May 2019

OUR PLANET Global appeal LOVE TV? SO DO WE!

The Royal Television Society bursaries offer financial support and mentoring to people studying:

TELEVISION PRODUCTION BROADCAST JOURNALISM ENGINEERING COMPUTER SCIENCE PHYSICS MATHS

This year we have: l Added 10 new bursaries, funded by STV, for students studying in Scotland l Doubled the total funds pledged to the schemes l Expanded the eligible courses, so that five times as many students can now apply

Apply now at rts.org.uk/bursaries #rtsbursaries Journal of The Royal Television Society May 2019 l Volume 56/5

From the CEO Two powerful RTS writers in this month’s issue – Russell benefits of increasing workplace events – in London T Davies, Sally Wainwright and Stefan diversity in her genre. and Bristol – show Golaszewski – whose work returns to We report on Dave’s new laugh- how the influence television this month. out-loud comedy about south London of television can be Russell brings us the dystopian pizza delivery drivers, Sliced, which ­harnessed to alert drama Years and Years; Sally, a tale of brings the hugely talented Samson people to the dangers Victorian sexual rebellion in Gentleman Kayo back to our screens – this time of climate change and the need for Jack; and Stefan offers viewers as both actor and writer. conservation. another chunk – sadly the final Finally, Tara Conlan considers the Our cover story is devoted to Net­ one – of his RTS award-winning prospects for Dave and the other flix’s first natural history series, Our comedy, Mum. UKTV channels in the wake of the Planet, which is narrated by the great News and current affairs are also BBC buying out Discovery’s share of Sir David Attenborough. a big part of this month’s mix. Andrew their joint venture. Steve Clarke also discovers how this Billen talks to Sky’s new political inspiring series is using an innovative editor Beth Rigby, whose no-­nonsense social media campaign to promote approach is proving highly effective, a sustainable future for the Earth. while Channel 4’s Dorothy Byrne We talk to three talented British offers some trenchant thoughts on the Theresa Wise Contents Graeme Thompson’s TV Diary A blaze of red lipstick Graeme Thompson takes a tour of Game of Thrones Andrew Billen meets Sky’s new political editor, 5 locations in Northern Ireland – and becomes Westeros’s 18 Beth Rigby, whose demotic style is lighting up latest victim Westminster Our Planet: Global ambitions Our Friend in Belfast Netflix’s first natural history series, narrated by A-list movie stars drink in the city’s bars and its content 6 David Attenborough, impresses Steve Clarke 21 sector is buzzing. Kieran Doherty hails the Game of Thrones legacy Our Planet: Cutting-edge conservation Steve Clarke learns how the documentary’s social The Beeb bets big on UKTV 8 media campaign aims to change hearts and minds Tara Conlan asks who is likely to gain most from the BBC’s 22 record-breaking purchase of Discovery’s stake in UKTV A tale for our times Sally Wainwright persuades Caroline Frost that When laughter tops the menu 10 Gentleman Jack is a zeitgeist heroine Matthew Bell enjoys a piece of Sliced, Dave’s new 24 pizza-delivery sitcom, at an RTS Futures event At the top of his game Russell T Davies tells Ben Dowell how he was inspired to Still shaking things up 12 write his near-future dystopian drama, Years and Years Blunt and entertaining, Dorothy Byrne is clear that more 26 diversity is the key to outstanding current affairs, reports Mum’s the word Carole Solazzo Steve Clarke discovers unexpected literary 14 influences on the award-winning comedies Can £57m reverse a decade of decline? of writer Stefan Golaszewski A new fund, aimed at reinvigorating kids’ TV, launched 28 in April. Maggie Brown investigates A watershed in regulation? Stewart Purvis welcomes the recent white paper on 16 online harm but warns of unintended consequences Cover: Netflix

Editor Production, design, advertising Royal Television Society Subscription rates Printing Legal notice Steve Clarke Gordon Jamieson 3 Dorset Rise UK £115 ISSN 0308-454X © Royal Television Society 2019. [email protected] [email protected] London EC4Y 8EN Overseas (surface) £146.11 Printer: FE Burman The views expressed in Television News editor and writer Sub-editor T: 020 7822 2810 Overseas (airmail) £172.22 20 Crimscott Street are not necessarily those of the RTS. Matthew Bell Sarah Bancroft E: [email protected] Enquiries: [email protected] London SE1 5TP Registered Charity 313 728 [email protected] [email protected] W: www.rts.org.uk

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 3 Your guide to upcoming events. Book online at RTS NEWS www.rts.org.uk

RTS AWARDS Monday 7 October SOUTHERN National events Monday 25 November RTS Midlands Careers Fair ■ Stephanie Farmer RTS Craft & Design Awards 2019 Venue: TBC ■ [email protected] RTS AGM London Hilton on Park Lane Tuesday 25 June 22 Park Lane, London W1K 1BE Friday 29 November THAMES VALLEY All RTS members welcome. 6pm RTS Midlands Awards 2019 Wednesday 12 June Venue: RTS, 7th floor, Dorset Rise, Venue: ICC, Broad Street, Advances in compression London EC4Y 8EN Local events Birmingham B1 2EA Seminar presentation by V-Nova ■ Jayne Greene 07792 776585 Book to reserve a place. RTS AWARDS DEVON AND CORNWALL ■ [email protected] 6:30pm-9:00pm Friday 28 June ■ Jane Hudson Venue: V-Nova, 1 Sheldon RTS Student Television ■ RTSDevonandCornwall@rts. NORTH EAST AND THE BORDER Square, London W2 6TT Awards 2019 org.uk Tuesday 28 May ■ Tony Orme Sponsored by Motion AGM ■ [email protected] Content Group EAST 6:00pm Venue: BFI Southbank, Belvedere ■ Jayne Greene Venue: Digital Lounge, The WALES Road, London SE1 8XT ■ [email protected] Tyneside Cinema, Pilgrim Street, Thursday 6 June Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6QG Beyond tokenism– Cardiff RTS CAMBRIDGE CONVENTION ISLE OF MAN ■ Jill Graham Joint event with the Creative 2019 ■ Michael Wilson ■ [email protected] Diversity Network and RTS 18-20 September ■ [email protected] Wales. If you wish to attend, Content, consumers and NORTH WEST please respond to: projects@ everything in between LONDON Wednesday 19 June creativediversitynetwork.com. Principal sponsor: ITV. Confirmed Wednesday 5 June Judge Rinder 2:30pm-5:00pm speakers include: Jeremy Dar- Summer quiz 2019 More details TBA Venue: Chapter Arts Centre, roch, CEO, Sky; Tony Hall, Direc- Hosted by Harriet Brain. Build Venue: Compass Room, Lowry Market Road, Cardiff CF5 1QE tor-General, BBC; Alex Mahon, a team of up to eight people. Theatre, Salford Quays M50 3AZ ■ Hywel Wiliam 07980 007841 CEO, Channel 4; Sharon White, 6:30pm for 7:00pm ■ [email protected] CEO, Ofcom; Rt Hon Jeremy Venue: TBC Thursday 26 September Wright MP, Secretary of State, Awards launch party WEST OF ENGLAND DCMS; and David Zaslav, Presi- Wednesday 4 December Details TBA Monday 3 June dent and CEO, Discovery. Chaired Christmas Lecture: David Venue: Compass Room, Lowry Last Breath screening and Q&A by Carolyn McCall, CEO, ITV. Abraham Theatre, Salford Quays M50 3AZ Joint event with The Farm. Venue: King’s College CB2 1ST 6:30pm for 7:00pm ■ Rachel Pinkney 07966 230639 Speakers: Alex Parkinson, direc- Venue: Cavendish Conference ■ [email protected] tor, producer, writer, DoP; Richard STEVE HEWLETT MEMORIAL Centre, 22 Duchess Mews, de Costa, producer, director; and LECTURE 2019 London W1G 9DT NORTHERN IRELAND Sam Rogers, editor. Hosted by Tuesday 24 September ■ Daniel Cherowbrier ■ John Mitchell Kate Beetham, Plimsoll Produc- Speaker Mark Thompson ■ [email protected] ■ mitch.mvbroadcast@ tions. 6:00pm for 6:10pm Mark Thompson is President btinternet.com Venue: Everyman, 44 Whiteladies and CEO of the New York Times, MIDLANDS Road, Bristol BS8 2NH and a former Director-General Thursday 6 June REPUBLIC OF IRELAND of the BBC. Post-lecture drinks From Birmingham to ■ Charles Byrne (353) 87251 3092 Tuesday 2 July reception sponsored by BBC Hollywood: In conversation ■ [email protected] AGM Studios. 6:00pm for 6:30pm with David Harewood Venue TBC Venue: University of Westminster, In conversation with Samantha SCOTLAND ■ Belinda Biggam London W1W 7BY Meah. David will talk about Wednesday 12 June ■ [email protected] growing up in Birmingham, his RTS Scotland Television RTS MASTERCLASSES career over the past 30 years Awards 2019 YORKSHIRE Tuesday 5 November and and his BBC documentary David Hosted by STV presenter Jen- Friday 14 June Wednesday 6 November Harewood: My Psychosis and nifer Reoch and comedian Des RTS Yorkshire Centre Awards RTS Student Masterclasses Me. Sponsored by Film Birming- Clarke. From 5:45pm. Ceremony Deadline for booking: noon Venue: IET, 2 Savoy Place, ham. Media partner: BBC WM. starts 7:15pm 31 May. 6:45pm-12:30am London WC2R 0BL 6:45pm for 7:00pm Venue: The Old Fruitmarket, Venue: The Queens Hotel, City Venue: The Banqueting Suite, Candleriggs, Glasgow G1 1NQ Square, Leeds LS1 1PJ The Council House, Victoria ■ April Chamberlain ■ Lisa Holdsworth 07790 145280 Square, Birmingham B1 1BB ■ [email protected] ■ lisa@allonewordproductions. co.uk

