Three new dramas for Channel 4

Abi Morgan, Bryan Elsley, Peter Flannery and Martine Brant have created three original new drama series for Channel 4.

The new commissions, Home Before Dark, Dates and New World, are part of a new run of distinctive dramas, Channel 4 announced today.

“I am thrilled to announce new dramas by some of Britain’s most exciting writers. Channel 4 is a place where authors can take a big idea and shape it in a unique way. Over the next 12 months there will be a new slate of ambitious series and serials adding range and scale to the drama output on C4 and E4.” Says Head of Drama, Piers Wenger.

Home Before Dark is a four-part series written by Abi Morgan, across the hour-long editions the story follows the hunt for a killer and looks at the way the internet can corrupt, and be corrupted by those who use it. The international thriller is set in Italy, America and London.

Dates written by Bryan Elsley is an original drama series of witty, touching and true half hour episodes about two people, on a date. Some characters may recur, perhaps going on return dates or having new ones, so the stories gradually start to build around them. Some characters we’ll root for, some we’ll hate. Dates is about the infinite diversity of people, and the complicated, infuriating, hilarious ways we interact with each other. The series will run for nine half-hour episodes.

Bryan Elsley says, “Dates is about the encounter between two people, at the modern precipice of our emotional lives where we come in emotional disguise only to find ourselves at our most exposed. These stories pitch characters straight into the ring with each other. Some of them will sink, some will swim, and some will stagger back for more. We’re delighted that Channel 4 has backed our new production company Balloon. We’re all about drama and comedy at its best, big or small.”

New World is the next chapter of The Devil’s Whore meets Angelica, now Countess of Abingdon, in the 1680s. Torture, show trials, summary executions,… the restored Monarchy of Charles II has betrayed its promise of tolerance and reverted to tyranny. Behind the opulent decadence of the court, a ruthless terror machine is repressing the liberties won with so much Civil War blood. Across the Atlantic, the tentacles of State terror have reached the New England colonists who are struggling to throw off the shackles of the English Crown. With the spectre of past horrors returning, Angelica strives to protect her innocent daughter Beth from the perilous world outside the haven of Fanshawe House and England’s impending descent into chaos.

Seeking a new life in an untamed land, Beth finds herself torn between love and the ideals for which her mother stood and her father died. Spanning two continents and the period up to the Glorious Revolution, New World is a gripping story of love and loss and the human price paid for the freedoms we enjoy today. The drama will air for four hour-long editions and is written by Peter Flannery and Martine Brant.

Flannery and Brant add, “We are thrilled to be writing the continuing story of Angelica and her daughter Beth in the Restoration. We can’t think of a better place than Channel 4 to tell the tale of the love and courage of a group of young idealists as they strive together to make the world a better place to live in on both sides of the Atlantic.”