W1A (TV series)
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''W1A'' is a British
mockumentary A mockumentary (a blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on c ...
sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...
television series that satirises the
management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includ ...
of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. It was created by John Morton, and first broadcast on BBC Two on 19 March 2014. The series is the follow-up to ''
Twenty Twelve ''Twenty Twelve'' is a BBC television comedy series written and directed by John Morton. Starring Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Hynes and Amelia Bullmore, the programme is a spoof on-location mockumentary following the organisation of the 2012 Summ ...
'', a BAFTA-winning comedy series by the BBC about the
2012 Summer Olympics in London The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
. It sees the reintroduction of
Hugh Bonneville Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams (born 10 November 1963) is an English actor. He is best known for portraying Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in the ITV historical drama series ''Downton Abbey''. His performance on the show earned him a no ...
and
Jessica Hynes Tallulah Jessica Elina Hynes (''née'' Stevenson; born 30 October 1972) is an English actress, director and writer. Known professionally as Jessica Stevenson until 2007, she was one of the creators, writers and stars of the British sitcom ''Spac ...
as their ''Twenty Twelve'' characters, alongside a new cast, with
David Tennant David John Tennant (''né'' McDonald; born 18 April 1971) is a Scottish actor. He rose to fame for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor (2005–2010 and 2013) in the BBC science-fiction TV show ''Doctor Who'', reprising the rol ...
's role as narrator also continuing from the earlier series. The first series began on 19 March 2014, concluding on 9 April. A second series was announced later in 2014 which launched on 23 April 2015 with a one-hour special. In August 2016, '' Radio Times'' announced that ''W1A'' had been recommissioned for a third and final series, which began airing on 18 September 2017.


Etymology

The series is named after the
postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...
of the BBC's headquarters, Broadcasting House, which is W1A 1AA.


Plot

The series revolves around Ian Fletcher (
Hugh Bonneville Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams (born 10 November 1963) is an English actor. He is best known for portraying Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in the ITV historical drama series ''Downton Abbey''. His performance on the show earned him a no ...
), formerly the Head of the
Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...
Deliverance Commission, who has been chosen to be the Head of Values at the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. His task is to clarify, define, or re-define the core purpose of the BBC across all its functions and to position it confidently for the future. The series deals with the everyday events at the corporation, and how the team deal with these. Such events include the arrival of Prince Charles, problems surrounding a new programme entitled ''Britain's Tastiest Village'', as well as media scrutiny of Ian Fletcher's salary, the decision to cut the BBC Big Swing Band (which turns out to be beloved by all) and a cross-dressing ex-Premier League football player who wants to be a television pundit but is terrible at it.


