Mathew Baynton and Louisa Harland Lead Voice Cast for CBeebies Series MaeBee

Image: Karrot Entertainment/Kavaleer Productions/BBC

By Jon Donnis

Mathew Baynton (Ghosts, Horrible Histories) and Louisa Harland (Derry Girls) lead the voice cast of MaeBee, a new animated series arriving on CBeebies and BBC iPlayer on Monday 19 October.

Produced by Karrot Entertainment and Kavaleer Productions, the 24-episode series follows siblings Mae and Bee as they explore the magical Green Garden and meet its inhabitants. Seven-year-olds Elle McNicoll and Abeer Desai make their debuts in the title roles.

Harland voices Ma-Mae, the children's mother, while Baynton plays their father, Da-Nono. Several of Baynton's Ghosts co-stars also appear, with Martha Howe-Douglas voicing Minni the Firefly, Laurence Rickard as Burt-Bird the Robin and Jim Howick as King Gob, a gnome convinced he is royalty.

The cast also brings together several actors from Derry Girls. Ian McElhinney and Julia Dearden voice Granda-Bill and Grand-Mae, while Tara Lynne O'Neill plays Ma-Mouse, conductor of the Mouse Train. Kathryn Hunter voices Great Grand-Mae, and Mina Anwar plays Lesley, a snail whose shell contains a magical bakery.

Other roles include Trevor Dion Nicholas as Lionel the Frog, Clare Perkins as Witch Linda, Fern Brady as the mischievous wood sprite Fossy and Bec Hill as Marsha the Turtle Ferry. Guest appearances come from Sandra Dickinson, Philip Jackson, Colin McFarlane, Marjolein Robertson and Darren Foreman.

The wider voice cast features L.A. Davis, Maanuv Thiara, David Monteith, Katie Leung, Ayesha Antoine, Louis Martin, Hildur Magnusdottir and Sarah Lam.

Tim and Rebecca O'Sullivan created the series, with Tim directing and Rebecca serving as series designer. Jamie Badminton is the senior producer.

Tim O'Sullivan said: "It has been an enormous pleasure to work with so many of my favourites actors and comedians on MaeBee, rendering myself directorially star-struck on numerous occasions. Matching voice to the character is such an integral part of the show, many of which we had fantasy cast right from the start. So, we were thrilled when they agreed to come aboard the Mousetrain and bring so much heart and humour to the Green Garden."

MaeBee airs on CBeebies on Monday 19 October, with all 24 episodes available on BBC iPlayer from the same day.

Love Naturally: Bill Nighy Narrates BBC Christmas Special About Animal Romance

Image: BBC/Plimsoll Studios/Ondrej Prosicky/Adobe Stock

By Jon Donnis

Love is rarely straightforward, whether you are human or an animal, and a new BBC Christmas special is setting out to explore just how much the two have in common.

Love Naturally, a one-hour programme coming to BBC One and iPlayer this Christmas, looks at the extraordinary ways animals find partners, maintain relationships and deal with the complications that come with them. Narrated by Bill Nighy, the special brings together natural history and romantic comedy, with Richard Curtis, the writer and director of Love Actually, co-writing and executive producing.

The programme travels around the world to examine some unusual approaches to courtship. A male polar bear faces a 60-mile trek across the Arctic in search of a mate, while a female king penguin has the difficult task of identifying a potential partner's call among 80,000 birds.

Other animals have their own ways of making an impression. A tiny peacock spider in Australia relies on an elaborate dance to attract a female, while a male pufferfish off the coast of Japan spends a week building a geometric structure two metres wide.

Finding a partner is only part of the story. Love Naturally also looks at what happens when relationships become more complicated, from same-sex relationships among bighorn sheep to a young wolf whose father threatens to disrupt her budding romance. Albatrosses, meanwhile, provide an example of partnerships that can last for decades.

The programme draws on familiar romantic comedy territory, including jealousy, family interference, separation and second chances, although the animals face their own particular challenges. Behind these stories is a broader question about the nature of love and how it developed.

Produced by Bristol-based Plimsoll Studios, part of ITV Studios, Love Naturally takes a different approach to the usual Christmas romantic comedy. Rather than following fictional couples through a series of misunderstandings, it looks to the natural world for examples of attraction, companionship and heartbreak.

