How the other wedding of 2011 means a happy union for BBC and the North

Aside from the big day spawning hours of easy programming and enough material for a month's worth of radio phone-ins, the news also provided a handy marketing-line for one of the Beeb's biggest ever live events in the North.

Frankenstein's Wedding...Live in Leeds was quickly rebranded from a terrifying marriage of music and drama, to the BBC's own wedding of the year, one they said even the Royal Family couldn't match.

At the official launch this week, it was impossible to move for marital puns and people talking of fruitful partnerships, but the project could well be a shot in the arm for a city, which has seen its television industry hit by massive job losses and which has historically been wary of upsetting the status quo with anything too artistically ambitious.

In the same vein as the Manchester Passion and the Liverpool Nativity, which saw a huge community cast led by a few famous names, Frankenstein's Wedding will be a live one-off event staged and broadcast from Kirkstall Abbey just a few weeks after Kate and Wills say "I do".

As with both previous events in the North East, where the casting of Keith Allen as Pontius Pilate and Jennifer Ellison as an angel was greeted with a mixed response, the event in Leeds next March won't be without raised eyebrows.

However, for Peter Salmon, director of BBC North, who has long talked about how the Beeb's much publicised move to Salford next year will also benefit this side of the Pennines, it's an opportunity to show he's putting his money where his mouth is.

"We wanted to do something incredibly ambitious and this seemed like the right place to do it," he says. "It's about bringing together contemporary performance and cutting edge music and setting it against the gothic backdrop of Kirkstall Abbey, which aside from everything else is the kind of set that would cost thousands to build from scratch.

"I hope it will give people a feel for the other dramatic locations which are available up here. It's a big shop window for what's possible in Yorkshire."

Full details of the live broadcast – a logistical nightmare by anyone's standards – will be revealed over the coming months. What we do know is the retelling of Mary Shelley's novel will see Leeds company Phoenix Dance lead the choreography, an audience of thousands will be invited to play the role of real wedding guests and there will also be a programme of associated events.

It sounds impressive, but is it practical at a time when many organisations are cutting back?

"When times are tough you can't just wave the white flag and stop moving forward," says Burnley-born Salmon, who first joined the BBC in 1981 where he commissioned the likes of Clocking Off and Waking the Dead before becoming director of sport. "You have to find ways of being even more creative and making the money go that just bit further."

Issues of money, the licence fee and how it's spent are never far from the BBC's door and Salmon, who is married to actress Sarah Lancashire, is himself no stranger to criticism. In charge of convincing staff from BBC Sport, Children's and Radio 5 Live to move to Salford Quays' MediaCity, the knives were out this summer amid rumours his own family were to remain in the South.

Salmon insisted he was buying a family home in Manchester, accused some London-based media of throwing mud in the hope some of it would stick and claimed any implied reluctance was simply down to the fact his two youngest children were still at school.

In Leeds, surrounded by those who will make Frankenstein's Wedding a reality, he appears much more relaxed.

"Really, it's not so bad is it?" he says, when asked if he gets frustrated with constantly having to fend off criticism. "The truth is that there are a lot of people out there who appreciate and support what we do. I hate to use the word partnership, it's so overused it's meaningless, but the BBC does have the power to bring people together.

"Something like Frankenstein's Wedding is not just about BBC North, it will involve BBC Wales, BBC Learning and will see departments within the BBC, which don't often have much to do with each other, pool their skills.

"However, it also about bringing the spirit of Yorkshire to the small screen, which is why we've secured the talents of Phoenix Dance and why we are working with the likes of the West Yorkshire Playhouse and Welcome to Yorkshire to promote it.

"It's a celebration of Yorkshire and if we can find a way to squeeze in the services of Geoffrey Boycott, Corinne Bailey Rae, Michael Parkinson and the Kaiser Chiefs we will have just about ticked every box."

In recent years, the BBC has tried to spread its expertise to new areas in the hope of maintaining viewing figures affected by the proliferation of digital channels. It's not been easy and while BBC 6 Music has survived a recent cost-cutting review, the Asian Network will close and teen services Switch and Blast were described as unviable.

Frankenstein's Wedding will be broadcast live on BBC 3, a channel which has become a testing ground for new comedy shows and programmes targeted at the 16-34 age group. Along with its arts-led sister station BBC 4, some have also questioned its long-term future, but Salmon is more than willing to put the case for the defence.

"The audience for this and for other BBC 3 programmes tends to be more open-minded," he says. "They're willing to embrace new technology and they really want programmes they can interact with. Social media is going to play a big part in this project. The live spectacle will be the culmination of a lot of other projects which I hope will give people a sense of ownership over the final event."

The BBC's move from London to Manchester will begin in earnest next year and Salmon hopes Frankenstein's Wedding will not only show what's possible in the North, but prove shifting entire departments up the M6 is more than just a public relations exercise.

"It's the largest recruitment drive the BBC has ever undertaken and at its heart it's about bringing hundreds of champions of the north of England into one organisation," he says. "Inevitably there are challenges, but I feel incredibly lucky that I'm part of what I have no doubt will be a new era for the BBC.

"We want to shift the BBC's relationship with this side of the Pennines."

Creative endeavours aside, Salmon also has one eye on the bottom line.

"I was at Strictly Come Dancing last week when the show went to Blackpool," he says. "There were queues a mile round the building and the people there had bent over backwards to make it work. Obviously they see it as a chance to raise their own profile, but the attitude in the North is different to London.

"Down there, people are surrounded by media to such an extent they have become a little bit blas about it. I'd like to think that at some point in the future the people of Yorkshire will be sick and tired of us, but we've got a long way to go yet."

A monster of a production

Frankenstein's Wedding...Live in Leeds will bring the marriage of scientist Victor Frankenstein and his bride Elizabeth to Kirkstall Abbey. Inspired by Mary Shelley's gothic novel, first-published in 1818, the BBC production will include light projections, a soundtrack of contemporary music and audience participation throughout.

"Frankenstein has become a bit of B-movie cliche," says Jan Younghusband, BBC commissioning editor, music events. "This production will go back to the original love story and the tale of a man born beautiful, but who deteriorates as he is rejected by the world.

"It's dramatic, passionate and it will come back to life in Leeds."