Spring date for last Potter plays

Dennis Potter's dying wish and an epic Gulliver's Travels lead Channel 4's pounds 56m spring schedule, launched yesterday.

Gulliver's Travels, starring Ted Danson and to be shown over Easter, cost pounds 13m, although in collaboration with the American NBC network and Hallmark films. It is not included in the pounds 56m total.

Brookside is set to spring a few surprises - Sammy Rogers will be back in the Close without Owen but with daughter Louise, and there's good news for one of the Dixon or Corkhill families about that Bangkok jail sentence - but will it be Mike or Lindsay who gets released?

Fresh from The Big Breakfast, Gaby Roslin will launch her new prime-time chat-show, and Zig and Zag get their own Dirty Deeds series too.

Life After Birth will be a new sitcom about a young single mother and her flatmates, written by the comedy newcomers Simon Block and Teresa Poland.

Friday night comedy will feature Rory Bremner and a double act from Jack Dee and Jeremy Hardy.

Dennis Potter, who wrote The Singing Detective and Blackeyes, bequeathed his final television plays, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, to both Channel 4 and the BBC. He insisted they collaborate on the productions and that the plays be shown on both channels. Potter laboured to complete them before he died in 1994.

The four parts of Karaoke will be shown first on BBC1 on Sunday nights from 28 April, with Monday night repeats on Channel 4, while Cold Lazarus will premiere on Channel 4 on Sundays from 26 May, followed by Monday night repeats on BBC1.

The two serials are linked by the story of Daniel Feeld, played by Albert Finney. In the first serial he plays a dying film writer and in the second his disembodied head is revived four centuries on.

New dramatic writers are showcased in Talentspotting, a wordplay on Channel 4's latest film success, Trainspotting.