VICTORIA COREN-MITCHELL returns to BBC Radio 4 this spring to present a brand new series of Heresy which sees popular prejudices overthrown and received opinions ruthlessly examined. The new six-part series will air from 16th May 2013.

Each week VICTORIA will be joined by a panel drawn from Britain’s wittiest and most outspoken broadcasters, comedians, writers and performers as they discuss everyday assumptions we all take for granted, mixing verbal dexterity with irreverent humour.

Topics from the worlds of news, sport, popular culture, politics and the arts are all potential targets for the full Heresy treatment. Episode one of the new series sees the panel of esteemed guests – LEE MACK, GERMAINE GREER and DAVID SCHNEIDER, discussing whether tennis ace Andy Murray is a lot more likable than he used to be, is maths a more worthwhile subject than media studies and are foxes a pest. Future episodes cover topics such as whether there should be horsemeat in a beef lasagne, whether video games should be an Olympic sport and are voyages to Mars a credit to human endeavour.

Show creator and former host, DAVID BADDIEL will be one of VICTORIA’s guests during the series, while other heretics lined up include: DAVID MITCHELL, SUE PERKINS, GILES COREN, ALEX HORNE, RICHARD OSMAN, MILES JUPP, BRIDGET CHRISTIE and MARK STEEL. Previous series’ have featured: DAVE GORMAN, MAUREEN LIPMAN, RUFUS HOUND, PHIL HAMMOND, DIANE ABBOTT, JONATHAN ROSS, ZOE WILLIAMS, FRANK SKINNER, RUSSELL BRAND, ARMANDO IANNUCCI, MATT LUCAS, ALAN DAVIES, DAVID AARONOVITCH, STEWART LEE, PETER BRADSHAW, JIMMY CARR and JOHN O’FARRELL.
ends
“Radio’s funniest discussion series.”
Jane Anderson, Radio Times

Heresy will transmit on BBC Radio 4 from 16th May 2013 at 6.30pm

For more information on the new series please contact: Lucy Plosker or Dan Lloyd at Avalon on 020 7598 7222 / lucyp@avalonuk.com or danl@avalonuk.com

VICTORIA COREN-MITCHELL

VICTORIA COREN-MITCHELL writes a weekly column for The Observer and a bi-monthly column for GQ, presents the BBC4 quiz show Only Connect and plays poker as a member of PokerStars Team Pro UK.
Aged 14, inspired by lonely Jo March from Little Women, VICTORIA submitted a short story to Just Seventeen magazine under an assumed name. The story was accepted and published, earning her the princely sum of £90. Hooked on trade immediately, VICTORIA answered a nationwide appeal from the Daily Telegraph for a teenage columnist (her ‘audition column’ was about the terrors of the countryside for an urban child), got the job and wrote for them weekly for four years.

A collection of VICTORIA’s teenage newspaper articles was published in 1990. After university, she became a freelance journalist and broadcaster. In 1999, VICTORIA adapted the newspaper columns of John Diamond into a play A Lump In My Throat, which was performed at The Grace Theatre and The New End Theatre in London and The Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, before VICTORIA re-adapted it into a TV play for BBC2 starring Neil Pearson.

VICTORIA is also a professional poker player, 2006 winner of the London EPT, sponsored to play tournaments by PokerStars.com, playing on the international poker circuit and regularly on Channel 4 and Sky Sports. More details and tournament results on the ‘poker’ page.
As a broadcaster, she has presented Fourth Column and Off The Page for Radio 4 and two series of Balderdash And Piffle (about the Oxford dictionary and the history of words) for BBC2, as well as documentaries on language and surrealist art for BBC4. As a poker and gambling specialist, she has presented Late Night Poker and The Poker Nations Cup for Channel 4, a series of World Poker Tour for ITV2 and the chat show Bar Beat for the Poker Channel, as well as providing commentary for The European Poker Tour and The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (Channel 4), Ultimate Poker Challenge (Channel 5), Celebrity Poker Challenge (ITV1), The William Hill Grand Prix (Sky Sports), Celebrity Poker Club and Casino Casino (Challenge TV).

She has also appeared as a guest on Question Time, Have I Got News For You, You Have Been Watching, The Bubble, Loose Ends, Midweek, Woman’s Hour and various other short-term experiments; that kind of thing comes up on the ‘news’ page of this site unless there is a good reason to hide it.

In 2002, VICTORIA disappeared into the X-rated film industry with her best friend Charlie Skelton and they wrote a book about it, Once More With Feeling.
In 2008, with her brother Giles, she co-edited an anthology of their father’s writing, Chocolate And Cuckoo Clocks.

In 2009, VICTORIA’s memoir of a life playing cards, For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker, was published by Canongate, then re-published in paperback in 2011 as For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions Of A Player.

AVALON TELEVISION

Currently Avalon Television have in production: the sixth series of the Royal Television Society and Rose D’Or award-winning sitcom Not Going Out (BBC ONE), series seven of Russell Howard’s Good News (BBC Three), brand new Saturday night comedy entertainment show I Love My Country (BBC ONE), brand new character comedy Lee Nelson’s Well Funny People and late night comedy show Live At The Electric (BBC THREE) hosted by RUSSELL KANE. Avalon Television also produces: critically-acclaimed topical comedy show Frank Skinner’s Opinionated (BBC TWO); That Sunday Night Show (ITV1), hosted by ADRIAN CHILES; You Cannot Be Serious! (ITV1) a topical sports entertainment series, hosted by ALISTAIR MCGOWAN

This year in the US, Avalon Television is producing season three of Workaholics, the most successful non-animated scripted comedy series in Comedy Central history, and John Oliver’s New York Stand-up Show (Comedy Central). As well as the second season of Rove: LA, with host ROVE MCMANUS for FOX8 and the first season of Bunk (IFC), a game show parody hosted by KURT BRAUNOHLER. Also an established provider of digital content, The Handlers, starring BRYAN CRANSTON, is currently represented on Atom.com.

Avalon Television also produces successful radio shows: BBC Radio 5 Live’s 7 Day Sunday hosted by AL MURRAY with regular contributors including ANDY ZALTZMAN and REBECCA FRONT; Russell Kane’s Whistle Stop Tour (BBC Radio 2); Dave Gorman’s Sunday Morning Show for Absolute Radio, the first commercial radio podcast to rise as high as number 1 in the iTunes Podcast chart; The Frank Skinner Show, Absolute Radio’s Saturday morning’s flagship show, whose spin-off podcasts received 10.1 million downloads in 2011 alone; and critically acclaimed comedy dramas, Living with Mother (BBC Radio 4) featuring ALISON STEADMAN, TIMOTHY SPALL, PENELOPE KEITH, Mr Blue Sky (BBC Radio 4) starring MARK BENTON and two series of Don’t Start (BBC Radio 4), written and starring FRANK SKINNER.

Avalon Television, founded in 1993, have supplied to all major UK channels and leading cable and satellite stations, in addition to content for radio broadcasters. Avalon Television has produced Fantasy Football League (BBC TWO, ITV1) with DAVID BADDIEL and FRANK SKINNER; three series of BAFTA award-winning The Harry Hill Show (Channel 4); the quadruple-BAFTA and triple British Comedy award-winning Harry Hill’s TV Burp (ITV1); the first ever UK arena comedy show Baddiel and Newman in Pieces at Wembley and Royal Television Society Award nominated The Frank Skinner Show (BBC ONE, ITV1), which is widely credited as setting the tone for the modern comedic chat show and ran for nine years, attracting 11 million viewers at its peak.

OTHER SHOW CREDITS
The series producer is BRIAN KING. The executive producer is JON THODAY.