4 TV diary

Graeme Thompson takes a tour of Game of Thrones locations in Northern Ireland – and becomes Westeros’s latest victim

o Belfast for the coach, having painfully twisted my The BBC’s move to Salford and Chan- weekend, staying at a knee. Westeros has claimed another nel 4’s commitment to Leeds is good Titanic-themed hotel casualty. news for career prospects beyond the next door to the capital. But it is still the case that the studios where HBO ■ To London to chair the RTS Edu- majority of work-experience oppor- filmsGame of Thrones. cation Committee. We have a lovely tunities are in London. Which might The charred battle- group of enthusiastically engaged as well as be another country for ments visible above the lot are a clue colleagues from production compa- many of our students. Tto how the final episodes play out. nies and broadcasters. Over eight seasons, Game of Thrones We spend the first few minutes ■ Back in Sunderland, I am sitting has spent more than €320m in hearing some of the many success in on a session with seven students Northern Ireland. In addition to the stories of graduates who’ve completed who are being mentored by legend- Titanic Studios, there’s another studio their degrees with support from our ary film producer David Puttnam. in Belfast Harbour filming a Superman bursaries. Kyle’s now at A Question of Lord Puttnam was Chancellor of the spin-off. Sport, Adam’s at The Garden and Max- university for a decade and has main- Millions more pour in to the local ine has joined Moonage Pictures. tained close ties. Today, he is in his economy thanks to tourism. We find Florence, another of our bursary studio in the West of Ireland talking to the lure of the Game of Thrones loca- scheme graduates, has joined our the group via a broadcast video link. tion tour irresistible. Our gossipy committee and talks of her new job He leads the Puttnam Scholars coach driver regales us with insights as a script editor at Lime Pictures in through a lively discussion about into the filming and helpfully screens Liverpool. Being an RTS bursary stu- climate change, the politics of protest, the locations to be visited as they dent has, in her words, been life- Brexit, the music of Ennio Morricone appear in the show. changing. and the work of Ridley Scott. The mentoring is done individually ■ We’re dropping in on about a ■ The scheme is aimed at students and with the group over a period of dozen of the more than 60 locations from households with an income of five months. Sessions have included used by the franchise over 10 years. less than £25,000, usually from areas a discourse on the power of music in Lots of them are on the majestic underrepresented in the TV business. storytelling. There’s been a memo- Antrim coastline, as it stretches Thanks to supporters such as All3­ rable tea in the House of Lords. towards the Giant’s Causeway. Media and STV, we will be meeting The scholars are making a film, These places are the backdrop to in August to select another 35 recipi- which David will see when he visits unspeakable acts of on-screen vio- ents of our production and broadcast the campus in June. Their theme is lence. We creep into the caves at journalism bursaries and our techni- kindness and compassion in a post- Cushendun, where Melisandre gave cal bursaries. Brexit Britain. “My generation has eye-watering birth to the shadow It’s not just about the financial made such a hash of things,” he tells monster and peer down into the support: each student gets an indus- them. “You have to do better.” harbour at Carnlough, where Arya try mentor and help in securing crawled out of its freezing depths placements. Our energetic co-­ Graeme Thompson is pro vice-chancellor after a vicious stabbing. ordinator, Anne Dawson, is trying to at the University of Sunderland and In keeping with the theme, I source low-cost accommodation for Chair of the RTS Education Committee. endure an ungainly fall on our way students coming to London to do down a cliff en route to Dragonstone their placements. n For more on the production legacy in heavy rain and hobble back to the It’s a real blocker for many students. of Game of Thrones, see page 21.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 5 Netflix’s first natural history series, narrated by David Attenborough, impresses Steve Clarke Netflix Global ambitions

hocking scenes of wal- revealed as Netflix’s most popular timing of the event could not have ruses jammed together show in the UK that month, ahead of been more appropriate. “out of desperation” on such youth-friendly dramas as The Scholey, one of the world’s most an ice-depleted beach, a Perfect Date and Riverdale. experienced wildlife film-makers, told consequence of climate The walruses sequence was a crowded auditorium how he had change, have emerged as described as “the most powerful I’ve reacted on first seeing the rushes of the defining image of Netflix’s high-­ ever shot” by award-winning natural the stranded walruses, which was profileS natural history documentary, history cinematographer Jamie filmed in north-east Russia. Our Planet. McPherson. He was speaking at a joint “There’s a palpable excitement when The series is narrated by Sir David RTS and Wildscreen event in which you know you’ve filmed something Attenborough, and he launched the the episode featuring the walruses, that is important,” he said. “I was shell programme at Davos, where he was Frozen Worlds, was screened. shocked when I first saw it. I am still interviewed by the Duke of Cambridge “The sequence has become a symbol shell shocked.” before an audience of global decision-­ of climate change,” added Keith Scholey, Around 100,000 of the creatures that makers. “We are now so numerous series producer of the eight-part once survived happily on the Russian and so powerful that we can destroy Our Planet, which involved filming ice are seen densely packed together whole ecosystems without even notic- 3,500 hours of material in 50 countries on a shingle beach. Russian biologist ing it,” said Attenborough. with more than 600 crew members. Anatoly Kochnev had alerted the A subsequent glitzy London premiere “There is shock but also the revelation film-makers to the walruses’ plight. at the Natural History Museum was that everyone thinks we’ve got to do Viewers then see some of the wal- attended by HRH Prince Charles, the something about it.” ruses trapped on top of an 80-metre Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Sus- With the impact of London’s Extinc- cliff. A few manage to work out how to sex, David Beckham and singer Ellie tion Rebellion protesters still reverber- get safety back down to the shore. The Goulding. ating – hours before the RTS screening, majority end up killing themselves as The landmark series started stream- demonstrators had glued themselves they tumble down the cliff. ing on 5 April, and was recently to the London Stock Exchange – the “It’s tragic, heart-breaking and

6 shocking,” said Sophie Lanfear, pro- remarkable that overnight you can ducer of Frozen Worlds, broadcast to nearly all the countries in She prepared for the episode by the world. It’s been fascinating.… watching every documentary about “With normal TV, the launch is the natural history of the North Pole everything but Netflix is quite relaxed and Antarctica that she could get her about the launch. Its attitude is: ‘We’ll hands on: “We’re all so passionate have a look at it after a month but about conservation. It was my first we’ll really judge something after six film. I’ve done a lot of work at the months.’” Poles.… After watching all these docu- Securing the services of Attenbor- mentaries, I realised that the important ough was a coup for the streamer. As message of our time was to differenti- Scholey observed: “When David started ate between sea ice and land ice.” out, you had to broadcast live, there The first section of Frozen Worlds was not even tape. He’d be seen by explains how sea ice works and its about 20,000 people in Surrey; now, vital role in supporting an abundance he’s going to an audience of hundreds of life. With sea ice disappearing rap- of millions globally.” idly due to climate change, the impact The great man has always been is not restricted to walruses and polar intrigued by advances in broadcast bears, but extends to the entire plane- technology. He worked with Sky tary ecosystem. because it provided an opportunity to “These frozen worlds, these ice present programmes produced in 3D. worlds, are protecting us from climate Similarly, Sir David was keen to nar- change,” said Lanfear. “If we lose those, rate Our Planet thanks to its high tech- we stand to lose not just these magnif- nical specification. icent animals but a lot more. That was “He was excited by the fact that this the narrative I wanted to tell.” is, I think, the first series available in In another sequence, we learn how 4K and high dynamic range,” said krill stocks are declining in the polar Scholey. “High dynamic range is the

