Broadcaster hoping to follow Merlin's success with 13-part teatime drama drawing on Greek myths and legends about the island
Juliet Stevenson, the star of Truly Madly Deeply and The Politician's Wife, is taking her first major role in a Saturday teatime family drama, the BBC fantasy series Atlantis.
The broadcaster will be hoping to repeat the success of Doctor Who and Merlin in luring children and their parents to BBC1 as the nights draw in on Saturday evenings this autumn with the 13-part drama, which draws on Greek myths and legends about the island which, according to legend sank into the Atlantic.
Stevenson has been cast in a line-up that also includes Mark Addy, recently seen in very different roles in the supermarket comedy Trollied and the dark and visceral TV adaption of George RR Martin's Game of Thrones fantasy novels, and Sarah Parish, whose credits include Cutting It, Mistresses, and Monroe.
Stevenson will also be seen on BBC1 this year in Peter Moffat's ambitious drama The Village, which aims to portray the fictional lives of the residents of a small Peak District settlement over several decades from 1911.
Stevenson rose to prominence in the early 1990s in the late Anthony Minghella's bittersweet romantic comedy Truly Madly Deeply and as the wronged woman who turns the tables on Trevor Eve's philandering husband in Paula Milne's Channel 4 drama The Politician's Wife.
Stevenson admitted this was her first experience of fantasy drama. "This genre is new to me, so I am looking forward to a great adventure."
The BBC's take on Atlantis is of a mysterious, ancient place with vast palaces said to be built by giants, snake-haired goddesses and other mythical creatures. The drama's main protagonist, Jason, is a young man who arrives on Atlantis and begins a series of adventures.
Sets depicting the mythical city and island are under construction in Wales and Morroco, with filming due to begin next month.
Atlantis has been written by Howard Overman, creator of E4's Asbo teens with super powers drama Misfits. His other writing credits include Merlin and the BBC4 adaptation of Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently.
Producers will hope they can tap into the current taste for fantasy, sci-fi and horror, with Atlantis following the BBC's successful reinvention of Doctor Who; Merlin, the reworking of the Arthurian legends that ran for five series until last autumn; and time travel meets dinosaurs drama Primeval.
Darker and more adult US excursions into the fantasy genre include Game of Thrones, with its graphic sex and nudity combined with complex storylines of honour and betrayal in a fictional medieval world, while The Hobbit has returned Tolkien's Middle Earth to cinemas.
There are also many new examples of the horror genre, including vampire series True Blood and zombie series The Walking Dead, starring British actor Andrew Lincoln.
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