Not taking any flak yet

The BBC TV war reporter comedy series Taking the flak was supposed to start filming in Kenya this month. Due to the unrest there, the project has been shelved for now. Richard Kay in The Daily Mail has more,

Alas the £1million series – called Taking The Flak and starring veteran actor Martin Jarvis as a globetrotting reporter working in an African war zone – has fallen victim to circumstances that the stalwart [John] Simpson would see as his natural territory. For after making a pilot episode in Kenya’s Rift Valley, the tribal violence unleashed by last month’s disputed elections has led to BBC chiefs ruling that it is too dangerous for filming to start in earnest, delaying the project by at least six months.
“We filmed an hour-long pilot in Nakuru last year,” says Jarvis, 66, who met Simpson to perfect his part ahead of the planned two-and-a-half-month shoot. “We got to know the locals, but now the town is full of refugees fleeing the ethnic violence. I can’t say if our friends are safe due to the volatile nature of this flare-up. You could be safe on Tuesday and murdered on Wednesday. They are all caught up in it. Even if we were allowed to go there, I don’t think myself and the other cast members would. I would feel deeply embarrassed going to film in a town where so many people face distress and death.”

This is a double shame as Frontline Club member and co-writer of the series, Tira Shubart, was slated to start blogging the behind the scenes events of filming in Kenya here at From the Frontline.