regions, which is likely to have severe Netflix interesting bit. The range of colours is consequences for the humpback spellbinding.” whales that feed on them. Having been a natural history film- Our Planet, in common with Atten- ‘THE SEQUENCE maker for more than 30 years, Scholey borough’s recent BBC One film, Climate HAS BECOME is well aware that flying around the Change – the Facts, pulls no punches on world to capture astonishing pictures the climate crisis – but it also sets out A SYMBOL OF comes at a cost to the environment to wrap its ecological message in an CLIMATE CHANGE’ that he and his colleagues passionately entertaining production. want to protect. Four years in the making, including Silverback Films is affiliated to the two years of shooting, Scholey was extensive social media presence (see Albert environmental production cer- determined that Our Planet should not page 8), which aims to spark global tification scheme. It aims to ensure mince its words about the environ- conversations around what can be that all UK screen content is made in a mental crisis. He and his one-time done to halt climate change and way “that benefits individuals, industry colleague at the BBC Natural History restore biodiversity. organisations and the planet.” Unit, Alastair Fothergill, set up Silver- In contrast to the walrus sequence, The production team was mindful of back Films in 2012. Our Planet contains familiar but heart-­ its environment impact. “We offset our “We always wanted to make another warming pictures of penguins – a carbon,” Scholey said. “We try to do big landmark show (among the duo’s father somehow identifies his own what is right. At the end of the day, the credits are Blue Planet and Planet Earth), chick in a colony of half a million equation we have to consider is: ‘Is the but we were so aware of the destruc- birds. “You have to strike the right environmental cost of making the film tion of nature that we thought it was balance between informing and enter- worth bringing the story back?’ inappropriate to make one that didn’t taining and showing the glory of the “On that basis, I am happy with what tackle the issues of our modern world natural world,” said Scholey. we’ve done but it is a judgement call. head on,” said Scholey. “If we were going By the end of April, Our Planet was “There is no doubt that film-making to tackle the environmental issues we estimated to have been seen by more is an expensive business that comes at needed to make sure we had our facts than 25 million households globally. a cost to the environment.” n right, so from the word go we teamed He told the RTS that Netflix had given up with the World Wildlife Fund. him and his team a lot of freedom. As a The Our Planet screening and Q&A was “Every two years, it does the Living subscription service, there was no risk held at 30 Euston Square, London, on Planet Report – basically an audit of that advertisers might exert pressure on 25 April. The discussion was moderated what’s going on in the world. That the film-makers. “It’s been a good jour- by Lynn Barlow, RTS West of England formed the factual spine of what ney. I think Netflix is now happy with Chair. The producers were Wildscreen became Our Planet.” what we do,” he said with typical director Lucie Muir, Festival co-ordinator The series is complemented by an understatement, adding: “It is Molly Gibney and the RTS’s Jamie O’Neill.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 7 Cutting-edge conservation

Our Planet 2 Steve Clarke learns how the documentary’s social media campaign aims to change hearts and minds

s social media the environ­ Planet earlier this year, Silverback officers in other countries given the mentalist movement’s secret co-founder Alastair Fothergill opportunity to translate them into their weapon? Could it put us all on explained: “This series was always own languages. the path to a pollution-free, going to go a step further than tradi- A packed RTS audience in Bristol got sustainable future in which tional blue-chip series had gone. Some a taste of what Our Planet’s social media biodiversity thrives and climate episodes go very far. The Coastal Seas halo will look like as it propagates change is pegged back? episode shows humanity causing across Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. IIt sounds like an eco-warrior mani- problems – and provides solutions “The whole campaign is about festo penned by the remarkable Swed- – but other episodes do less of that. building momentum,” explained Amy ish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg. But this The halo was always going to do the Anderson, WWF producer/director and is, in a nutshell, the ambitious hope heavy lifting.” one of the evening’s three panellists. driving an extensive portfolio of share- By exploiting the power of the inter- The West Country capital is synony- able, bespoke films made for digital net, this content could eventually be mous with wildlife television thanks to distribution. They have been created watched by 1 billion people worldwide. the presence of the BBC’s Natural His- by Silverback Films to accompany its This ambition puts the live TV audi- tory Unit. But it’s a racing certainty landmark, eight-part Netflix natural ence for the England vs Croatia World that nothing quite like this has been history series, Our Planet, narrated by Cup semi-final last year – 26.5 million made by Bristol’s production commu- Sir David Attenborough. people – in context, let alone that for nity before. The so-called “social media halo” Line of Duty. Event host and RTS West of England was devised by Silverback and its The films are being translated into Chair Lynn Barlow described the initi- partner on the documentary, the World French, Spanish, German and Portu- ative as a unique partnership in broad- Wildlife Fund (WWF). Promoting Our guese, with the WWF’s network casting that could help change human

8 shortest films. Make the tone too movie. Once more, the purpose is to ‘THIS CONTENT proselytising­ and a potential audience draw attention to the loss of biodiversity. might be put off, especially in such an “Audiences will come to this content COULD information-rich age when short-at- in different ways,” said Jon Clay, direc- EVENTUALLY tention spans are a fact of life. tor and producer at Silverback. “Most “For Colin Butfield, who headed up people are driven to ask questions BE WATCHED the Our Planet team, the project and its about what they can do. Having a clear BY 1 BILLION halo were an opportunity to reach new message is vital.” audiences through mass communica- As the halo was just gearing up, he PEOPLE tions tools. That was his vision for this hoped that the social media campaign WORLDWIDE’ project,” said Anderson. would have longevity: “If we put out Dan Huertas, director and producer everything now, when the series is new, at Silverback Films, suggested that it would just disappear into white noise. “this is bit of a first. A global channel “Our plan is to put certain content out and a global charity saw the power on certain channels with certain part- they could potentially tap into. nerships through the year. As the Our “Series such as Blue Planet have been Planet brand grows, we’re hoping this criticised for not going into enough will feed more interest coming to us. detail on the solutions, and for painting “Our ambition is that Our Planet a very rosy picture of the planet. That’s stands for more than a TV series on partly because they are created to allow Netflix, that Our Planet stands for a way you to escape and appreciate the beauty of thinking and a shift towards sustain­ of the planet.” ability as more people get involved in Our Planet doesn’t flinch from graph- the campaign.” ically depicting how climate change is Netflix has been praised for its affecting natural habitats. Even non-­ hands-off attitude to film-makers. Netflix subscribers know the fate of How much influence did the company the Russian walruses stranded on have on the halo? “If it was just a Net­ ice-depleted rocks (see page 6) after flix project, we would have had some video of the unfortunate mammals battles,” said Clay. “It would have went viral. wanted to promote certain things that Several of the videos shown to the point heavily to the series. But having RTS highlighted the frightening accel- the WWF as a partner, it has believed eration of species loss. Two illustrated in the equality of the partnership.” the impact of deforestation on orangu- The last word should go to Attenbor- tans – 100 of whom are estimated to ough, who recently celebrated his 93rd die every week due to human activity. birthday. In one of the clips shown to Over the past 40 years their habit has the RTS he struck a frank but passion- declined by 75%. The world is losing ately optimistic tone as he told our nearly 15 million hectares of tropical fossil-fuel-addicted societies to mend

Netflix forest each year, and Our Planet notes their ways. that jungles capture and store more “There’s never been a better oppor- behaviour, as we seek to combat cli- carbon than any other land habitat. tunity to take control,” he said. “The mate change and restore biodiversity. The panellists stressed that the halo plan is obvious. Stop doing the damag- While there is nothing new in aims to offer solutions to the environ- ing stuff. Roll out the new green tech deploying social media to enhance the mental problems mankind is responsi- and systems as they arrive. impact of a TV show, or to provide ble for without being didactic. “Stabilise the human population as additional footage, the scope and “People have to know there is a low as we fairly can. Keep hold of the ambition of Our Planet’s halo seems solution out there,” said Huertas. “With natural wealth we have currently got, unprecedented. So, too, does its cam- these particular two films, we hope to and in 80 years’ time we’ll be past the paigning edge. create conversations and dialogue worse of it. Most of the clips shown to the RTS around palm-oil production.” “More than that, we’ll have built a have yet to be released, even though He continued: “An example of how world of eternal energy, clean air and Netflix launched Our Planet globally we’re cascading our conversations on water, a stable, healthy world that we on 5 April. By the end of April, an esti- social media via Twitter is [where we] can benefit from forever.” mated 25 million households had seen explain why palm oil can be farmed With words like these delivered by a the series. sustainably and get the message across broadcasting legend, the Our Planet halo The idea is to drip-feed the videos in an engaging way. looks destined to shine brightly. n during the rest of the year on a thematic “It’s counter-intuitive that palm oil basis – or simply in response to what- production can help jungles but, pro- The RTS West of England event ‘Our ever environmental stories happen to vided it’s grown sustainably, it can.” Planet – Creating a social media cam- be hitting the headlines at the time. Another halo film shows an upbeat, paign’ was held at the Watershed, Bristol, Much thought and time is given over Latino anthropomorphic frog resem- on 2 May. It was chaired by Lynn Barlow to devising and executing even the bling a chirpy character from a Disney and produced by Suzy Lambert.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 9 A tale for our times

