Shine exhumes corpses for BBC2

BBC2 has ordered a history series from Shine Television, billed as ?Time Team for dead bodies?. Each hour-long episode of History Cold Case will focus on an exhumed corpse from a different era of British history and show what they would have looked like and the sort of life they led. It will initially launch as a 4 x 60-minute series in May 2010 but is seen as a potential returning format. All the bodies will come from Britain and will be ?ordinary people? - although the BBC is also eyeing a celebrity spin off, which would feature the corpses of major historical figures such as Oliver Cromwell. It is understood that Shine beat the BBC?s in-house production team and Lion Television for access to the forensic team at the heart of the series. Shine head of specialist factual Natalie Humphreys co-created History Cold Case with producer Tania Lindon, series producer Mary Downes and Tony Jordan?s Red Planet Pictures. Humphreys said: ?The stories include a bizarre mummy, found in someone?s cellar. The trail will take us all over the UK, unravelling some personal stories of our forebears from Roman times through to the early 1900s.? Cassian Harrison, executive producer for the BBC, added: ?History Cold Case will offer quite literally a new window on history.? BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow ordered the series with arts commissioner Mark Bell, who has since handed responsibility to specialist factual commissioner Martin Davidson. Added On Friday, September 25, 2009