‘Taking risks is our future’ says C4 boss over live drugs show

Drugs Live, a four-part science series, will look at the effect of illegal drugs and alcohol on the body.

Announcing a raft of new programmes yesterday, Jay Hunt, Channel 4’s chief creative officer, said the future for the broadcaster lay in taking “real risks”.

She said: “When you look across the broadcast landscape, when other broadcasters are more conservative, it’s never been more important for Channel 4 to stimulate debate, to challenge the status quo, and above all to be brave.”

She said: “The Government’s drugs tsar Professor (David) Nutt was sacked for claiming that LSD and Ecstasy were less harmful than alcohol.

“In an incredibly bold experiment we are going to be putting that to the test live, looking at the impact all of those substances have on the human body in a clinical environment.”

The experiments will take place in a supervised clinical environment.

Ms Hunt also announced the acquisition of the US version of Danish crime series The Killing, saying: “This intense, atmospheric crime thriller redefines the genre.”

And she said the broadcaster had commissioned its first original animation, Happy Families, made by Rough Draft, the team behind the Simpsons Movie.

Ms Hunt also announced Black Mirror, a darkly comic drama series written by Charlie Brooker, looking at “our unease about the way in which technology is changing our world”.

A new political thriller, Coup, by Robert Jones, will look at the relationship between global industry and government.

She described Fern Britton as a “fantastic daytime talent” but said her teatime show, Fern, would not be coming back. She said: “At the end of the day it didn’t really cut through with viewers and we have to learn from that.”