‘The Hour’ could return for a third season set in the 1960s

The writer of The Hour has good news for fans who are still upset about the surprise cancellation of the show five years ago.

Starring Ben Whishaw, Romola Garai and Dominic West, the BBC period drama series premiered in 2011 and ran for 12 episodes.

The Hour was based around a fictional new current-affairs show being launched by the BBC in June 1956, at the time of the Hungarian Revolution and Suez Crisis.

It was axed in 2013, to a heavy outcry from fans. It still wasn’t recommissioned even when, following its cancellation, it won an Emmy for writing in a mini-series.

However, creator Abi Morgan – who wrote every episode – revealed at a recent Broadcasting Press Guild Lunch that she’d love for Netflix or Amazon to produce a third season: “I really like that idea.”

Discussing the show’s sudden end, she said: “When The Hour got cancelled on second series I was like ‘OK, yeah I take it I get it I understand.’ But actually the energy it takes to build a show and more than that the responsibility and the relationships you form with those actors. And what was heart-breaking in particular with that show specifically was we had Ben Whishaw and Dominic West all wanting to come back. And they were willing to stay beyond a third series. A good show can really hold and build talent.”

She added: “It branded the BBC and in America we got Golden Globe nominations and won an Emmy and it was the one show when I go the States people say ‘I watched The Hour’.”

The Hour executive producer Jane Featherstone is also up for a revival: “We could find them in 60s London.”

Ben Whishaw recently returned to TV alongside Hugh Grant in the BBC’s acclaimed new period drama mini-series A Very English Scandal.

The Hour is available on DVD on Amazon.