BBC to launch controversial bomb disposal unit comedy

BBC will risk controversy with the release of a new comedy about bomb-disposal units based in Afghanistan and Iraq where hundreds of lives have been lost tackling explosives.
The contentious series will be screened on BB3, which is directed to a younger audience.
The announcement of the pilot for the show comes as the body of the latest death from an improvised explosive device (IED), Colour Serjeant Kevin Fortuna, from 1st Battalion The Rifles, is repatriated today.
He died on Monday on patrol in Helmand.
The BBC said: "It's a show about something the public easily forget: soldiers really enjoy being soldiers.
"This sitcom shows us why, as it takes the audience from moments of intense action to the fractious camaraderie as the unit waits around for their next tasking."
The dangers faced by bomb disposal units in the middle east was tackled in the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker in 2009.
Comedy has been used in the past to document warfare including the TV series M*A*S*H, which was based on the Korean War.
But the series may come under fire from critics as more than two-thirds of the deaths of coalition troops in Afghanistan since the conflict began in 2001 have been due to IEDs.
BBC3's show is part of a new season of shows on the channel which was announced today.
They include Britain You're Welcome to It, which will look at the country through the eyes of east European immigrants to examine their perceptions.
And in Up For Hire Live, BBC3 will look at youth unemployment with a week-long live series of shows in which talented jobless young people are put in the position of making executive decisions.
Another comedy pilot is Eggbox, about life on a teenage cancer ward. It has been co-written by Tom Bidwell, who was behind the Oscar-nominated short film Wish 143, about a teenager with cancer who wants to lose his virginity before he dies.
Sharon Horgan, best known for her near-the-knuckle comedy Pulling, will return with her new comedy Life Story about a woman who is wrongly imprisoned for murder.

 

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