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I am proud to have performed the minor role of “crossword consultant” for this excellent episode of Inside No 9, The Riddle of the Sphinx:

I’m further proud to have filled the role of some kind of muse:

• BBC Two, 10pm, 28 Feb 2017
• Two Girls, One on Each Knee
• Steve Pemberton set the episode’s crossword as ‘Sphinx’, which is also the Guardian’s cryptic on the day of broadcast
• Interview with Sphinx at the Guardian crossword blog
• More Inside No 9

Series 52 begins 9pm, Fri 7 October.

Kevin Bishop is Nigel Farage, in a programme imagining his life after resigning. Blurb:

“On the 23rd June, Britain voted to leave the European Union,” added the BBC. “Then, on the 4th July, Nigel Farage, the man who had made it all possible, resigned saying he wanted his life back. But what sort of life has he gone back to, and how does a man forever in the spotlight fill his days now he has nothing to do?”

(more…)

Series 12 of Only Connect, with me in the question-editor chair, begins tonight on BBC Two at 8.30pm.

“It’s a safe space, where a very specifically talented group of people get to show off in their own understated way for an audience of their peers. And this is what makes it so brilliant.” – Stuart Heritage, Guardian

“…that will surely be the highlight of the week for all lovers of uncompromisingly smart television” – James Walton, Telegraph

“What is the link between these numbers? 285,000, 684,000, 1.1m, 2.9m. The answer is they are soaring viewers figures for Only Connect, the toughest quiz on television, which began as a BBC4 obscurity and has now overtaken BBC1 in the ratings.” – Adam Sherwin, Independent

“Only Connect: the best quiz on TV?” – Radio Times

• “Victoria Coren Mitchell on nerd pride and finding Only Connect’s niche”

I’m on The One Show this evening, discussing spying and crosswords with Gyles Brandreth.

• 1900, Tue 15 Mar, BBC1

I am a proud member of Team 2015 Wipe, which is broadcast tomorrow.

• 9pm, 30 December 2015, BBC Two

Tomorrow night, Live From Television Centre, a four-play theatrical collaboration with Battersea Arts Centre, is on BBC4.

I am proud to have made a contribution to the last part, Jess Thom‘s Broadcast from Biscuit Land, which also features Jess Mabel Jones and, fleetingly, me.

• 9pm, Sunday 15 November 2015, BBC Four
• Battersea Arts Centre blog post | BBC press release

Series 11 of Only Connect, with me in the question-editor chair, begins tonight on BBC Two at 8.30pm.

I am a proud member of Team Election Wipe, the fruits of whose labours will be broadcast shortly before the polls open.

• 9pm, 6 May 2015, BBC Two

I have been writing for Channel 4’s Alternative Election Night.

• 9pm, 7 May 2015, Channel 4

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

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

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.

• More episodes

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

• 2100, Thursday 21 Nov, Sky Arts

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.

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:

• More episodes

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: From the operating table to the screen

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:

• More episodes

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.

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 in the office where we wrote AYDN

In the design department

Shaun Pye relaxing on set

Models for the hospital set

‘The cultured miller’ asks YD for a diagnosis

• A Young Doctor’s Notebook, 9pm, Thursdays from 6 December; Sky Arts
• Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm discuss the series
• Trailer
• NTV news package

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.

• Fallen Tree on Flickr