Emmy-winning creator of The Hour to pen new BBC drama series despite Corporation snub

Abi Morgan's River will be screened on BBC One in 2015

Abi Morgan clutches her Emmy award for writing BBC Two series The Hour (AFP/Getty Images)

The Emmy Award-winning screenwriter of The Hour is set to create a new six-part drama for BBC One.

Abi Morgan's The Hour, which was praised by critics, won the Emmy for Best Writing in a Mini-Series or Movie at this year's Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.

But the BBC Two show won't be in contention next year, as it was cancelled amid low ratings. A Corporation spokesperson said in February: "We love the show but we have to make hard choices to bring new shows through."

Now the BBC is bringing Morgan back into the fold, commissioning a new drama called River. It follows John River, "a brilliant police officer whose genius and fault-line is the fragility of his mind".

The character walks "a professional tightrope between a pathology so extreme he risks permanent dismissal, and a healthy state of mind that would cure him of his gift".

This is Morgan's first full series for BBC One, but the writer behind The Iron Lady and Shame is no stranger to having her work broadcast on the Corporation's flagship channel, having penned the adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong.

River begins filming next year, and will be screened in 2015.