ome 20 years in the mak- Add to this the fact that Wainwright ing, Sally’s Wainwright’s Drama used to run along the corridors of new television drama, Shibden Hall on regular visits as a Gentleman Jack, was origi- child, and you can begin to guess at the nally rejected by every Sally Wainwright strength of the connection she feels to broadcaster she took it to. persuades Caroline Frost the ancient house and its headstrong TheS story of an openly gay woman inhabitant. who farmed in 19th-century rural that Gentleman Jack is “I do feel very passionately,” she Yorkshire was considered a non- laughs. “She’s my biggest heroine, and, starter by TV networks. Starting this a zeitgeist heroine for me to bring it to screen, I feel very month, the topic is getting eight hours privileged. I just hope that people get of BBC One Sunday-night primetime. A fair part of it is even written in to like her.” It’s common for writers to describe code, where the subject matter runs What’s not to like? From the first their latest work as a “passion project” into matters of the heart and mattress. episode, actually filmed in Shibden, we – often industry-accepted shorthand It is spread over 27 volumes, 300 pages meet Lister, played by Suranne Jones for what they hope is infectious enthu- apiece, and now sits under Unesco-­ with a wonderful glint in her eye. When siasm for their new offering. protected vigilance in the Halifax she’s not winding up her sister, aunt But in the case of Wainwright and Library. Intriguingly, it’s only been in and father – jealous, doting and bewil- Gentleman Jack, it doesn’t really do jus- the public domain since the late 1980s, dered, respectively – she’s climbing tice to her efforts to bring the extraor- when the first pages were published. hills, riding horses or inspecting the dinary true-life tale of Anne Lister to “I’ve been working on it for 20 years, work of her tenants. the screen. and I feel like a novice,” Wainwright And that’s before you get to all the For a start, Lister’s diary, on which says. “Very few people have even read women – because, in case she wasn’t Wainwright has based her eight hours it in full. Maxine Peake’s earlier BBC already provocative enough in her of drama, is a weighty tome, running to drama (a single drama in 2010) sort of lifestyle choices, Lister was also an 4 million words. It covers every aspect skirted through, but you can’t really do out-and-proud lesbian, long before of her singular life in the early 19th it justice in 90 minutes. It’s vast, laby- Queen Victoria doubted their existence. century as a traveller, mountaineer, rinthine and inaccessible. It’s actually Lister was determined to find herself diarist and female landowner of the quite an emotional experience just some proper loving, which she did in imposing Shibden Hall in Yorkshire. seeing the real pages.” the arms of her neighbour Anne

10 Walker. Clearly, this is a story for our without being gratuitous at all. If a are being written for better than ever time, if not Lister’s. female director can’t do that, who can? before. “I initially pitched it in the early “There’s one sex scene that’s quite “There are some great male charac- 2000s,” remembers Wainwright. fruity, but it lasts about three seconds. ters in this, but at its core it’s strong “Nobody was interested. I was quite All the others are incredibly delicately women. And that’s quite a new thing, young, and 20 years ago we weren’t constructed and shot. The tabloids bonkers as it sounds. But it makes having the same conversations we are have grabbed some screen shots and better viewing for everybody, I think.” now about gender. gone on about the sex, which is a bit After a string of awards and hits to “We can be so articulate and open sickening after we tried so hard to do her name, Wainwright has inevitably with our children now, they’re not it delicately, but what can you do?” been courted by some deep-pocketed growing up in a world where you have Collinson calls it “a 360° look at a producers on the other side of the to be hidden away if you’re not dead complicated, difficult relationship”, Atlantic, particularly after Happy Valley straight. If I’d got this made 20 years adding: “I can’t think of another show won a whole new audience on Netflix. ago, it would have been a niche drama, in the UK that puts a gay couple right But it seems we won’t be losing her tucked away in the schedules some- in the middle of it, and celebrates that any time soon. where. I wouldn’t have got to grips relationship, at 9:00pm on a Sunday.” “I’ve always wanted to write dramas with the diary, I wouldn’t have got Is it that commissioners are becom- that are about my world, which is why Suranne Jones, so I can’t regret what’s ing braver, or has the world changed? I’ve gravitated to West Yorkshire and happened. We couldn’t do her more “A bit of both,” he decides. “It’s just Halifax. Telly is becoming more global, justice than we’re doing now.” less scandalous to tell a story like this. but you still have to set your show Executive producer Phil Collinson is We’ve just had The Favourite becoming somewhere specific, and I set my quite clear that only Sally Wainwright a big-screen hit. There are still fights shows where I know what I’m talking could have brought off this mighty to be had, but it’s definitely more about, where I speak the same language project. “She’s peeled back Anne’s on the agenda, plus that people speak.” character, got underneath, and mined women A few months ago, Wainwright the strength in the middle of her char- referred in a Radio Times interview to acter. Plus she’s made it very funny, the long battle she felt she had to fight which period drama often forgets to do. in order to be taken seriously as a “You can laugh out loud at this bril- creative woman in an industry she liant family. You have actors Gemma believes simply “trusts men more”. Whelan, Gemma Jones and Timothy Now, with the likes of Fleabag West in these extraordinary scenes at and Killing Eve joining her own

BBC the dinner table, where the family gets huge catalogue of hits, she to be really dysfunctional. There are acknowledges things are improv- universal things in this story, things ing. However, she reminds us: “It’s that audiences can completely interesting, we mention those shows, relate to.” but they’re just individual names. It’s For Gentleman Jack, the BBC part- an ongoing process. nered with HBO; the show has “You still just see so many more already thrilled critics in the US. men’s names in the credits, or, if Wainwright said both partners you trawl through Netflix on the were equally willing to trust her thumbnails, you see so many and support her editorial deci- more male faces. It’s like turn- sions for a prime-time drama ing the tanker around. If we built around a lesbian let our guard down for a relationship. second, it will “It was my choice, not foisted stop.” n on me, to make the story family-­ orientated,” says Wainwright, who also directed the drama. “I like entertaining people, I don’t want to preach, so that was my guiding light, and there’s nothing more enter- taining than a dysfunctional family. “I didn’t want gratuitous sex scenes. Anne was a great lesbian lover and we should celebrate that. She said herself, ‘I know how to please a lady, and I did,’ so I wanted to reflect that,

but you can get that across Suranne Jones in Gentleman Jack BBC

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 11 At the top of his game Rex Features Rex

n the eve of the 2016 very political writer. I always have US presidential elec- Screenwriting been. Every single year, in Doctor Who, I tion, when Donald either killed or deposed a prime min- Trump was getting ister. In series 1, I blew up Downing his first inkling that Russell T Davies tells Street with a missile. Everyone sat he would be elected Ben Dowell how he was there and laughed and thought what a toO the world’s highest political office, really fun adventure. And I was, like, Russell T Davies was texting the con- inspired to write his have you seen what I have just done troller of BBC drama about an idea on BBC One? they had long been discussing. “I wrote near-future dystopian “And, actually, in something like to Piers Wenger and said, ‘If he wins drama, Years and Years Queer as Folk, if you’re writing about the tomorrow,­ it’s time I write this show lives of gay men, you’re actually mak- now’ – and he said yes,” recalls Davies. ing massive political statements. I kind This project was the BBC One epic his wife, Celeste (T’Nia Miller), whose of engage with [politics] by not writing Years and Years. The series imagines a phone-obsessed teenage daughter, crime – I don’t write crime – but I write near-future, towards the end of Bethany, wants to transition (a term about ordinary people engaging with Trump’s second term, when he is which means something very different the world. That’s a political act. That’s threatening war with China, people are in Years and Years). what politics is. This show is just putting means tested before they’re allowed to The show is packed with the kind of it more centre stage than normal.” enter the affluent London quarter of bold ambition we have come to expect And then he laughs that big laugh of Kensington and a ruthless populist from this whip-smart, jolly writer who his. “I’m always kicking up a fuss about called Vivienne Rook (Emma Thomp- has brought back both Jesus (The Second something. It’s very rare to get a drama son) is riding to political prominence. Coming) and Doctor Who, written the out of me that’s just two people having Nearly as bad, the price of coffee, I seminal drama depicting modern Brit- a nice time. It’s a long-winded way of noticed, is £12 a cup. ish gay life (Queer as Folk), and the story me saying: I’m worried about the world. It’s told from the perspective of the of a gay man who has a straight affair In a sense, I always have been.” Manchester-based Lyons family, a (Bob & Rose). But Davies insists that his It would also not be surprising to likeable bunch impacted by these and new work’s geopolitical themes should find Davies feeling low for other, other seismic political and societal not surprise us. non-geopolitical reasons. We were changes. They include Daniel (Russell “I’m known as a science fiction speaking six months after the death of Tovey), who works with refugees, his writer and for Queer as Folk and stuff his husband, Andrew, after a long brother, Stephen (Rory Kinnear), and like that,” he says. “But, actually, I’m a illness – something that he and I have

12 “It can take a year to write something, it can take a year to get made and sometimes they can sit on a shelf for a year. And so, by the time you get to the screen, there’s not much of the real world left in it. Even soap operas are sometimes six months behind in the plotting. That’s what I wanted to shift, to get ‘now’ on screen. We were work- ing so fast. We stopped shooting in March and now we’re getting on air in May. That’s very fast.” Given that there is little doubt about where he stands on the great political questions of our day, I wonder what he will say to those commentators who will inevitably complain that Years and Years comes from a typical left-leaning, liberal BBC perspective? “I am absolutely happily left wing,” he says, “but it’s my job to write right- wing people well. I am not talking about Vivienne Rook – she’s an outlier, the worst of the left wing and the right wing put together.” But where are the conservative voices in TV drama? Obviously, there’s nothing stopping people with other views getting their laptops out. But is enough effort being made so that they Years and Years

BBC are heard in mainstream drama – or, indeed, comedy – where a liberal/left discussed in private but which he now consensus also seems to reign? feels able to discuss publicly. ‘IT’S MY JOB “I think it’s very significant that “I am all right,” he says with a deep right-wing voices, clearly, are not that sigh. “We’re just past the six-month TO WRITE creative,” he chortles. “They’re funda- mark, which is odd. It’s when everyone RIGHT-WING mentally fucked.…” expects you to be all right and it’s not. PEOPLE WELL’ Davies is not keen on Twitter, either, What do you do? You just keep going. which he believes has become “the All you can do is keep on going and it’s dominant voice of Western society” exactly what he’d want me to do. Life and is accorded a misplaced sense of is very strange. Every day.” carpet and take me to Anglesey. Hus- respect “simply because it is typed out”. He and Andrew, he says, never dis- bands and wives, they split up and “Our brains and intelligence and cussed rearing children. Not because there are changes in their relationship. communication were not designed for he wouldn’t want to bring infants into But families always stay together. In all information to be passed through this terrible future he’s now imagining. my conversations with the BBC, in the written word,” he says. It was simply to do with the fact that gay advance, we agreed there was no point Perhaps he imagines himself like men raising children wasn’t an issue writing this if it was going to be bleak. another Years and Years character, Fran for men of his generation. “When we “The end of episode 1 is bleak. I Baxter, who makes a living telling were 18, 19, 20, it wasn’t remotely pos- loved to see the early reviews saying verbal stories (literally) by a campfire, sible… We did discuss it later but nei- it’s ‘terrifying’. I have never had a proselytising “the shape of stories and ther of us ever wanted it at all. You may drama described as terrifying before, the need for them”. Is that him? Telling as well ask me, ‘am I going to live on that’s new.…” stories as the world burns? the moon?”, he says, chuckling again. For Davies, most terrifying of all are He laughs, too modest to agree But the family dynamic within Years the imagined future events in Trump’s entirely, but conceding the point. and Years, and the jokes and kindnesses America. The need to keep up with “One isn’t better than the other, I’m the Lyons clan show one another, are events across the Atlantic necessitated just saying that both exist,” he says both warm and plausible, as well as speed during the production. He consid- before delivering that laugh again. “I being a crucial source of comfort in the ered, then ruled out as implausible, love my job. Yes, budgets are hard and piece. Does that point to a glimmer of writing in a third Trump term in the deadlines are hard. optimism in the Davies world view? White House – only to later hear it being “But here I am, telling stories for a “I could murder someone and my discussed. (“Only he would think of living. It’s not easy to get anything family would hide me,” he laughs doing something that mad,” says Davies.) made. How lucky am I? And I’m only again. “They would wrap me up in a “Drama is so slow,” mulls the writer. just beginning.…” n

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 13 Mum’s the word

f anyone ever doubted that write such credible female characters. comedy and tragedy go hand Comedy Not just Cathy, but her putative in hand, look no further than daughter-in-law, Kelly, and super snob the much-garlanded BBC Two Pauline, her brother’s new partner. sitcom, Mum, starring Lesley Steve Clarke discovers How does he bring such authenticity Manville as Cathy, a late-­ unexpected literary to these women? “Things like age, middle-agedI mother coming to terms gender – add to that race, religion, with the death of her husband. influences on the sexuality or whatever, these identity Making a TV audience laugh is badges,” says Golaszewski. “If you among the most difficult skills for any award-winning think of them as just circumstances screenwriter to learn, but to make comedies of writer and then, for the moment, dismiss them laugh one minute and almost cry them and consider the emotions and a few moments later is the hallmark of Stefan Golaszewski situations that the individual is going a very special talent. through and load on to them the That is precisely what makes Mum The big themes of sex, love, death, appropriate identities, that’s how I such rewarding viewing and, ulti- mourning, bereavement, class and write the character.” mately, why the programme’s creator, ageing are all treated with a tenderness It is not a simple answer, but perhaps Stefan Golaszewski, is such a gifted and humour that has assured Mum, typical of the writer, who is a shy, writer. The show has been quietly produced by Big Talk, of a devoted thoughtful, driven man. He adds: pleasing audiences since it launched following during two seasons. The “Cathy is a woman with a kindness on BBC Two in 2016. third and final series started on 15 May. and a thought for others who also As RTS and Bafta awards juries have The ensemble cast, led by Manville happens to have lived for 60-odd years realised, Mum is an acutely observed, as Cathy and Peter Mullan as her old and happens to be a woman. So you throat-catching story rooted in the flame, Michael, are all brilliant, too. One feed all those things into the character. lived experiences of ordinary British of the many extraordinary things about “But the thing I always focus on is people. the show is Golaszewski’s ability to the individual at the centre of it and

14 Left: Lesley Manville as Cathy in Mum. Right: Stefan Golaszewski

the thing she desires and the ways in More importantly, it gave Golaszewski which those desires are thwarted.” the opportunity to learn to write TV Is his own mum like that? “Not par- comedy on the job. “I was very lucky ticularly. My mum is very kind and to be 28 and be given a sitcom on BBC generous and very loving. I think Three that no one saw and then to be motherhood itself, as an enterprise, trusted by Kenton Allen at Big Talk and requires so much loss of self. That be guided by Richard Laxton [the seems to be the only way to cope with director of Him & Her, who also directed how hard it is to be a mother, from season 1 of Mum]. And for my writing what I’ve observed. to be made a better version of itself “It’s very hard to talk about that as a rather than to be more normative. man without sounding patronising, but “Writing Him & Her, I did about a that loss of self seems to be an essen- series a year for four years. I was on set tial component of becoming a mother. a lot of the time and in the edit. That is I suppose that is the essential problem a lot of writing very quickly, so it was that Cathy has – the loss of self and like a crash course. That really helped.” how, across the three series, she can As does his complete immersion in find that self again.” his work. He also writes for the stage In many ways, Mum builds on some and directed seasons 2 and 3 of Mum. of the great archetypes of British sit- “I think about writing all the time. I am com – and then gently adds a few obsessed with it and I am obsessed

extra, excruciating emotional layers. In Richard Kendal with the craft of it, everything to do Pauline, there are echoes of characters with it. I’ll think about it at 3am when like Keeping Up Appearances’ Hyacinth or I go for a wee. It’s an ever-present The Good Life’s Margo. ‘LOSS OF SELF journey.” As for Kelly, who can’t help but SEEMS TO BE What, then, are his influences – keep putting her foot in her mouth, apart from the obvious ones such as ­Golaszewski puts it like this: “I don’t AN ESSENTIAL comedy classics Keeping Up Appearances, like the phrase ‘dumb blonde’, but she COMPONENT Ever Decreasing Circles and The Good Life? might be perceived as that. You go into OF BECOMING It would seem they are impressively why is she like that? I don’t think peo- eclectic and, unusually, encompass ple are stupid.… So why is she like this? A MOTHER’ Chaucer and some of the great

BBC “Why does she say the wrong thing? 19th-century English storytellers. She’s scared. What is she scared of? Of the author of The Canterbury Tales, Why doesn’t she believe in herself? So comedy at the Edinburgh fringe, he says: “What I found fascinating you dig into that a bit.… Golaszewski continued to follow the about him is the simplicity of what he “In series 3, Kelly becomes one of traditional path of generations of funny wrote and the depth that he achieved the wisest characters. In series 1, she’s people by finally getting a show com- in his writing style – total simplicity. had an unpleasant history of relation- missioned by Radio 4. But by nuance, context and irony, the ships but, through the affirmation that The only difference was that he hugeness that he could bring.” Cathy and Jason (Cathy’s son) give her, wasn’t middle class. He says that he These traits are all evident in Mum. she is able to figure out how to be originally got involved with Footlights So, too, is what Stefan Golaszewski herself and not this shell of a person out of perversity. “I was told that Foot- says about the likes of George Eliot trying to do a bad impression of her lights was full of posh idiots,” he recalls. (Middlemarch is his favourite novel) and mum or trying to survive under her “So, me being angry and 19 and not Thackeray: “What is lovely about some mum’s arrows.” posh, I thought I’d go along and annoy of those Victorian novelists is the Mum is, in fact, the second sitcom the posh idiots. warmth and kindness of the narrative written by Stefan Golaszewski, who is “And it wasn’t full of posh idiots. I voice. They’re quite unfashionable, 38 and whose love of words was obvi- think I still annoyed them, but they because they talk to the reader. I find ous when he first started writing sto- asked me back. They continued to ask that lovely. There is so much empathy ries at school in his native Essex. His me back. I thought: maybe I’ll stop in those books.” paternal grandfather was a Polish trying to annoy the posh idiots and see He adds: “I’d say that, more than immigrant who fled to the UK at the how this goes.” anything else, in its style Mum is more end of the Second World War. On his But the breakthrough didn’t come influenced by books. What’s wonderful mother’s side there is Irish blood. This until he was 28, when BBC Three hired about a good book is the deep human- might help explain his prowess with him to write Him & Her, the flat-sharing ity and the care for everyone in the words. sitcom that centred on the amorous book and the love of the narrative for After writing and performing with adventures of twentysomethings the characters and the understanding the Footlights at Cambridge (he read Becky and Steve. of them. That’s what I wanted to English at Churchill College) and doing The show got some rave reviews. achieve.” n

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 15 A watershed in online regulation?

n May 2018, the Government to, in public at least. Facebook’s Mark announced that, later that year, Policy Zuckerberg told Congress in April 2018 it would publish a white paper that he would welcome regulation, but “that will cover the full range of with the rider that it had to be the right online harms”. In September Stewart Purvis regulation. 2018, with no publication date welcomes the The public debate about what the yetI in sight, the Financial Times reported right regulation for the UK is has been that ministers were grappling with how recent white paper mostly about the possibility of unin- to force technology companies to take tended consequences. Comparisons more responsibility for online content. on online harm but with North Korean-style censorship Government intervention was said warns of unintended have been littered around rather care- to be part of an international trend. lessly, but the Society of Editors (SoE) Germany had introduced fines for plat- consequences has correctly focused on the potential forms that failed to remove hate speech weak spot in the Government’s ideas. within 24 hours, but the UK would be publication, after what the white paper “Where the white paper moves into the first in Europe to go further. calls “a co-ordinated cross-platform areas concerning the spread of misin- A joint letter, signed by the heads of effort to generate maximum reach of formation – so called fake news – we the BBC, Sky, ITV, Channel 4 and BT, footage of the attack” on mosques in should all be concerned,” says the SoE had argued for independent regulatory New Zealand, when the gunman live- and asks: “Who will decide what is oversight of content posted on social streamed his shooting on Facebook Live. fake news?” media platforms. However, the FT The document is full of good reasons In his reply, the DCMS Secretary of reported that “Stewart Purvis, a former why something has to be done. No State, Jeremy Wright, accepted that the Ofcom official, said he has yet to see a fewer than 23 “online harms in scope” breadth of the proposals means that workable proposal for increasing over- are listed. Child exploitation and dis- they will affect “organisations of all sight of social media companies”. tributing terrorist content top the list. sizes, including social media platforms, A year on, we finally have the white But many of the harms on the list file-hosting sites, public discussion paper and I, for one, think the time has are already illegal and no new offences forums, messaging services and been well spent by the DCMS and are created. Specifically, as Paul Her- search engines”. Home Office on proposals that could bert of Goodman Derrick has pointed But, seeking to reassure the older indeed be workable. But the focus has out, the Government has decided media, he said, “Journalistic or editorial now shifted to whether their plan will against creating any new offences content will not be affected by the have unintended consequences that for hosting illegal or harmful content, regulatory framework.” will limit freedom of speech. which he says would have been a The proposed new independent The 98-page white paper “Online “radical challenge”. No bloggers will go regulator “will not be responsible for harms” goes further than any previous to jail unless it is for something that is policing truth and accuracy online”. British administration has dared to already illegal. Where services are “already well tread. That “this is a complex and Instead, the white paper targets ­regulated”, by bodies such as the press novel area for public policy” is an ele- companies such as Facebook, Snap- self-regulators Ipso and Impress, gant understatement. chat and YouTube, which allow users Wright has said “we will not duplicate Politicians who once seemed in awe to share or discover user-generated those efforts”. of the tech companies now threaten to content or interact with each other In Whitehall’s mind, the news world “disrupt the business activities of a non- online. They would have a new statu- seems to divide between the “real compliant company”, even one based tory duty of care to take more respon- journalism” that comes from what we outside the UK. sibility for the safety of their users and used to call Fleet Street and the “fake The global giants could be fined or tackle harm caused by content or journalism” emanating from the Inter- banned and their directors held crimi- activity on their services. net Research Agency of 55 Savushkina nally liable. The days when the tech A new independent regulator, mostly Street, St Petersburg. giants could say they were “mere con- funded by industry, would enforce it. If only life was so simple. The world duits” for the material they distributed This approach has been generally wel- has moved on from the days when seem long gone. comed. The tech companies are no only journalists did journalism. In the The political momentum for change longer pushing back against new legal white paper there are moments when became unstoppable the month before obligations as forcefully as they used you wonder if the drafters understand

16 Shutterstock how journalists and non-journalists in making the expected “difficult alike use social media to distribute ‘THIS IS A judgement calls”. news and opinion, and how comment Ian Murray, executive director of the sections on sites can be as important COMPLEX AND SoE, says he welcomed the reassurance as the original “journalistic” article. NOVEL AREA FOR from the DCMS, “but we must be For an example of the simplistic PUBLIC POLICY’ ever-vigilant of the laws of unintended approach, take paragraph 4 of the sec- consequences and what some politi- tion of the white paper’s executive cians or a future government may do to summary headed “The problem”. It use online-harms legislation to restrict says: “Social media platforms use algo- year’s recommendation from the oth- freedom of speech”. rithms, which can lead to ‘echo cham- erwise well-informed DCMS Commit- There is now a consultation period bers’ or ‘filter bubbles’, where a user is tee that the Government should use until 1 July, and vigilance will, indeed, presented with only one type of con- the Ofcom rules on impartiality to set be needed to ensure that, when legis- tent instead of seeing a range of voices standards for online content. lation is finally presented to Parliament, and opinions. This can promote disin- To offset any concerns about possi- the unintended, the unanticipated and formation by ensuring that users do ble government restrictions on “free- the unforeseen do not flow from what not see rebuttals or other sources that dom of expression online” and “a free, is otherwise a sensible, practical and may disagree.” open and secure internet”, there are important law. n What about the thousands of single-­ reassurances in the white paper that minded and occasionally bloody- seek to go beyond fine words. Stewart Purvis was Ofcom partner for minded partisan voices offering The independent regulator – either content and standards 2007-10. During independent commentary that are an Ofcom or a new body – will be told that time, he chaired the Digital Britain essential part of the internet. They do to focus on protecting users from the Media Literacy Working Party and was a not seek to offer a balanced view of most harmful content, “not judging member of the Government’s UK Council the world and readers would not what is true or not”. If the regulator is for Child Internet Safety. He is now a expect a right to reply. This paragraph to be Ofcom, we can be sure its experi- non-executive director of Channel 4 almost sounds like an echo from last ence in broadcasting will be valuable and writes here in a personal capacity.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 17 A blaze of red lipstick

eth Rigby is the stand- Secretary the day before. It was local out political broadcaster The Billen profile election day and Rigby should have of our times. This is been chilling before a long night of despite the former print results coverage, but her editor wanted journalist having been Andrew Billen meets her to chase him. She was mortified by on our screens for only Sky’s new political her no-show. I understood entirely. threeB years. No one asks the acute, And, although she did not persuade no-nonsense yet empathetic questions editor, Beth Rigby, Williamson to go on air, she did find like the new political editor of Sky him. Their conversation resulted in News. And no one does it in her accent. whose demotic style is one of the more unusual enquiries She drops so many Gs that Rigby lighting up Westminster Theresa May faced the following day. dreads party conferences in Birmin’ham. “Passing on”, she said, a question from We worked together on the Times, Williamson, she asked if the PM would where she was a scoop-winning media really bright, sharp coats, and I, appar- be giving him a copy of the Huawei editor – and when I saw her first steps ently, have my red lipstick. Actually, I leak report that resulted in his exit. In on Sky News I knew, as her bosses used to wear bright lipstick all the time fact, she asked three times. May three obviously did, that a star had been born. but in a number of different colours. times failed to reply. She stands out visually, too. Accom- There was orange and purple, whereas Later that black Friday, she and May panying her jet black hair and pale face, now it’s just red. It’s actually really were in Aberdeen at a Scottish Conserv- her blazing red lipstick is as potent an helped. It gives you a signifier.” ative conference. Rigby had another emblem of showbiz-­meets-seriousness We are in the café in the basement question that you can’t imagine her as Robin Day’s scarlet bow tie. of 4 Millbank, from where Sky, like the rivals phrasing in quite the same way. “You try,” she explains, “to have BBC, runs its Westminster operation. It May had lost her defence secretary and something that makes you distinguish- is our second attempt at a rendezvous. now 1,300 local councillors: “Are you able from other people. So Nick Robin- The first, in an Islington brasserie not feelin’ a bit upset?” It was colloquial, son had his glasses and Andy Marr has far from her home, was thwarted by compassionate and also, somehow, his ears and Laura Kuenssberg has her Gavin Williamson’s firing as Defence funny.

