The Wire to be shown on BBC2

For those of you that have not yet managed to see that excellent programme The Wire now is your chance to do so. From Monday 30 March 2009, Season One of the Wire will be broadcast on terrestrial television. It is being shown on BBC 2 at 23:30. See here to listen to Dominic West who plays the part of rebel police officer Jimmy McNulty being interviewed on the today programme by Andrew Billen. The Wire has previously been shown in the UK on the UK paid TV channel FX. The critically and highly praised programme has won a number of awards in the US and is going to be shown in its entirety. The wire was created by writer and producer David Simon.

David Simon is also the author of the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets which was based on a year that he spent shadowing the Baltimore Police Department homicide unit during 1988. Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets won an Edgar Award in 1992 for best factual crime book. The book became the basis for the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Streets on which Simon served as a writer and producer.

He also co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood with Ed Burns Simon adapted the latter into the Emmy Award winning HBO mini-series The Corner.

The first season of The Wire focuses on the drug trade, whilst the second, third, and fourth seasons focus on the port, the city government & bureaucracy, the school system respectively whilst the fifth and final season takes a look at the print news media as well as politics which is a recurring theme throughout the whole series.

So for those of you that have not already run out to buy the series on DVD here is your chance to watch one a brilliantly written, directed and acted television show from the comfort of your living room.