Archive for the ‘television’ Category

Only Connect — Now on BBC Two

28 August, 2014
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Series ten of Only Connect, with me in the question-editor chair, begins on BBC Two on Mon 1 September 2014 at 20:30.

Only Connect for BBC Four

14 April, 2014

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The new series of quiz show Only Connect starts tonight on BBC Four, with me in the question-editor seat.

Charlie Brooker’s 2013 Wipe for BBC Two

28 December, 2013

I am a proud member of Team 2013 Wipe, the fruit of whose toil will be on BBC Two tonight:

Update 6 Jan: And the second series of Weekly Wipe begins on Thu 9 Jan on BBC Two.

A Young Doctor’s Notebook and Other Stories

18 November, 2013

Series two of A Young Doctor’s Notebook begins this week.

Only Connect: A Quiz Show for BBC4

1 November, 2013

only connect

As of the next series, I will be the question editor for BBC Four’s million-viewer quiz Only Connect, which will incidentally move to BBC Two in 2014.

    Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe for BBC Two

    28 January, 2013

    I am a proud member of Team Weekly Wipe, which starts on BBC Two on Thursday evening at 22h00.

    Update 01-02-2013: Here’s the programme, while it lasts:

    A Young Doctor’s Notebook DVD

    7 January, 2013

    Good news for those who don’t own a squarial: A Young Doctor’s Notebook is available today on DVD from BBC Worldwide and Big Talk.

    A Young Doctor's Notebook on DVD

    Charlie Brooker’s 2012 Wipe for BBC Two

    1 January, 2013

    I am a proud member of Team 2012 Wipe, the fruit of whose toil will be on BBC Two tonight:

    Update 02-01-2013: Here’s the programme, while it lasts:

    A Young Doctor’s Notebook: How We Adapted Mikhail Bulgakov

    5 December, 2012

    Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm in A Young Doctor's Notebook

    A piece for the Guardian about A Young Doctor’s Notebook: how we adapted the short stories for the screen and why Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm are playing the same nameless doctor:

    Our focus was the emotional core of the hospital tales: the hardening of the junior medic. In Bulgakov’s book, in interior monologue, the young doctor wonders how a more experienced practitioner might react, wishing he had the composure of his future self. But as the story Morphine warns us, that older self may not be wiser; he might, in fact, be a junkie. We wanted to incorporate that story: on screen, the older doctor (Hamm) is right there for the younger (Radcliffe) to talk to; but he turns out to be a damaged man: nostalgic, regretful, not above the occasional pratfall.

    A Young Doctor's Notebook - as seen on TV

    An extra treat in the past week has been seeing Hugh Aplin’s and Michael Glenny’s translations now sporting AS SEEN ON TV labels

    Mark Chappell writing A Young Doctor's Notebook

    Mark Chappell in the office where we wrote AYDN

    A Young Doctor's Notebook design department

    In the design department

    Shaun Pye as Yegorych

    Shaun Pye relaxing on set

    Models for the set of A Young Doctor's Notebook

    Models for the hospital set

    Alan Connor and Daniel Radcliffe

    ‘The cultured miller’ asks YD for a diagnosis

    A Young Doctor's Notebook scripts

    Oxford Textbook of Medicine...

    A Young Doctor's Notebook

    A Young Doctor’s Notebook for Sky Arts

    19 May, 2012


    I am working on an adaptation of Mikhaíl Bulgakov’s Записки юного врача for Big Talk and Point West Picures, as A Young Doctor’s Notebook. It is part of Playhouse Presents….

    The writers are Mark Chappell, me and Shaun Pye and the medium is comedy-drama. It’s set in 1917; while some press has inferred that the background is the first world war or the Russian revolution, the setting is in fact snow. Lots of snow.

    More details in the Guardian

    Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe and Mad Men’s Jon Hamm [will] play the same doctor at different stages of his life in the four-part series, A Young Doctor’s Notebook, by Russian writer and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov.

    Hamm will play the older man, who has a series of ‘bleakly comic’ exchanges with his younger self, played by Radcliffe.

    …and I am sad that Variety’s piece includes no puns or jargon.

    10 O’Clock Live for Channel 4

    19 February, 2012

    I am back at 10 O’Clock Live. When it isn’t live, you can again watch clips, like this one people like [NB: the final “…unless you count all those times they had a go at witches” is unforgivably omitted and archivists should note that what sounds like “Tory boys” is in fact “toy boys”]:

    Screenwipe Review of the Year 2011 for BBC Four

    29 December, 2011

    I am a proud member of Team Screenwipe 2011, the fruit of whose toil will soon be on BBC Four:

    Black Mirror: The National Anthem

    4 December, 2011

    I made a thinkribution to The National Anthem, the first story in the Charlie-Brooker-yielded Channel 4 drama collection Black Mirror, but (a) barely perceptibly and so (b) you should watch it — with a caveat about adult themes.

    Black Mirror: The National Anthem

    • date/tx/channel: Sun 04 Dec/2100/C4

    10 O’Clock Live

    25 February, 2011

    I’ve been working as a writer and producer on Channel 4’s 10 O’Clock Live. When it isn’t live, you can watch clips, like this: