Max Beesley on the Paul O’Grady chat show

Survivors actor Max Beesley briefly discussed his character (Tom Price) and plans for series two during an appearance on the Paul O’Grady Show on Channel 4 on 21 May 2009.

The interview is available on the 4OD service until 20 June 2009. Beesley joins O’Grady 19mins into the show.

As Beesley is sporting a lengthier hair style than that required for the character of Price, this would suggest that filming on Survivors series two had not started at the time the interview was recorded.

Many thanks to Adrian H for alerting the blog on this one.

Scotland on Sunday suggests Survivors could be rescheduled

The Scotland on Sunday newspaper (10 May 2009) reports that series two of Survivors could be delayed or rescheduled by the BBC – becoming the “latest victim of swine flu”.

It suggests that the BBC could rethink the timing of the transmission of series two if the real-world context of a swine flu pandemic rendered the drama “a little too close to reality”.

A BBC spokesperson told the paper: “We can confirm a second series of Survivors was commissioned last year. We are monitoring developments with regard to swine flu and no transmission date has been set.”

Former BBC controller discusses Survivors’ H1N1 topicality

On Radio Four’s Front Row arts and culture review programme (4 May 2009), former BBC controller (and current ITV Director of Television) Peter Fincham discusses the challenge of commissioning and scheduling popular television drama that has strong contemporary relevance – including Survivors.

Asked by presenter Mark Lawson if he would have commissioned Survivors given the current unsettling context of the spectre of Swine Flu, he replies: “One side of you would say, ‘I’m rather nervous about this’; another side would say ‘Goodness me, isn’t this prescient of us? Haven’t we managed to get the zeitgeist exactly right?’. So it would be a difficult decision…”.

The interview, which features in the closing five minutes of the programme, is available on the BBC iPlayer.

Guardian muses on Survivors swine-flu insights

Writing in a Guardian Unlimited blog on Monday 27 April, Jonathan Wright muses (in a less-than-entirely serious way) on the question: What can Survivors teach us about living through swine flu?.

His bullet-point advice is as follows:

• Don’t trust politicians to sort things out
• Do give up social networking
• Don’t try to live the urban life
• Do remember that remorseless murderers will survive
• Don’t hang out with Freema Agyeman
• Do be glad this didn’t happen in the 1970s
• Don’t try to cut yourself off