Dundee has been selected as the location for a soap opera for Pakistan Television. Scotland’s city of jam, jute and of journalism, until now labelled "The City of Discovery" after Captain Scott’s polar expedition vessel, will become the new home of an immigrant family drama, followed on TV screens back home. PTV producer Mansoor Siddiqu believes Dundee is a wonderful location for the new soap.

Entitled Wahada - or Promise, in English - the series, which begins shooting in a few weeks’ time, will chronicle the adventures of a group of people from Pakistan as they attempt to hew a new life within the city. The cultural clash will be played out with 25 actors and actresses in a series of locations ranging from Dundee airport to the banks of the Tay.

"Many Pakistani people paid large sums of money to get to Scotland but when they arrived found that they had nothing and were reduced to begging. I would like to show how families began to work, start their own businesses and become part of the community and of the city," explains Siddiqu, who also directs the series.

A week’s touring of the city has convinced him of the top locations: Claypott’s Castle, the former whaling ship Discovery and the Tay railway bridge among them. Why these have been absent from our screens is a bit of a mystery. Are Scottish production companies blinkered to the possibilities of Dundee as a backdrop to contemporary TV drama? Glasgow has clunked under the weight of Glasgow Kiss, City Lights, Rab C Nesbit, The Fabulous Bagel Boys and Taggart; Edinburgh lifts her skirt for Rebus, and even Aberdeen has a few scripts swirling round her fishing port, but Dundee has not yet made it to the casting couch.

On paper it’s almost perfect. Officially the sunniest city in Scotland, Dundee also enjoys one of the brightest futures. The boom in medical research at both Dundee and Abertay universities has led to an explosion in the numbers of scientists, doctors and lecturers based in the city. This is the city that discovered the cancer-specific P53 gene - now the most researched gene on the planet and the city is home to a £3 million centre dedicated to cancer research under construction right now. A fertile setting, surely, for egos, affairs and life-and-death drama for those bored with Casualty and cop shows?

No? Then what about the computer whizz kids who, scattered in buildings around the city and its surrounding areas, are producing ten per cent of Britain’s computer games? If Kris Van Der Kuyl, the six-foot plus games guru behind Vis Interactive, isn’t the perfect model for a character in the high-pressure, cut-throat games world then who is?

The city also does grim and the gloomy. Dundee has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the country and has its fair share of dank estates and troubled underclasses for those who need to be able to look down on their TV favourites. Dundee even boasts its very own Albert Square with a cast of characters with far more potential than the rogues and renegades of London’s East End. On the western side of Albert Square is the Courier building, owned by DC Thomson, where cow pie sits on the menu for Desperate Dan and the other denizens of the Beano and Dandy such as Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids.

Although Dennis the Menace enjoys his own cartoon series, a soap set among the cobweb-strewn offices of the Beano would surely put Dundee firmly on the drama map.

Until then, you’ll have to wait for Wahada appearing on a digital channel near you.

"It also enables us to work with the people we want to work with both behind and in front of camera. Graham is creatively involved in the company.

Developing Independence

"We want to develop So Television as an independent company doing factual programmes as well as entertainment, and we are serious about building the company as a proper independent production company."

The firm’s ownership of the Graham Norton name is plainly a huge fillip and the irresistible rise of Norton has been a dream come true for both men.

Five years ago it was Stuart, at that time controller of entertainment at United Productions, who gave Norton his first big television break.

Star Spotter

Stuart was leading the hunt for new talent for the fledgling Channel Five, producing The Jack Docherty Show and Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment. He knew of Norton through radio.

Stuart took a gamble and asked Norton to stand in for Jack Docherty. The rest is now history. Norton won the Best Newcomer award for his performance and his subsequent Channel 4 series went on to become a huge success - attracting audiences of four million for its late Friday night slot.

In the Covent Garden offices of So Television, Stuart continues to apply his talent-spotting abilities to locate stars of the future.

New Arenas

Both men want also to take So Television into new arenas. "That is why the BBC commission we are currently working on is so important to us," explained Stuart. "Firstly it is with the BBC rather than with Channel 4, with whom we are so closely identified. Secondly, it involves another UK celebrity rather than Graham, and finally it is a factual show - a different type of programme."

Stuart steps clear from putting a value on the company and is unimpressed by some of the hype associated with values in the sector, but he concedes their company is worth "quite a few millions". It has, as he puts it, "the long running series commitments and celebrity value that give an independent production value and stability".