BBC hopes to rival Game of Thrones with £2m an episode drama about Troy

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BBC to launch a new epic drama series it hopes will rival Game of Thrones
The programme, Troy - Fall of a City, will retell the 10-year siege of Troy
Its makers are reported to have been given budget of £2million an episode
Announced as part of new season of BBC1 programmes for autumn/winter

Published: 23:47 EST, 22 September 2015 | Updated: 04:32 EST, 23 September 2015

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It conquered the competition at Sunday's Emmy awards but Game of Thrones could soon face a new battle when the BBC launches its own epic drama retelling the 10-year siege of Troy.

Bosses at the corporation are hoping their upcoming series can rival HBO's hit fantasy show - and have handed programme-makers a reported £2million an episode to realise the ambition.

Such a budget would place it among the BBC's most expensive shows.

Announced as part of the new season of BBC One programmes, the corporation is keen to continue the success enjoyed by this year's acclaimed dramas Poldark and Wolf Hall.

Ambitious: The BBC is to launch a new epic drama retelling the 10-year siege of Troy which it hopes will rival the Emmy award-winning fantasy show Game of Thrones (pictured)

Excited: BBC One's controller, Charlotte Moore (pictured left), said the Troy adaptation, to air this winter, was a 'bold and visceral rendition of the 3,000-year-old classic'. It will be written by David Farr (right)

BBC One's controller, Charlotte Moore, said the Troy adaptation, to air this winter, was a 'bold and visceral rendition of the 3,000-year-old classic'.

She added: 'Told across multiple parts, [it] will be unlike anything we've ever seen on BBC One before.

'Intimate and epic, gripping and exhilarating, rich with psychological intrigue and human drama, we will feel the characters' passions, pain and loss.'

Critics, including chancellor George Osborne, have previously urged the BBC to make longer series in an attempt to cater for the so-called 'box-set' generation and rival shows like Game of Thrones.

Troy - Fall of a City, which could run across eight or more parts, will retell the fall of Troy from the perspective of a Trojan family at the heart of the Greek siege.

It will be written by David Farr, an associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company who also adapted John le Carré’s novel The Night Manager for the BBC.

Special: Mrs Brown's Boys is to air a live show next year, harking back to its theatrical routes

Stars: Peter Kay and Paul O'Grady will be appearing in new documentaries on BBC One

Discussing the new project, he said: 'The story of Ilium, the ancient city of Troy, has always gripped me.

'Fall of a City aims to convey in all its emotional richness, the effects of war and the toll taken on city and family by the horrors of siege.'

David Farr's bold and visceral rendition of the 3,000-year-old classic will be unlike anything we've ever seen on BBC One before

BBC1 controller Charlotte Moore

The new programming schedule was announced yesterday by Ms Moore on the west London set of new show Dickensian, a 20-part period drama based on the novels of Charles Dickens.

The BBC One controller said the channel would be defined in the coming years by its commitment to risk-taking.

She said: 'We all know BBC One's remit is to entertain, educate and inform for a mainstream audience.

'But I want to make three promises: BBC One will be defined in the coming years by its commitment to risk-taking. I will guarantee investment in innovation. And I will challenge every new commission to break the mould.'

Other upcoming shows include remakes of classic sitcoms, a live episode of hit show Mrs Brown's Boys and a documentary about comedy star Peter Kay.

Drama: Caroline Quentin and Pauline Collins in Dickensian, a 20-part series based on Dickens' novels

The programme about Kay, Twenty Years of Funny, will celebrate his career spanning two decades as one of Britain's best-loved comedians.

From his childhood growing up in Bolton, to the places and people who have influenced him, it will show how he began his journey into the world of comedy and his eventual rise to become a household name.

Kay said: 'What a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the last 20 years and highlight some of the work it's been my honour to create.'

Troy - Fall of a City will retell the fall of Troy from the perspective of a Trojan family at the heart of the Greek siege. Brad Pitt is pictured in 2004 film Troy

Next year marks 60 years since Hancock's Half Hour launched the sitcom on BBC television, so BBC One will enlist the biggest names in British writing and performing to revisit loved classics.

It will be launched by a one-off live episode of Mrs Brown's Boys.

Star Brendan O'Carroll said: 'This is very exciting. When I heard the BBC were letting us go fully live I thought: "They've lost their minds!"

'I'm seriously delighted about this. As Mrs Brown's Boys started in the theatre, it gives us a chance to show the TV audience live what we really do.'

There will also be an adaptation of To Sir With Love, by Hanif Kureishi, from the autobiographical novel by ER Braithwaite.

Set in the bomb-damaged East End of London in the aftermath of the Second World War, Guyanese engineer Ricky Braithwaite is de-mobbed from the RAF to find a cold welcome in a Britain which has turned its back on the black men and women who had fought alongside them in the war.

Taking a job as a teacher at an unconventional 'free''school in the East End, he faces a class of unruly white working-class kids who test him to his limits.

Kureishi said: 'ER Braithwaite's To Sir With Love, written and set in London's East End at the end of the 1950s, is a moving, tough and informative story about an intelligent man whose only hope of work - since he is black - is to become a teacher.

'As a young man in the 1960s, TSWL was the only novel I was aware of which dealt with the subject of race in Britain and I hope this dramatisation provides a vivid portrayal, particularly for the young, of how Britain has changed since then, and how it has remained the same.'