: CBBC has announced two new shows to be made in Manchester.
The Manchester-produced commissions include a brand new magical sitcom, Jinx, about a modern-day Cinderella and her magic cookbook, based on the Lulu Baker series of books by Fiona Dunbar.In addition Shine North will produce This Kid Could Change The World, a factual series.
Two of CBBC‘s shows – Prank Patrol hosted by Barney Heywood and Beat The Boss with Saira Khan – will also be produced in the city.
Commissioned by CBBC controller Anne Gilchrist, the raft of new drama
, factual and entertainment series from the regions will help boost the BBC‘s commitment to out of London Network programme spend by 50 per cent by 2016.
Gilchrist says, "These new commissions underline CBBC‘s continuing commitment to original British content. Both shows have children at their heart and are guaranteed to be hugely entertaining."
The new commissions come on the heels of the announcements of Tracy Beaker, written by children‘s author Jacqueline Wilson and produced by the CBBC drama team in Newcastle, and Ingenious, a one-off drama written for CBBC by Jeanette Winterson and produced in Liverpool.
Jinx is based on the Lulu Baker trilogy by Fiona Dunbar. The comedy-drama series charts the adventures of a truly modern-day Cinderella.
Lulu may be a typical teen but she has a very cool secret – she‘s the proud owner of a magic cookbook. She can bake her own gingerbread boyfriend for the school dance, rustle up an extra-terrestrial to win a class debate on the existence of aliens and give her annoying stepbrother donkey ears by feeding him a magic cookie.
The possibilities are endless and life would be perfect except that the guardian of the book, Cookie, is a mischievous imp and her recipes never quite turn out as Lulu planned. But, with big power comes big responsibility and Lulu always tries really hard to fix the unforeseen side-effects. Jinx is currently in pre-production and begins shooting this month. This Kid Could Change The World is a nine half-hour episode factual series where children from across the UK will have their passionate and innovative world-changing ideas put to the test.
A series of heats will gather the best ideas from across the country and the hopefuls will arrive at the HQ to put their ideas into action. Through a series of set tasks two expert innovators and a mysterious benefactor, The Big Cheese, will determine which ideas have the potential to succeed and which will fail out in the real world.
For the series finale, an invited studio audience of kids will get to decide which idea gets set in motion by The Big Cheese. The series is due to air next year.
