BBC2 season to examine white working class

BBC2 has commissioned a season of documentary and drama focusing on the white working class in modern Britain.

Highlights of the channel's winter and spring schedule also include the return of cookery queen Delia Smith to UK television after an absence of six years, and a drama series, House of Saddam, set in Iraq during the Hussein regime.

Meanwhile, popular Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood will transfer to BBC2 from digital channel BBC3.

The "White" season, coming at a time of intense political and media debate on immigration, intends to explore the complex mix of feelings that has led many white working class people to feel marginalised.

Roly Keating, the BBC2 controller, said the role of the channel was to reflect contemporary society and it was a timely moment to examine the roots of this debate.

"The White season is a complex look at how life has changed for the white working class in Britain," Keating said."It will enable the audience to consider the views and circumstances of people who have a strong point of view and join in the debate, both online with the BBC and in their own homes and communities."The dramatic centrepiece is White Girl, written by Abi Morgan and starring Bleak House star Anna Maxwell Martin.The story focuses on an 11-year-old girl, Leah, her family's relocation to an entirely Muslim community in Bradford and her feelings of isolation, which are heightened when she discovers that she and her siblings are the only white children at school.Documentaries are to include Last Orders, telling the story of the embattled Wibsey working men's club in Bradford, while All White In Barking observes relationships and questions prejudices in a multicultural east London community.

Tim Samuels, the documentary-maker behind pensioners' band the Zimmers, will take a subversive look at the reality of immigration in middle England and whether the economy would cope if recent Polish immigrants were to return home.Finally, Rivers Of Blood assesses the impact of Enoch Powell's infamous "rivers of blood" speech, 40 years on.

BBC2 has commissioned several new comedy shows, including Taking the Flak, about a small African war seen through the eyes of a team of journalists reporting on the story, and Lab Rats, set in a university laboratory starring The Thick of It's Chris Addison.

A documentary series, Wonderland, is to tell an eclectic mix of real-life stories, including that of a couple meeting for the first time after falling in love in the online world of Second Life.
In Alternative Therapies, Professor Kathy Sykes will explore three popular and fast-growing alternative therapies: meditation, hypnotherapy and reflexology.

Monty Don dusts off his passport for Around The World In 80 Gardens, exploring 80 of the world's most celebrated gardens.

The new Delia Smith series will reveal the shortcuts that can cut effort but not quality when cooking, and the series also promises a glimpse into the veteran TV cook's own life.
Smith is one of Britain's most enduringly popular TV cooks but, aside from repeats, she has not been on UK television since the third series of How to Cook on BBC2 in early 2002.