18 She says she thinks very hard about while on its foreign desk while doing how to frame questions that will elicit an MA in Latin American studies at something from the PM other than a London University. Beth Rigby in hot pursuit stock response from her mental “Rolo- “I kind of got that out of my system. dex”. “The best question I ever asked I realised I could not write 100- her, the one that got the best page dissertations as a job,” she answer, was at the conference recalls. Thirteen years with the celebrating the 100-year anni- FT followed, initially report- versary of the women’s vote. I ing on hedge funds. She threw her an underarm ball entered the lobby in 2010 and I said, ‘What advice as the paper’s chief politi- would you give to your cal correspondent. younger self?’ And she gave Back then, there were

this really expansive Sky only two women journal- answer and, at the end of it, ists of her seniority in the there was this sort of spon- lobby. “You look now, taneous round of applause nine years later, and because she’d answered it as you’ve got Heather Stewart a woman with emotion and at the Guardian, you’ve got feeling. It cut through.” Pippa Crear at the Mirror, Yet this is also the woman you’ve got me and Laura who, in January, buttonholed on TV.” Boris Johnson after a late-evening Her former politics boss at Sky, Brexit vote and told him – after “a Esme Wren, is now editor of reality check” landed on her phone Newsnight. “And introduced an all- about Europe’s unwillingness to rene- women line-up of presenters. It’s gotiate the Northern Ireland backstop she mourns the loss of that close changing.” That said, this former wom- – that his “lot” were “deluded”. “It’s friendship. Then, in 2016, her older en’s officer at university is a member not happening. It’s not happening,” she brother, Alex, died of thymic carci- of the lobby’s woman’s group at West- told him. Boris blanched. noma at the age she is now, 42. minster, run by Kuenssberg. She addresses us, the viewer, with “That was awful. Well, it still is, “Television is a bit different from similar plain speaking. She has a first because we’re all still living through print. In print, men can be 80% of your from Cambridge, so knows the art of that. They had just had a little baby, his correspondents. Who cares? No one. precis, but still she will ring her father second child, and I know that makes it But on television, we’re all jigsaw in Norfolk to check that he, and his even more tragic but, actually, the fact pieces that fit into a brand.”

Sky “mates at the Feathers, who all watch that she was there and was a tiny baby In 2015, when she sought to widen Sky”, got the point she was making. meant we all just had to get on with it.” her press experience by defecting to “We get so [tangled up] in the weeds of He had been diagnosed in the April the Times, she told her husband, the incremental developments in West- and died in August. She remembers Angelo, that her media beat would be minster that what the viewer needs me speaking to him at the end of a long, full-on. (Indeed it was, as it included to do is say, ‘There’s loads of noise but exciting Sky News day, reporting on breaking Robert Peston’s defection to I’m going to zoom out and tell you Boris Johnson’s withdrawal from the ITV, the Kids Company scandal, and three things you need to know’.” Tory leadership race. The news from the freedom of information wrangle She is amazed by the Prime Minis- Alex was bleak: the chemo had not with the Government.) A graphic ter’s stamina, but some are amazed at worked. “I don’t know. It gives you a designer whom she met at a northern hers. Like Kuenssberg, she works different perspective. Nothing is that big soul night, Angelo is 18 years her sen- Mondays to Thursdays, but these are a deal. And you’ve got to just go for it.” ior and was by then a freelancer and 12-hour days. They start with a bus She was born in Essex but brought less in love with his career. journey to Westminster, during which up in Buckinghamshire. Her father “I said, ‘I’ve got to make a bit of an she tackles her domestic admin, and, was a businessman, whose own father impression and I’m going to have to as I have witnessed, politics may not was a plumber. throw myself into it. So, if you don’t always conclude on a Thursday night She excelled at Beaconsfield High mind not working, that would be eas- after a two-way on Sky News at Ten. School, where she debated and danced ier for me.’ And he was like, ‘That’s A minister recently told her that he (perhaps early indications of an incli- fine.’” So, while she does the school was taking Diazepam because anxiety nation to perform). Winning a place at run in the mornings and tries never to was stopping him sleeping. Cambridge, she studied social and miss a parents’ evening, much of the Does she ever lose sleep over Brexit? political science. daily burden of bringing up their nine- “No. I never lose sleep over it. Honestly, She considered training as a barris- year-old son and seven-year-old I mean, the only time I didn’t sleep was ter, entering politics (perhaps in a daughter falls to him. when I lost my mum, and when I was think tank) or a career as an aca- The approach to join Sky as senior really heavily pregnant with my second demic.… “And then there was journal- political correspondent came from child. I had insomnia. That was awful. “ ism.” In the end, she plumped for it, Wren and led to a meeting with head Her mother, a headteacher, died of although, as a trainee on the Financial of Sky News John Ryley. “It was hard, lung cancer, aged 62, 12 years ago, and Times, she worked part-time for a because I hadn’t been at the Times for �

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 19 Beth’s bio

Beth Rigby, political editor of Sky News

Age 42. Lives in Stoke Newington, north-east London. Married To former graphic designer Angelo; one son, one daughter,

Sky both at a local primary school Born Essex, daughter of a busi- � very long and I was genuinely given me great counsel and gives me nessman father and headteacher enjoying it, but I thought, ‘Yes, I am loads of advice. We talk about stories mother coming over.’” and he gives me ideas and he phones Grew up Buckinghamshire At first, viewers reacted mainly to me up with things he’s heard.” Education: Beaconsfield High her accent. “Some people thought I There is no doubt, however, that School, Cambridge University, first was putting it on. Some people didn’t Rigby is a break from the usual model in social and political science; MA think I should be on television if I of public schoolboy political editors from Centre for Latin American couldn’t talk properly. I was really (Boulton’s alma mater echoed to the Studies, London University upset. I remember someone in Par- chimes of Big Ben). Confronted by her liament, who I knew, went, “You’re questions, Westminster’s prevarica- 1998 Joins the Financial Times as really right for telly, but can you just tors and wafflers, euphemisers and a trainee stop dropping your Gs?” half-truth tellers, sound even more 2001 Hedge fund correspondent “I did talk to Jonathon Levy [Sky’s out of touch. 2004 Retail correspondent head of newsgathering and operations] Their hegemony, she believes, is on 2008 Consumer industries editor about it because I was upset, and he the wane: “You’re seeing a pattern 2010 Chief political correspondent asked, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ now, where people are cutting 2012 Deputy political editor And I said, ‘I don’t know, really’” through because they are authentic, if 2014 Moves to the Times as In the end, she did nothing and you like. Some go on television with media editor declined media training. These days, the lines to take – ‘Here’s your brief- 2016 Joins Sky News as senior she reads three words of a hostile ing note, off you go’ – and they make political editor tweet and mutes the tweeter. “But no impact whatsoever. Then, you 2018 Deputy political editor one person said, ‘You need electrocu- have a group of politicians who don’t 2019 Succeeds Faisal Islam as Sky tion lessons’, which I found absolutely quite do that. And it doesn’t mean political editor hilarious. I re-tweeted that one.” being really disloyal to the leadership, Once she reaches Millbank, her first it just means that you are trying to be Watching no time for box sets but appearance of the day is usually on All genuine and answer questions. follows Game of Thrones Out Politics, anchored by Adam Boulton, “Jess Phillips does that. Lisa Nandy Reading: Another casualty of who did 25 years as Sky’s first politi- does that. She is not disloyal to Jeremy work, but read War and Peace on cal editor. Last year, during the Tory Corbyn, but she will say what she holiday: ‘It was great.’ conference, a video was leaked of thinks – and she makes people think. Relaxing: ‘I run down the paths Boulton swearing at her off-air (“Sit Anna Soubry did it for the Conserva- along the river Lea and its canals down there. Stop f***ing around.”). He tive side. I think Johnny Mercer does near my home.’ later apologised, but I wonder how it. Tom Tugendhat does it to an extent. Mentor: ‘My mum, Edith, who was relations are now. She says it was all a I think Jacob Rees-Mogg does it.” a head teacher and a wonderful bit of miscommunication. And on politics’s other side, Beth person. She was my mentor and “Actually, he has been really sup- Rigby does it, too. She stands out and my hero.’ portive and really good to me and has she cuts through. n

