Several great dramas are coming to CBBC and the most star-studded of all is Dodger, with Christopher Eccelston as Fagin

BBC has announced several new dramas for the coming year and we bring you some highlights.

The Dodger

Billed as:

A funny, optimistic, fast-paced comedy drama full of jeopardy, Dodger (10×45’) is set before the events of Charles Dickens’ iconic novel, Oliver Twist. There are some familiar characters and a whole gallery of colourful, new ones. Each episode is a standalone adventure brought together at the end of the series with some dramatic reveals and surprises

The cast includes Christopher Eccleston (The A Word, The Leftovers) as Fagin and David Threlfall (Shameless, Housewife, 49) as Chief of Police, Sir Charles Rowan. Playing Dodger is Billy Jenkins (The Crown) with Saira Choudhry (Life, No Offence) as Nancy, with filming already underway in Manchester and various locations around the north west.

The series is written by Rhys Thomas and Lucy Montgomery with Charlie Higson guest writing an episode. Rhys Thomas also directs alongside Hildegard Ryan. It should be available in the New Year.

Silverpoint (w/t)

It may only be a working title, but we love the name Silverpoint, and if the BBC doesn’t end up using it, we imagine someone else will. It’sa sci-fi drama series about kids at summer camp. Four kids bond over something unexplainable out in the woods, something they make an oath not tell anyone about because it’s beyond cool and because no one would believe them anyway.

Produced by Zodiak Kids, with co-producers ZDF Enterprises, the series is created by Lee Walters, Lead Writer, and the Executive Producer is Steven Andrew. Filming starts later this month in Northern Ireland for transmission in 2022.

Malory Towers

There’s always room for Enid Blyton, and Malory Towers is back for series 2 and 3. It follows Darrell Rivers and her chums sharing friendship and high jinks in their traditional 1940s British boarding school. There will be a further 26×25 episodes.

And there’s more (much more)

These are only some of the new titles, and there’s also Nova Jones (18 year old pop star on galactic tour), Still So Awkward (a spin-off from So Awkward), Princess Mirror-Belle (based on the Julia Donaldson novels), series 6 and 7 of Jamie Johnson (the football series), series 2 and 3 of Mystic (New Zealand drama about a mystical horse), Almost Never series 3 (wannabe boy-band The Wonderland returns). There’s a lot of detail in the BBC press release on all these.