The BBC’s experimentation with its coverage of politics and current affairs is preparing to enter another phase with a number of commissions from production company Ten Alps, including a live political talk show on BBC Two, hosted by Clive Anderson.
The Sharp End is a six-part, 40minute programme starting on 4 October, at 9am, which will feature guests and look at the week’s news and offbeat stories.
It will directly replace Weekend with Rod Liddle, the ?rst BBC Two politics show to come out of the corporationwide review of its political coverage, which aired in May.
BBC commissioning executive Lucy Hetherington said the programme was part of an ongoing strategy to continue making programmes in a bid to get to audiences not currently being reached.
“We’re not looking for one programme that will provide the answers for every problem. As part of our remit we’ll continue to experiment,” she added.
The commissions also represent a departure from the BBC’s plans to actively seek out the youth audiences – who are uninterested in politics and current affairs as it is currently projected on television.
“It about new audiences and people who haven’t necessarily felt totally engaged by existing coverage, rather than going for a narrow band of people,” said Hetherington.
Anne Lapping, executive producer of The Sharp End, and a director at Ten Alps’ subsidiary Brook Lapping, said the show would present viewers with “a non-Westminster Village, but nonetheless informed and witty take on the week, and would be a break from the pursuit of ‘youth at any price'”.
Other commissions include Pax Americana, a two-part series on BBC Two about US foreign policy since September 11, by Brian Lapping and Norma Percy, the award-winning documentary production team that made The Fall of Milosevic aired on BBC Two in January.
I Met Osama Bin Laden is a one-hour ?lm for BBC Two, which, in the vain of the I Met Adolph Eichmann documentary shown in February, will use anecdotes from those who made contact with the Al-Qaida leader to ?esh out his pro?le.
On BBC One, former Newsnight anchor turned Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine will front a ?ve-part series interviewing rock stars called Jeremy Vine Meets…
By Wale Azeez
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