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BBC Set to Produce Grand Theft Auto-based Drama Show

The BBC has today announced that it is to produce a new docudrama show based on Rockstar’s critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto franchise.

The news comes by way of a press release, sent out this morning to mark the launch of the company’s wider Make It Digital initiative, which will give a coding device to every child in year 7 across the UK and and launch a season of dedicated BBC programmes and online activity.

Buried rather far down in the release, amongst other planned TV shows, is a reference to “a new BBC Two drama based on Grand Theft Auto”.

In an update posted soon after the original presser, the corporation provided further details on the nature of the programme:

This special 90-minute drama will tell the story of arguably the greatest British coding success story since Bletchley Park – the triumph of the computer game Grand Theft Auto.

Unlike many coding success stories, Grand Theft Auto was not created in Silicon Valley – it was the brainchild of a bunch of British gaming geniuses who had known each other since their school days. In autumn 2013 its latest iteration – GTA:V – earned $1bn in its first three days, becoming the fastest selling entertainment product in history.

GTA offered gamers the chance to step into a fantasy world where they could behave like criminals, gun down rival gangsters and cops, hijack cars and venture deeper into an imaginary American gangland underworld.

But the violent gameplay coupled with its outstanding success led to fierce opposition: from parents worried about children immersing themselves in such a violent world; from politicians, alarmed at the values it encourages; and above all from moral-campaigners, who have fought passionately to stop it. Grand Theft Auto tells the story of how the game was conceived and created and the subsequent fallout as various groups objected to its violent gameplay.

Are you looking forward to the programme? Let us know in the comments.

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