Marsha Thomason Joins ‘The Bay’ For Season 3; Argonon Launches Studio Leo; BBC Studios Licenses ‘The 1% Club’ To France — Global Briefs

Jon Burlingame When Lolita Ritmanis was growing up in Portland, Oregon, she didn’t even speak English.

BBC Casts ‘My Name Is Leon’ BBC One has announced the cast for its adaptation of Kit de Waal’s debut novel My Name is Leon. Malachi Kirby (Small Axe), Monica Dolan (A Very English Scandal), Olivia Williams (Counterpart), Christopher Eccleston (The A Word), Poppy Lee Friar (In My Skin), and Sir Lenny Henry CBE (The Lord of the Rings) headline the drama special.

Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs have been returned to her safe and unharmed after they were stolen by an armed robber.The 34 year old singer’s dogs, Koji and Gustavo, were taken after her dog walker, Ryan Fischer, was shot in Hollywood, California on Wednesday 24 February. After offering $500,000 reward for the pups’ safe return an unnamed woman, said to be “uninvolved and unassociated” with the shooting, handed the dogs in at LAPD’s Olympic Community Police Station on Friday 26 February.

EXCLUSIVE: Mark Ivanir, the Ukrainian-Israeli actor who has starred in The Good Shepherd and Netflix series Away, has joined the cast of Season 4 of German crime drama Babylon Berlin.

EntertainmentOne, the Hasbro-owned studio behind Peppa Pig, has greenlit a new pre-school series superhero series. Kiya will launch in 2023 across linear and streaming platforms including Disney Jr., Disney + globally, and France Télévisions.

EXCLUSIVE: Hannah Montana co-creator Michael Poryes has partnered with French kids producer Superprod Group to create an Italy-set tween comedy series, titled Home Sweet Rome.

BBC Studios Inks First-Look Deal With Gobstopper Group BBC Studios has signed a first-look deal with Gobstopper Group, the company behind MTV’s Just Tattoo of Us and Revenge Prank With DJ Pauly D & Vinny. As part of its expansion plans, Gobstopper Group has launched Mermaid Studios in Belfast, helmed by Paddy Mckenna, the former head of development at Sony-owned Stellify, and Neil Dimmock, who joins from BBC One’s Sunday Morning Live.

BBC Studios and ITV said on Tuesday that their joint streaming venture BritBox will launch in South Africa in the second half of 2021. With the introduction in the country, the advertising-free subscription VOD service will expand into its fifth territory following successful launches in the U.S., Canada,the United Kingdom, and, most recently, Australia.

BritBox To Launch In South Africa BritBox, ITV and BBC Studios’ joint-venture UK streamer, is to expand into South Africa in the second half of 2021. It follows previous launches in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, as the Spitting Image streamer targets a presence in 25 territories.

Naman Ramachandran U.K. and U.S.

BBC Studios Inks First-Look Deal With Youngest Media BBC Studios has signed a first-look distribution deal with entertainment producer Youngest Media, run by former Endemol UK executives David Flynn and Lucas Church. Youngest created ITV game show Small Fortune, which is being adapted by NBC in the U.S.

coronavirus will become dominant in the UK.

space launch is one small step closer after American giant Lockheed Martin chose where they want their rocket to blast off from.The multi-billion dollar firm plans to send a craft into orbit from a launch pad at the isle of Unst in Shetland by next year.And now they have selected a rocket called the RS1, will be provided by ABL Space Systems of El Segundo, California.If successful next year's launch would be the UK’s first ever vertical satellite launch.The project is called UK Pathfinder Launch

direct to your inboxThere is 'no reason to think' the South African variant will become the dominant coronavirus strain in the UK, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam has said. Speaking at today's Downing Street press conference, England's deputy chief medical officer said the South African variant had been detected in small numbers here but the Kent variant was currently dominant in UK.