picked up an extra million viewers in the 10 o’clock slot and that the replacement news programmes were performing ‘robustly’.

The winter schedule contains 17 new dramas, coupled with a raft of returning series. Of the major new dramas the channel is offering, highlights include: At Home With The Braithwaites. Starring Amanda Redman and Peter Davison, it tells the story of the effect a big lottery win has on an ‘ordinary suburban family’; Monsignor Renard has John Thaw playing a French Catholic priest returning home to France in 1940, just as the Germans invade the country; The Last Musketeer finds Robson Green playing a professional fencer with a dubious past; the first project from recent Eastenders defector Ross Kemp is called Hero Of The Hour and there’s The Blind Date, which is either about a red-head woman from Liverpool who struggles to find true love for the single people of Britain or it’s a gritty new thriller adapted from a novel by Frances Fyfield (which sounds better to you?).

Proving that ITV still has the guts to go back into the comedy genre, following the debacle that was Days Like These, the Network unveils details of three new comedy programmes. The first is The Thing About Vince, starring Timothy Spall as a self-employed builder stuck in the no-man’s-land of the forty-somethings. Then there’s Pay and Display, which sees James Bolam return to sitcom on ITV as an underground car park attendant – the first time since Second Thoughts. Finally, there is the acting debut of eccentric entertainer Michael Barrymore in Bob Martin, where he plays a troubled gameshow host (that should be a stretch).

Entertainment and factual programming includes: 12 Days In Gangland, which tells the story of Frank Mitchell who was sprung from Dartmoor prison by the Krays in 1966; Man-Eaters, which looks at wild animals that attack humans and Extreme Magic – Extreme Danger, presented by Ulrika Jonsson. There will be coverage of the premier music show The Brit Awards; Matthew Kelly hosts Hotel Getaway in which groups on unsuspecting guests get booked into ‘the hotel from hell’ and Matthew Kelly also returns as host of Stars In Their Eyes.

Sport on offer for the winter season includes coverage of the FA and Worthington Cups, plus action from the UEFA Champions’ League. There is also basketball action from America with NBA 2000 as well as coverage of Formula One, for which the channel has rights until 2005. Movie premieres include Fierce Creatures with John Cleese and Kevin Kline, the Sylvestor Stallone action thriller Daylight and Tim Burton’s sci-fi spoof Mars Attacks.

ITV also announced details of the programmes that will be shown over the Christmas and New Year period. Once again the station has a pantomime to keep the family entertained – Cinderella written by Simon Nye. There’s a festive edition of A Touch of Frost, an adaption of Henry James’ classic The Turn of the Screw, plus the return of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. There will also be festive editions of Coronation Street, Emmerdale, You’ve Been Framed, Des O’Connor Tonight and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.

Millennium coverage will be hosted by ITN newscaster Trevor McDonald, with Millennium Eve and Countdown 2000, while The Clive James Millennium Show casts a humourous look at the events of the past 1,000 years with the help of a few surprise celebrity guests.

Reviewer: Simon Wright

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