Doctor Who's Matt Smith to make TV directing debut

The new run of one-off dramas will include Cargese, described by Sky Arts as a "unique piece of poetic realism which mines the tragic seam of adolescent love and loss".

Directed by Smith and written by award-winning playwright Simon Stephens, it stars Craig Roberts (Submarine), Joe Cole (Skins, The Hour) and Avigail Tlalim (The Town) as a group of disaffected teenagers in south London - Cargèse being a village on the west coast of Corsica which is wistfully mentioned by one of the drama's characters.

Cargese begins filming next week and is scheduled to air on Sky Arts 1 on 25 April 2013. Smith will not appear in the programme himself.

“Sky Arts offers creative opportunities that many other channels don’t," Smith said. "To collaborate with Simon Stephens in this capacity was a thrilling and rare opportunity and one we both were keen to embrace.”

Cargese is, presumably, the project Smith hinted at back in February 2012, when he said in an interview that he would like to direct movies one day and already had a collaboration with Stephens in the pipeline.

Idris Elba and Marc Warren are also making their directing debuts for the new series of Playhouse Presents, which starts in March and features Anna Friel, Vanessa Redgrave, Ricky Tomlinson, Suranne Jones, David Harewood, Ian Hart, Mathew Horne and Kylie Minogue.