Matchlight Secures Six Hours Of New BBC Specialist Factual Commissions

Matchlight has secured six hours worth of new specialist factual commissions for BBC TWO and BBC FOUR.
Glasgow-based independent producer Matchlight, a joint venture with DCD Media, has announced three major new history and arts films for BBC TWO and BBC FOUR.
For BBC TWO, Professor Amanda Vickery marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's first novel Sense and Sensibility with The Prime of Miss Jane Austen while former soldier, diplomat and historian Rory Stewart MP will consider the history of foreign intervention in Afghanistan in The Great Game. And on BBC Four Dr. Helen Castor will write and present She Wolves a three-part history of the queens of England before Elizabeth I, based upon her own bestselling book She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth.
This is the second time the Matchlight team will have worked with Amanda Vickery and Rory Stewart. Vickery wrote and presented Matchlight's RTS Programme Award nominated three-part history series At Home with the Georgians which screened on BBC TWO last December, while Rory Stewart worked with Matchlight's Ross Wilson and Iain Scollay on the BBC's The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia in 2009.
Matchlight's Creative Director Ross Wilson said: "It's a real pleasure to be working again with Amanda and Rory on such high profile commissions and in Helen Castor I think we have found a new and very interesting partner. All three excel at making history that is sharp, engaging and approachable. Helen is, we think, a brilliant new history presenter and with Amanda and Rory she strengthens our position as a producer of top end history and arts. Matchlight is now just two years old, we opened for business in June of 2009, but in that time I think we have established a good reputation for delivering popular and intelligent specialist factual programmes of scale and ambition that rate well. The six hours of programming we are announcing today across BBC TWO and BBC FOUR will, I hope, consolidate that reputation."
Each of the programmes will be distributed internationally by DCD Rights and are due to premiere on the BBC this winter.
(KMcA)