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| Monday 09 April 11:00pm - 11:45pm BBC4 Spiral French crime thriller series. A young woman is found brutally murdered and dumped in a skip. Leading the investigation is young public prosecutor Pierre Clement, who teams up with no-nonsense police captain Laure Berthaud and investigating magistrate Judge Roban. Their investigation leads them into a tangled web of political intrigue, prostitution and drugs. VIDEO Plus+: 5566880 Subtitled Cast Gregory Fitoussi,Caroline Proust,Philippe Duclos |
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| More European drama for BBC4 Leigh Holmwood Wednesday April 4, 2007 MediaGuardian.co.uk BBC4 has bought an Italian-language drama as well as the second run of French thriller Spiral as it looks to offer more European series. The six-hour-long Italian series The Best of Youth has received rave reviews for its tale about two brothers and their extended families, described as a saga in the vein of Our Friends in the North. Following its screening on Italian television it was picked up by distributor Miramax and released in arthouse cinemas in the US. The Best of Youth is expected to air on BBC4 in the autumn, while the second series of Spiral will air in the spring next year. Last year, BBC4 made its first foray into contemporary foreign-language drama series with series one of Spiral, which aired with subtitles in May. The eight-part series, called Engrenages in France, was billed as a cross between State of Play and CSI and gave three different perspectives in each episode in the course of solving a murder case. Originally shown on Canal+ in France, it was filmed using hand-held cameras and interspersed with black and white photography. Spiral proved a success with BBC4's audience, attracting up to 200,000 viewers. The second series is currently in production and will air following a repeat of the first run of Spiral. The BBC4 controller, Janice Hadlow, said the show proved there was an appetite for European drama series in the UK. "Spiral is the kind of thing BBC4 should be showing," she added. "It looks and feels different. It brings you into another world. "We are also actively looking at other European crime dramas to see if they might work for us." BBC4 has made a name for itself as a home for foreign-language movies, but Spiral was its first foreign-language drama series. |