March 2013



We kick-off with comedy and Matt Berry's pilot of last year, Toast Of London about an actor with a knack of attracting bad publicity gets picked up for a full series. Cabbage and Pat follows two women in their golden years who discover a new lust for life, Up The Women is set during the suffragette movement of the early 1900s with Jessica Hynes writing and starring and You And Who's Army? adds to the ever-increasing list of comedy panel shows. Ricky Gervais comedy Derek is back for a second series, Sue Perkins hosts Name Dropping a comedy quiz pilot and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer are working on a new sitcom loosely based on 70s show Bless This House.

Drama, this month includes The Smoke set in a London fire station, an adaptation of the classic Daphne Du Maurier novel Jamaica Inn and New World is a follow up to The Devil's Whore set in the aftermath of the English Civil War written by Peter Flannery. Mr Selfridge is back for a second series, Call The Midwife returns for a third and Atlantis is a fantasy adventure hoping to pick up the torch from the recently completed Merlin. Breakdown follows a father whose marriage and life falls apart when his son goes missing on a French holiday.


Turks and Caicos and Salting The Battlefield complete the espionage trilogy which started with Page Eight while Burton and Taylor will see Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter depict the tempestuous Hollywood power couple. War And Peace is getting the Andrew Davies treatment, Breathless is a gynaecology drama set in the 60s and Phillip K. Dick's long gestated dystopian classic The Man In The High Castle finally seems to be edging towards production.

Over in Features, Everest looks at the disastrous attempt to scale the mountain in 1966 with Christian Bale in the frame to play the lead, Destroyer is set aboard H.M.S. Coventry during the Falklands War and Like A Virgin tells the unlikely tale of a young woman who in a drug-induced stupor thinks she is visited by an angel and told she will bear the second messiah. The Secret Evidence stars Emma Thompson as a woman whose family becomes mixed up in the War On Terror, Kill Your Friends adapts the Britpop novel by John Niven and Guardians Of The Galaxy, Marvel's next big comic adaptation is set to shoot in the UK this spring. Lots of others to keep an eye on including Love, Rosie, Walking On Sunshine, Loving Vincent, Smiley's People and Oliver Parker is set to direct W.W.II Epic Dunkirk.

Factual for March includes Super Scroungers looking at people who claim thousands of pounds in state benefit, an Untitled Henry VII Documentary examining the legacy of the often overlooked Tudor monarch and fast-turnaround Meteor Strike - Fireball from Space looking at the recent meteor impact in Russia. There are a few different projects looking at extended families who move back in together to save money, a new series will see couples compete in throwing the best high-class dinner party in someone else's home and Cherry Hits The Sales looks at the extraordinary lengths some people will go to grab a bargain. Have a good month.

Have a good month.

Martin Brand

Crimson Date Book

March 2013

Borderlines Film Festival… Broadcasting Press Guild Awards… Golden Award Of Montreux… Comic Relief… Daily Mail Ideal Home Show… Thessalonki Documentary festival… GLAAD Media Awards… St. Patrick's Day Parade… Social TV Forum… RTS Programme Awards… The Vitality Show… Cinema du Reel… Changing Media Summit… IVCA Awards… Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards… Nokia Urban Music Festival… Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race And loads more inside.

If you have an event you would like listed in the Crimson Datebook, please email details to Alan@crimsonuk.com.

Crimson Communications
Registered in England and Wales. Company no - 3782331

Registered Office
54 Dartmouth Court
London
SE10 8AT

Phone/fax: 020-8293 5015

Alan Williams: Group editor
Direct Line: 020-8293 5015