Cast

Bonneville reprises his role of Ian Fletcher from W1A's predecessor, ''Twenty Twelve'', as does Hynes, who plays Siobhan Sharpe, the Head of Perfect Curve, a brand consultant agency. Also returning are Sharpe's team, consisting of Barney Lumsden, Coco Lomax and Karl Marx (Beckett, Pascoe and Fry, respectively), whilst the remainder of the cast were created by Morton as new characters. ;Cameo/guest appearances *
Alan Yentob Alan Yentob (born 11 March 1947) is a BBC presenter and retired British television executive. He stepped down as Creative Director in December 2015, and was chairman of the board of trustees of the charity Kids Company from 2003 until its colla ...
(2014, 2015; 2 episodes) *
Carol Vorderman Carol Jean Vorderman, HonFIET (born 24 December 1960) is a Welsh media personality, best known for appearing on the game show ''Countdown'' for 26 years from 1982 until 2008, as a newspaper columnist and nominal author of educational and diet ...
(2014; 2 episodes) *
Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...
(2014; 1 episode) * Olivia Colman (2014; 1 episode) *Matt Addis (2014; 1 episode) *
Jenni Murray Dame Jennifer Susan Murray, (''née'' Bailey; born 12 May 1950) is an English journalist and broadcaster, best known for presenting BBC Radio 4's ''Woman's Hour'' from 1987 to 2020. Early life Murray was born in Barnsley, West Riding of Yorks ...
(2014; 1 episode) * Clare Balding (2014; 1 episode) *
Evan Davis Evan Harold Davis (born 8 April 1962) is an English economist, journalist, and presenter for the BBC. He has presented ''Dragons' Den'' since 2005. In October 2001, Davis took over from Peter Jay as the BBC's economics editor. He left this ...
(2015; 2 episodes) *
Samuel West Samuel Alexander Joseph West (born 19 June 1966) is an English actor, narrator and theatre director. He has directed on stage and radio, and worked as an actor across theatre, film, television and radio. He often appears as reciter with orche ...
(2015; 1 episode) *
Alex Jones Alexander Emerick Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American far-right and alt-right radio show host and prominent conspiracy theorist. He hosts ''The Alex Jones Show'' from Austin, Texas, which the Genesis Communications Network broadcas ...
(2015; 1 episode) *
Matt Baker Matthew James Baker (born 23 December 1977) is a British television presenter. He co-presented the children's television show ''Blue Peter'' from 1999 until 2006, BBC One's ''Countryfile'' since 2009 and ''The One Show'' from 2011 to 2020, wit ...
(2015; 1 episode) * Sarah Hadland (2015; 1 episode) *
Sophie Raworth Sophie Jane Raworth () (born 15 May 1968) is an English journalist, newsreader and broadcaster working for the BBC. She is a senior newsreader and is one of the main presenters of BBC News (mainly ''BBC News at Six'' and ''BBC News at Ten''). ...
(2015; 1 episode) * Mary Beard (2015; 1 episode) *
Jeremy Paxman Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English broadcaster, journalist, author, and television presenter. Born in Leeds, Paxman was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate new ...
(2017; 1 episode) *
Gary Lineker Gary Winston Lineker (; born 30 November 1960) is an English former professional footballer and current sports broadcaster. He is regarded as having been one of the greatest English strikers. His media career began with the BBC, where he has ...
(2017; 1 episode) * Alan Shearer (2017; 1 episode) *
Lenny Henry Sir Lenworth George Henry (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and writer. Henry gained success as a stand-up comedian and impressionist in the late 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in '' The Le ...
(2017; 1 episode) *
Hugh Grant Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor. He established himself early in his career as both a charming, and vulnerable romantic lead and has since transitioned into a dramatic character actor. Among his numerous a ...
(2017; 1 episode) *
Rose Matafeo Rose Catherine Lettitia Matafeo (; born 25 February 1992) is a New Zealand comedian, actress, and TV presenter. She was a writer and performer on the New Zealand late-night comedy sketch show '' Funny Girls''. In 2018, she won the Edinburgh Come ...
(2017; 1 episode) *
Claudia Winkleman Claudia Anne Irena Winkleman (born 15 January 1972) is an English television presenter, radio personality, film critic and journalist. Between 2004 and 2010, she presented '' Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two'' on weeknights on BBC Two. Since ...
(2017; 1 episode) * Tony Hall (2017; 1 episode)


Production

''W1A'' was commissioned by
Janice Hadlow Janice Vivienne Hadlow (born November 1957) in Lewisham is a former BBC television executive. She was the controller of the BBC television channel BBC Two, taking over this position in November 2008 having previously been controller of BBC Four. A ...
, controller of BBC Two, and Shane Allen, controller of comedy commissioning. Filming began in January 2014. ''W1A'' was written and directed by John Morton, who previously worked on ''
Twenty Twelve ''Twenty Twelve'' is a BBC television comedy series written and directed by John Morton. Starring Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Hynes and Amelia Bullmore, the programme is a spoof on-location mockumentary following the organisation of the 2012 Summ ...
'' and '' People Like Us''. The producer is Paul Schlesinger and the executive producer is
Jon Plowman Phillip Jon Plowman (born 1953 in Welwyn Garden City, England) is a British television and film producer. He has been a producer at the BBC since 1980, when he produced Russell Harty's chat show ''Harty''. He moved on to executive producing ...
. A second series was commissioned in September 2014, with Bonneville's return also confirmed.


Episodes


Series overview


Series 1


Series 2

On 15 September 2014, it was announced that ''W1A'' would return for a second series in 2015. This began with a 60-minute special on 23 April, followed by three 30-minute episodes.


Series 3

In August 2016, the BBC announced that ''W1A'' would return for a third and final series, due to be produced and broadcast in 2017. Some filming with Jeremy Paxman took place in March. Series 3 began on 18 September 2017 on BBC Two. After the transmission of Episode 1 on BBC Two Episode 2 was made available on BBC iPlayer on 18 September 2017. Likewise after the transmission of Episode 3 on 2 October 2017 Episode 4 was made available online. This was repeated for episodes 5 and 6.


Webisodes

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, a number of specially created webisodes featuring the characters from W1A were produced. The first was released on 19 May, when Hugh Bonneville, in character as Ian Fletcher, introduced the
BBC Concert Orchestra The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British concert orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five BBC orchestras which is not a full-scale sym ...
performing a new arrangement of ''Las Vegas'', the series' theme tune. On 21 May, a second video was released, this time featuring Bonneville, Sarah Parrish, Jason Watkins, Monica Dolan and David Westhead at the first virtual meeting of the BBC's 'COVID-19 Bounce Back Group'.


Awards and nominations


References


External links

* * * * {{epguides, w1a, W1A 2014 British television series debuts 2017 British television series endings 2010s British comedy television series Television shows set in the United Kingdom British mockumentary television series BBC television comedy English-language television shows