Portal:BBC

Horrible Histories is a multi-award-winning British children's live-action historical and musical sketch comedy television series, based on the bestselling book series of the same name by Terry Deary. The show, now in its 11th series, is produced for CBBC by Lion Television, and was produced in association with Citrus Television from series 3–5. The comedy series first hit screens in 2009 and is now in its 15th year, with more than 160 episodes over the 11 series.

Over the years, the show has featured a large talented cast. Original cast members include Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Jim Howick, Martha Howe-Douglas, Dominique Moore, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond. Current cast includes Tom Stourton, Jessica Ransom, Richard David-Caine, James McNicholas, Emily Lloyd-Saini, Timmika Ramsay, Harrie Hayes, Inel Tomlinson, Ethan Lawrence and Paul G Raymond, among many others. Horrible Histories has also attracted an impressive list of celebrity guest stars, including Rowan Atkinson, Gemma Whelan, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Rob Delaney, Meera Syal, Rose Ayling-Ellis, The League of Gentleman, Rosie Jones, David Baddiel, Rob Rinder and Fred Sirieix. (Full article...)

Protesters gathered outside BBC Television Centre in London during the Question Time British National Party controversy in October 2009. The first appearance of British National Party leader Nick Griffin on the BBC series Question Time sparked public and political debate in the United Kingdom.

Speight in 2007

Mark Warwick Fordham Speight (6 August 1965 – 7 April 2008) was an English television presenter and host of children's art programme SMart. Speight was born in Seisdon, Staffordshire, and left school at 16 to become a cartoonist. He took a degree in commercial and graphic art and, while working in television set construction, heard of auditions for a new children's art programme. Speight was successful in his audition and became one of the first presenters of SMart, working on it for 14 years.

Speight was also a presenter on See It Saw It, where he met his future fiancée, actress and model Natasha Collins. He took part in live events, such as Rolf on Art and his own Speight of the Art workshops for children. He was involved in charity work; he became the president of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign's Young Pavement Artists Competition, and was a spokesperson for ChildLine. (Full article...)

BBC Television Centre on Children in Need appeal night 2008. The annual telethon was formerly broadcast from Television Centre on BBC One until its closure in 2013.

Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know

• ... that the proposed BBC television special Planet Relief, created to raise awareness of climate change, was cancelled before it was made, for fear that it would be biased against climate sceptics?

• ... that Andrew Lloyd Webber was concerned about casting a dog in the BBC television series Over the Rainbow?

• ... that BBC traffic reporter Sally Traffic has also narrated poetry albums for the blind?

• ... that Adam and Joe on BBC 6 Music won the Broadcasting Press Guild award for Radio Programme of the Year in its first six months of broadcast?

• ... that the BBC Sound Archive was founded in 1936 by Marie Slocombe while she was working as a temporary secretary disposing of sound recordings?

• ... that in 2014, BBC Three cancelled a debate on being gay and Muslim featuring Asifa Lahore, a Muslim drag queen, citing security concerns at the mosque where it was filmed?
• ... that the BBC documentary India: The Modi Question, which examines the career of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, was banned in India?
• ... that working broadcast journalists were used as extras for the portions of the Doctor Who episode "73 Yards" that were filmed at the BBC Cymru Wales New Broadcasting House?
• ... that BBC radio broadcaster Venu Chitale taught listeners how to cook without meat when it was rationed during the Second World War?