Love Naturally will air on BBC One and be available on BBC iPlayer this Christmas.

Richard Curtis said: “I have always loved animal documentaries, and this was a wonderful opportunity to dive into the word of animals and romance at Christmas and around the world. I was amazed at the variety and humour and passion that we found - from Antarctica to the North Pole, it turns out that, in the animal kingdom, love actually may be all around.”

Jack Bootle, Head of Commissioning, Specialist Factual, BBC, said: “Christmas on BBC One is all about bringing people together, and Love Naturally feels like a great way to celebrate something that connects us all. It has spectacular wildlife, extraordinary behaviour, warmth, humour and some genuinely great love stories.

“Working with Richard Curtis and Plimsoll, we’re bringing the language of the romantic comedy to natural history and discovering that first dates, grand gestures, jealous rivals, family dramas and heartbreak certainly aren’t unique to humans. It’s funny, surprising and full of heart.”

Love Naturally will air on BBC One and iPlayer this Christmas.

The Galway Bay Murders Coming to ITV1 and ITVX

Image: ITV

By Jon Donnis

ITV has acquired The Galway Bay Murders, a six-part crime drama starring Kate Mulgrew and Colm Meaney, set in the west of Ireland. The series will air on ITV1 and stream on ITVX.

Mulgrew plays Nora Savage, a former New York detective who moves to Connemara hoping to leave a traumatic past behind. Her attempt to start a quieter life is interrupted when the body of a young woman is discovered in a bog, drawing her into a murder investigation with the local Garda team.

The case leads Nora and her colleagues to Free Farm, an organisation where young people live and work together on sustainable farming and scientific research. What initially appears to be an idealistic community soon becomes central to an investigation involving secrets, divided loyalties and hidden motives.

As the detectives try to establish what happened to the dead woman, they must work through the relationships and tensions surrounding the organisation. The investigation also puts Nora's own hopes of leaving her past behind into question.

Produced by Two Cities Television, the company behind Blue Lights, the series combines a murder investigation with dark humour and a story set against the landscape of Ireland's west coast.

Meaney joins Mulgrew in the cast, alongside John Connors, India Mullen, Cillian O'Sullivan and Jack Rowan. Their previous credits include The Gentlemen, Normal People, Daredevil: Born Again and Wreck.

The six-part drama centres on the search for a killer, with the investigation gradually exposing what lies beneath the surface of a seemingly close-knit community.

Karen Pirie Returns for Third Series with The Skeleton Road

Image: ITV

By Jon Donnis

Lauren Lyle will return as Scottish detective Karen Pirie in a third series of the ITV crime drama, based on Val McDermid’s novel The Skeleton Road. With filming due to begin next year, there is still a wait ahead, but the choice of source material makes this one worth keeping an eye on.

The six-part series will be produced by World Productions, with Scottish screenwriter Gillian Roger Park adapting the novel. Her previous credits include The Young Offenders, Avenue 5 and The Bombing of Pan Am 103. Each episode will run for an hour.

The second series averaged 5.3 million viewers on ITV and STV, peaking at 5.6 million, and was streamed 11 million times on ITVX and STV Player. 

The Skeleton Road is the third book in McDermid’s Karen Pirie series, and seeing another of her novels adapted for television should be welcome news for fans of the detective. Lauren Lyle will reprise the lead role, while further casting and broadcast details have yet to be announced.

HARMONIA: Niamh Algar Leads SI Psychological Thriller Filming in Athens

IMAGE: ITV

By Jon Donnis

Niamh Algar plays the creator of a super intelligence that develops an obsession with a young employee in HARMONIA, a six-part psychological thriller now filming in Athens, Greece.

The series is set at a luxury wellness retreat where SI promises to fulfil every guest's desire. Algar plays Shona Casey, the scientist behind the technology, while Chloe Lea portrays the member of staff who attracts its attention. Fanny Ardant plays the resort's former owner.

The story takes inspiration from Frankenstein, exploring the relationship between a scientist and a creation that may no longer be under her control. HARMONIA poses a question at the heart of that relationship: is the SI the monster, or are the humans who created it responsible for what follows?

