MUMBAI: CBBC has ordered a raft of diverse new programmes across its drama, documentary, comedy, and natural history genre.

Announced by CBBC controller Anne Gilchrist, the new commissions include a Simon Nye adaptation of children‘s classic Just William, a new wildlife series which sees children explore behind-the-scenes of the BBC‘s new natural history blockbuster Life in Inside Life, an innovative new comedy which stars a pair of 10-month-old babies with the heads of two men in their mid-twenties in Big Babies, and a hard-hitting new single documentary strand series.

Gilchrist says, "These new commissions reflect the originality and diversity of the CBBC schedule and reinforce our commitment to working with the most innovative new and established creative British talent around."

Simon Nye waves his comedy wand over Richmal Crompton‘s classic about an irrepressibly mischievous 11-year-old in Just William. Set in England in 1952, this adaptation for Sunday afternoons sees the world‘s most-famous scruffy schoolboy in a new series of appalling scrapes. The series airs next year.

Combining live action, puppetry and CGI, Big Babies is a new 26 x 15-minutes comedy series about two babies with the heads of grown men which will air next year.

Rocco and Brooks are two babies who would happily sit and watch television all day if Brooks‘ mum didn‘t take them out for excursions in their double buggy. But when the kids are away, the toys in their nursery come out to play and that‘s when the trouble really starts.

Big Babies is the creation of comedy collective Broken Biscuits led by John Riche and Spencer Jones, with Sharon Horgan (Pulling, Free Agents) acting as programme consultant. The executive producers are Jack Cheshire for BBC Comedy and Japhet Asher for CBBC.

In Inside Life, CBBC goes behind the scenes of the BBC Natural History Unit‘s landmark new series, Life, to find out just what it takes to get footage of the world‘s most extraordinary wildlife. From Madagascar to Patagonia, this series for this autumn sees 10 CBBC agents go on a global adventure to get the inside track on the BBC‘s new natural history blockbuster.

Following the success of its homelessness documentary series, Sofa Surfers, which aired earlier this year, CBBC has commissioned an issue-led single documentary series, with each programme reflecting a different aspect of children‘s disparate lives in the UK today. The strand will feature programmes from independent and in-house documentary makers.

The team behind Amazon with Bruce Parry from independent production company Indus Films will make two films – one about a rite of passage for boys in a Coventry school and another one about a group of traveller children in Essex.

Children‘s indie, The Foundation, have teamed up with documentary maker Mick Robertson to produce one about Young Mayors; and Welsh indie Boomerang will be following three children whose parents are in prison. Alison Gregory will executive produce the strand which will air next year.