It will be a Period Set Comedy TV series adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel FUNNY GIRL with Gemma Arterton cast as Barbara Parker, a young woman from Blackpool finding her comic voice in the world of the

Gemma Arterton will lead Funny Girl

1960s sitcom. It’s the height of the swinging 60s and Barbara Parker has just been crowned Miss Blackpool – but there’s got to be more to life than being a beauty queen in a seaside town, right? She wants to be… someone. The bright lights of London are calling, and our determined hero sets off to find out who that someone is. The London she encounters is not as quite as swinging as the one she’d read about and seen on TV. However, after a series of setbacks Barbara finds herself in unfamiliar territory – an audition for a TV comedy show. Barbara’s uncompromising northern wit proves to be the X factor that the show has been missing. She gets the part and becomes part of a ground breaking new sitcom which will have an impact on British comedy for decades to come. Clare-Hope Ashitey, Arsher Ali and Alexa Davies also star. 

Premiering its first two of the six episodes over at SeriesMania festival next week is French historical series GERMINAL 135 years after the publication of Zola’s book, with the story diving into the Northern mines and

Germinal will air this Autumn on France 2!

an impressive young cast. The series recreates realistically the social climate associated to the world of miners at the end of the 19th century. In the North of France, Etienne Lantier is hired and housed by the Maheu family to work in

The series will air in six hourlong episodes

a coal mine, in Montsou. He falls in love with Catherine, daughter of the Maheus, also courted by the brutal Chaval. Acquainted with miners, Etienne protests against the misery in which they are kept. When the mining company

Louis Peres leads the cast as young Etienne Lantier

lowers their wages, Etienne spurs them to start a strike: he is convinced that someday, the working class, still “germinating”, will come to terms with all the wrongs they suffer from. The series will air on France 2 this Autumn.