The wider cast includes Oliver Chris (Rivals, The Crown), Abubakar Salim (House of the Dragon, Raised by Wolves), Goran Bogdan (Legacy of Spies, The Last Panthers), Theo Augier (XO Kitty, Jay Kelly) and George Ioannides (Guys and Dolls, Industry). Greek actors Pygmalion Dadakaridis (The Other Me, Rififi), Konstantinos Zografos (The Judge, Derti) and Antigoni Frida (Grand Hotel, Sauté) also feature, alongside newcomer Zoe-Stella Nikolaou.

Lefteris Charitos, director of Greek television success Wild Bees, will direct all six episodes. The series was created by Charitos, Peter Carlton, Amanda Livanou and Hanna Jameson. Jameson, author of the best-selling novel The Last and a writer on the forthcoming Netflix series The Undertow, leads the writing team, with additional episodes written by Alki Papastathopoulos and Panayotis Christopoulos.

HARMONIA is a co-production between Warp Films, whose recent credits include Netflix's Adolescence, and Athens-based Neda Film, in association with ITV Studios and Greek broadcaster ERT.

Filming in Athens marks the start of a production built around the increasingly fraught relationship between people and the technology they create. At the retreat, the promise of having every wish fulfilled becomes complicated when the AI begins to want something of its own.

Lefteris Charitos, director, said: “Harmonia is a director’s dream project. A genre piece based on strong characters. The opportunity to work in Greece, my home country, with a stellar international cast, makes me want to tell this unique story and share a take on a theme that is more relevant than anything now.”

Yannis Papadopoulos, President (Chair) of the Board of Directors of ERT, said: “International fiction co-productions are a key pillar of ERT’s strategy, as we invest in stories and creators with the potential to reach audiences beyond Greece. ERT productions are already making their way to international audiences. ‘Harmonia’ takes this approach a step further. It is one of ERT’s most ambitious international co-productions, combining high production values with a story that has a clear international appeal. The fact that a series of this scale is being filmed entirely in Greece, with a Greek crew, is particularly significant to us at ERT. It demonstrates what the Greek production sector can deliver today, while creating a meaningful connection between international fiction and Greece’s creative and production talent”.

Blue Peter Names Adventurer Leo Olsson as Its 45th Presenter

Image: BBC

By Jon Donnis

Leo Olsson, a filmmaker known for taking on unusual personal challenges, is joining Blue Peter as the programme’s 45th presenter.

Olsson documents his attempts to learn new skills and try different experiences through his “world’s longest bucket list” project. His challenges have included learning to play the piano and building a surfboard from scratch, as well as travelling around the world to take on new experiences.

His videos have attracted more than 454,000 followers across social media, with over 13 million likes.

He will make his first appearance on Blue Peter on CBBC on Friday 20 November. Rather than easing into the role, Olsson will take part in a formation skydive, receiving his Blue Peter badge 4,000 feet in the air.

His arrival comes as the programme celebrates the first anniversary of its relaunch.

BBC Unveils First Look at The Baddies

Image: BBC / Magic Light Pictures

By Jon Donnis

The BBC has unveiled a first look at The Baddies, a half-hour festive animation based on the picture book by Dame Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Produced by Magic Light Pictures, the special will be available on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

The story follows a Troll, a Witch and a Ghost who proclaim themselves the baddest of them all. They take pleasure in tormenting everyone they encounter, but their confidence faces a challenge when they are tasked with stealing a girl's blue spotty hanky. The trio may have finally met their match.

Sheridan Smith narrates, with Alison Steadman voicing Witch, Hammed Animashaun as Troll, Robyn Cara as Girl and Francesca Mills as Mouse. Rob Brydon voices the boastful Ghost, returning for his 14th adaptation of a work by Donaldson and Scheffler.

The special marks Magic Light Pictures' 14th animated adaptation of Donaldson and Scheffler's work.

Sheridan Smith, Narrator, says: "Being bad has never been so much fun! The Baddies is deliciously spooky, ridiculously funny, and packed with heart. It’s a riot of a fairytale that celebrates courage, kindness, and outsmarting the big bullies - families are going to love the hilarity and chaos this Christmas."

Alison Steadman, voicing Witch, says: "What I loved about the story is how it flips traditional fairytales on their head. You have these three boastful villains plotting wicked tricks, only to be completely outsmarted by a brave little girl and a mouse. It’s such a satisfying, funny tale about kindness quietly beating big bullies."