Broadcast 29 October, 2009
Silver River has hired former Endemol exec Shaun Parry to bolster its drive into scripted content, as its first-ever drama approaches TX in Scotland.
Parry spent two years at Brighter Pictures – now Remarkable Television – where he was most recently head of development, and he joins Silver River as senior comedy producer, working alongside head of comedy and entetainment, Chris Sussman. Parry’s credits include BBC2 daytime gameshow Pointless.
Silver River’s first drama, One Night In Emergency, goes out on BBC Scotland before Christmas and has been lined up for a network slot next year. The 60-minute drama is a modern interpretation of Homer’s The Odyssey set within a hospital and has a twist “like The Sixth Sense”. It stars Grey’s Anatomy’s Kevin McKidd and Michelle Ryan.
New commissions
Separately, Silver River has won two BBC factual commissions. The Intimate History Of The British House [working title] is a 4 x 60-minute series for BBC4 fronted by Historic Royal Palaces chief curator, Lucy Worsley.
It will reveal “the private life of the British house” by telling the story of different rooms, such as how bathrooms have developed with attitudes to hygiene.
“Before chimneys were invented, everybody lived in one room, so sex was an outdoors activity – hence the merry month of May and the Maypole. People would go outside to bonk,” said Daisy Goodwin, who will exec the show.
It was ordered by BBC4 controller Richard Klein and BBC commissioning executive producer, specialist factual, Cassian Harrison. Meanwhile, BBC2 has ordered Cracking Antiques, a 6 x 30-minute series fronted by Kathryn Rayward and Mark Hill. It features people buying antiques for their property on a budget.
It was ordered by executive producer in knowledge commissioning Alex Menzies and commissioning editor Lisa Edwards. The exec producer is Dan Adamson.
Daisy also pointed to ways around the inevitable squeeze on budgets. Silver River’s BBC2 series Grow Your Own Drugs has been a format hit internationally, but also spawned a book that was an Amazon bestseller for two months.
“It’s much harder for indies to make the margins they used to. But we have proved that if you come up with a winning idea that is first to market, you can make money on the extrapolations,” she said.
