Russia has just finished airing a dramatisation of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, which sounds really interesting. According to this story in Variety and this story from BBC News, it’s been a massive hit.
While there are often stories about how many programmes we export around the world – you know, 123 different countries have bought Fawlty Towers or whatever – there’s very little imported programming that’s not in English. Some nature films are either co-productions or imports, but the addition of a narrator is pretty straight forward. Drama has been pretty much limited to Heimat on BBC4 of late, or perhaps the odd airing of Das Boot or The Count of Monte Cristo around Christmas. Once upon a time C4 showed “Black Forest Clinic” as a teatime soap to limited success. They also had Chateauvallon, a French primetime soap, shown in a similar teatime slot. There was Lars Von Trier’s The Kingdom, and of course things like The Water Margin and Monkey were shown. Then there were the various kids shows from White Horses to Robinson Crusoe and all points in between, and finally there was Derrick that was shown late at night on either ITV or C4 (I forget which).
So wouldn’t it be nice if BBC Four or More 4 could maybe start showing a few continental series? There must be a few worthwhile out there, and The Master and Margarita sounds like as good a place as any to kick off. I’m guessing that since the UK isn’t a prime market for these shows (having little or no history in buying them).