BBC Three boss reveals plans for a new soap to run alongside EastEnders

Virgin Radio

31 Jan 2022, 12:35

The drama will better reflect modern Britain and how tough it is to be in your early 20s.

BBC Three controller Fiona Campbell has revealed plans for a brand-new soap that will be more representative of modern Britain to air on the resurrected channel, which returns to TV on 1 February.

She said in an article for Radio Times, the soap would be a “great opportunity” to better reflect the society we live in, and she wants it to be set “somewhere very specific in modern Britain”.

Fiona explained: “You know, it could be Derry, or Belfast, it could be Aberdeen, it could be Newcastle.

“I’d want to put it somewhere like that and then showcase a locality like that in all its glory.”

She continued: “When we did [Meet] the Khans we got a lot of feedback about how good Bolton looked, and people from Bolton were really proud of how we portrayed it, so I’d like to do that within a soap.”

Fiona also said how she would love to recruit writers and cast for the soap from social media because it would make it easier for new young writers to get a foot in the door in the industry.

She added: “I’d like to provide a platform for it and the cast of the future within that. You know, you can see how many stars of the future came out of early EastEnders so that would be completely amazing.

“I would do some casting on Instagram from social, and I would just approach it from a different way than these things are classically done. I'd have a pipeline for new young writers at scale, and a writer’s room at scale, and again use social so it's easier to get people in, because it's bloody hard work to get into, to try out in that kind of world."

According to her, the soap would also focus on how tough it is to be in your teens and early 20s in today’s world.

There is an idea that ‘young people’ only watch streaming services these days, but Campbell believes they will still want to tune in for the “shared experience” of tv programmes if there is something they can watch.

In other soap news, there have been rumours that Happy Mondays Bez will be joining the cast of Hollyoaks.

BBC 3 broadcasting every night from 7pm