Auntie Beeb (does anybody still say that?) has confirmed that they will be shooting another ten episodes of Father Brown in May this year.
Series one, which aired in January, gained an average audience of 2.1 million and a 23.5 per cent share.
Executive producer Will Trotter said:
“Father Brown is a successful co-production between BBC Worldwide and BBC Drama Production which has delivered compulsive viewing for BBC One Daytime. The series features popular stories set in the Cotswold’s country houses which look sensational on screen and it’s great to attract actors of the calibre of Mark Williams and Sorcha Cusack back for a second series.”
Kate Harwood, Head of Drama, England, said:
“Will Trotter’s Birmingham team created a little bit of sunlit magic during a wet English summer and we’re delighted that the show had such a warm response and a swift recommission. How wonderful that the brilliant Mark Williams will get to ride his bicycle into action yet again.”
In a bid to further alienate purists, in the new series Father Brown will be equipped with a sonic screwdriver and helped out by a ditzy talking dog.
By the way, in passing the press release mentions the ‘soon-to-be screened cop drama WPC 56, set in Birmingham in the 1950s’.
Past Offences: Classic crime, thrillers and mystery book reviews 
Like the Doctor Who gag Rich – I thought the show wasn’t as good as it could have been but I am very glad it has done well – there should be room in the schedules for new lower budget drama in daytime. They never credited Chesterton on screen as author of the stories they adapted though, did they? I thought that was a bit rough on GK! Thanks for the updates on this, greatly appreciated.
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I think the credit was “based on the character created by” but the stories that were based on the originals deviated quite heavily from them – in some cases by necessity, but not in others…
It’s good news that they get another go – at it’s best, it was an entertaining show, even if the mysteries were mostly pretty obvious, but I’d guess viewers at 2 in the afternoon don’t want anything too demanding.
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Yeah, ‘loosely based’ would have been more like it.
BTW in other TV news I’ve finally drifted away from The Mentalist. Are they still going around in circles?
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Re the Doctor Who gag, I’m sure I saw the Tardis in the background in one of the episodes of Father Brown (although it was obviously just a regulation blue police box in those days 🙂 )
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It was a brilliant series and I am pleased that another will follow
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