Apple and BBC Co-Producing Comedy Series Starring Imelda Staunton From Harry Potter

Apple is teaming up with the BBC to co-produce an eight-part comedy-drama series with a working title of "Alabama," according to a report from British comedy website Chortle highlighted by Engadget.

imelda staunton

Imelda Staunton

Written by former stand-up Andy Wolton, the show will reportedly star Imelda Staunton, who is best known for her performance in the British comedy television series "Up the Garden Path" and for playing Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies "Order of the Phoenix" and part one of "Deathly Hallows."

The series is reportedly in production and is slated to air worldwide next year on Apple's upcoming streaming video service, Apple TV+. Apple and BBC declined to comment on the series, and plot details have yet to be revealed.


‌Apple TV+‌ will feature dozens of original TV shows and movies with stars such as Steve Carell, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Oprah Winfrey. The service is set to launch in over 100 countries in the fall within the Apple TV app on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, ‌Apple TV‌, and Mac.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Caution)

Top Rated Comments

HappyDude20 Avatar
63 months ago
She played Umbridge so well I hated that woman.

I wish her the best of luck!
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
owen.meredith Avatar
63 months ago
British TV isn't great.
Is that why major US networks have always tended to do copies of British shows, with HBO practically piggybacking off everything the BBC does now? Hm?
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
johnyslats Avatar
63 months ago
British TV isn't great.
"This is a lie" - Dolores Umbridge
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ar40 Avatar
63 months ago
British TV isn't great.
British TV isn't great. It's actually AMAZING.

I find myself routinely enjoying British whodunnits and dramas, and find them superior to most US TV (often on par with HBO).
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kaibelf Avatar
63 months ago
Welcome to the new Macrumors. A Blog about tv, film and the glamorous life of the stars.
No, it's about a huge recurring revenue service play by the company about which this blog is written.
[doublepost=1562950507][/doublepost]
No, it's not a binary choice for Apple, far from it. Services are an important part of their incredible ecosystem, but they are accelerating their hardware and software releases, which are the largest part of the over $1BILLION a month they are putting into Research and Development.
Would that somehow make you need to buy a laptop from them more frequently? Exactly what would be gained by accelerating their hardware and software releases" aside from diluting the offerings? People will not suddenly be excited if there are wild major changes to the platform coming out every 6 months, and it would be a nightmare for any enterprise.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
orbital~debris Avatar
63 months ago
Wonder how long until someone misconstrues this as a Harry Potter spinoff…
[doublepost=1562950655][/doublepost]
British TV isn't great.
What programmes (shows) are you basing that statement on? I'm interested, because this doesn't sound like an accurate assessment of British TV.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature 1

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...