20 OUR FRIEND IN BELFAST

A-list movie stars drink in the city’s bars and its content

o Game of Thrones is sector is buzzing. have been talk regarding a lack of coming to an end and Kieran Doherty talent in Northern Ireland. Not any the world is quite right- more. No one questions our ability ly in mourning. But I’m hails the Game of to get the job done. not. Not just because And people only have to visit here I’m the only person in Thrones legacy for a few days to fall in love with the Belfast who hasn’t seen place. It takes a while for Londoners a single episode, or the only person to get used to random taxi drivers Sin Belfast who hasn’t been an extra talking to them. Or random people in in an episode. the shops talking to them. But because it means the amazing Or just people in general talking to crew will finally be available for other them. We’re a very friendly place. work. That will be the enduring legacy Everyone knows everyone else. It’s of Game of Thrones and the hard work impossible to resist. You just have to of everyone at NIScreen. embrace it. Northern Ireland now sits among We used to be considered a centre the greats when it comes to world- of excellence for documentaries, due class talent. And they’re not just in no small part to our own particular renowned for being the best in the history. Now, it’s documentaries and business, they’re also renowned for high-end drama. That’s quite a thing, being the nicest, which, when you considering how small we are, consider the business we are in, is geographically.­ quite the achievement! There may not be that many of us

The biggest achievement in my Media Stellify but we punch above our weight. I say mind, however, is tangential. Con- “we”. My side of the business isn’t vincing people to come to Belfast to There’s a real sense of positivity. For docs or high-end drama, it’s formats. make a show got an awful lot easier crying out loud, there are A-List movie When Game of Thrones came to North- once Game of Thrones arrived. stars drinking in the Cathedral Quarter. ern Ireland it transformed the drama There’s no underplaying the effects Actual movie stars! genre. We haven’t yet had the equiva- Game of Thrones had on the Northern That’s not to say everything is rosy lent long-running super successful Ireland production sector. Countless in the garden. It’s still ridiculously dif- format from Northern Ireland. articles have been written by people ficult to land the big commissions. But Only time will tell if we managed it far smarter than me outlining the they’re difficult to land because they’re with Flinch. But, either way, we know many economic benefits. big, not because we can’t deliver them. someone from here will come up with I can only speak for my own expe- When we were commissioned by it, eventually. That’s the Game of rience. Everything is better now. Netflix last year to make Flinch, it did Thrones effect. n Everything. And I don’t just mean not flinch at the idea of making it in we’re getting more work. There’s an Northern Ireland. That’s the Game of Kieran Doherty is Joint Managing Director energy here that didn’t exist before. Thrones effect. Beforehand, there may of Belfast-based Stellify Media.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 21 The Beeb bets big on UKTV

ontestants on UKTV after TUPE [Transfer of Undertakings channel Dave’s hit show BBC rules that protect employees] and Taskmaster have to think things like that have happened.” laterally and creatively With the loss of the Good Food, as a series of challenges Tara Conlan asks who Home and Really channels to Discov- are thrown at them. is likely to gain most ery, analysis by Enders predicts that Much like the BBC had to in 2017 when “UKTV’s portfolio will drop from 9.5% Discovery’sC acquisition of UKTV’s from the BBC’s record- of total UK adult commercial impacts to co-owner Scripps triggered a clause breaking purchase of 7.5% (based on 2018 data) if all else that gave BBC Studios the option to buy remains equal, thereby shrinking in size out Discovery. The problem was that it Discovery’s stake by 21%. There will be few, if any, reper- lacked the cash to do so. cussions in the TV advertising market.” To add to the BBC’s dilemma, the in UKTV Enders senior TV research analyst clause also gave Discovery the chance Tom Harrington says the “channels to buy the corporation out of UKTV. And what effect will the deal have on split makes sense. The bigger question Potentially, this would have affected BritBox, the BBC’s “best of British con- is how it works for the BBC in terms of the British media ecology – and the tent” streaming joint venture with ITV? content flow. UKTV likes to make a big programme licence agreement BBC After humble beginnings as a Gold point about the success of its original Studios (BBCS) has with UKTV. service based on BBC and ITV hits, shows. It’s true they have been suc- The agreement that commits the UKTV has come a long way. Under its cessful, but the backbone is still the multichannel broadcaster to take a last CEO, Darren Childs, the company archival content. How much of the certain number of BBC shows is nego- moved successfully into adventurous, stuff will be going on BritBox? tiated every couple of years and is original commissions. Among the most “UKTV currently has a content worth around £50m. A Discovery-­ notable are Taskmaster, PR drama Flack agreement where the BBC can with- owned UKTV would probably have and the forthcoming Martin Compston hold certain things, such as Doctor Who, driven a harder bargain. drama Traces, which will air on Alibi. and can sell them to other parties. With all that to overcome, negotia- BBCS should take full control of UKTV can’t select that. [If] it adds more tions between the BBC and Discovery UKTV by the beginning of June. The to what UKTV can’t select, that could were lengthy. They included failed company’s 270 or so staff, based in weaken the channels. BBC Studios also attempts to stage a buyout with ITV West London and a small outpost in has a new box-set deal with Sky. or Channel 4. Leeds, are wondering what the effects “It’s confusing. There are different A deal was finally announced in will be. The transaction includes the factions [within the BBC group] who March – the biggest commercial acqui- high-tech HQ in Hammersmith. Will have competing interests. You have sition in the BBC’s history – which they will be moving into BBC Studios’ iPlayer, too, [which is] trying to put on gives BBCS full control of UKTV, home and are job cuts inevitable? more box sets and make them availa- although three of UKTV’s 10 free-to-air Some insiders say that, in time, some ble for longer. and pay channels go to Discovery: Good back-office jobs will go. As one source “How does that work with BritBox? Food, Home and Really. Discovery also with knowledge of the deal puts it: It all plays into what the future of gets payments totalling £173m and “There will probably be a reorganisation UKTV is going to look like.” content partnerships. He adds: “Legacy media businesses These include an exclusive, 10-year have to straddle digital and terrestrial deal for natural history rights to con- at the same time. That’s difficult. Then, tent such as Blue Planet outside of the ‘THE TAKEOVER you have pay-TV and free. It’s not a UK, Ireland and China for Discovery’s COMES AMID A criticism: they have to work in differ- new streaming service. ent areas and you get these… twisted So what does this mean for the TUSSLE BETWEEN knots of strategies that don’t work future of UKTV? Will it become for the INDIES AND together.” BBC, as one analyst warned, “another UKTV spends £150m a year on con- Lonely Planet”, or will it help the BBC THE BBC OVER tent. The budget is fluid between com- win the game of rights it is playing SECONDARY missions and acquisitions. Concerns against Netflix and Amazon and the were raised by independent producers, independent production community? RIGHTS’ including Avalon and Hat Trick

22 being channelled into buying out Discovery?” The BBC argues that it needs more control over rights – which is boosted by owning UKTV – to assist in its fight against the streamers. But one pro- gramme-maker retorts that this risks a “fire sale overnight” if “producers can’t utilise the secondary rights window”. BBC sources suggest that UKTV’s commissioning budgets will rise. They point out that BBCS has not used licence-fee funds but instead deployed its existing borrowing facility to fund the acquisition. They insist that the requirement to fund free licences for the over-75s and implement cuts worth £800m at the same time as the global tech giants are pushing up programme-making costs means the corporation has to do something to secure its future. However, some observers question why the BBC is buying a bigger stake in the linear-TV market at a time when streaming is eating away at it. They argue that Discovery has come out best from the deal, with a 10-year SVoD arrangement and a programming supply agreement thought to be worth around £300m over that period. The US company also gets hundreds of hours of BBC factual archive content. For the corporation, there is a co-funding development team at BBCS to make factual content for Discovery. This may make up some of the shortfall as Amazon and Netflix have become more selective about co-productions. Having been co-owned by a US company and BBCS has not been without some bumps along the way for UKTV. So it is possible that the takeover may bring UKTV some strate- gic stability. During 2016, five directors of the parent company, UKTV Media W show Emma Willis: Delivering Babies

UKTV Holdings, resigned. One of those was Marcus Arthur, BBCS President of UK, (makers of Taskmaster and the new market. This was prompted by the BBC Ireland, Australia and New Zealand Dave hit Hypothetical, respectively), that asking Ofcom to allow iPlayer to keep – who is the new CEO of UKTV and commissions from independents in shows for up to 12 months so that it also sits on the board of BBCS. which BBCS has a stake might be can compete effectively with Netflix That has raised eyebrows about a prioritised. and Amazon. potential conflict of interest. A significant proportion of the At the time, the BBC argued that Arthur is not yet in post but tells £250m or so that BBCS returns to the UKTV Play was an iPlayer rival. How Television: “I’m really excited about BBC public service wing of the corporation those services will work together under Studios’ future with UKTV. Its success comes from UKTV dividends. Insiders the new regime is anybody’s guess. has been built on innovative original say that it is keen to continue this by There are other worries from the commissioning and brilliant BBC shows. commissioning from across the inde- content sector. One producer says: It’s jam-packed with talent and bright pendent sector and not only from “Our big concern is that we’re seeing a ideas. The fact that we are securing its those companies it part owns. lot of activity around the commercial future is great news for audiences and But the takeover comes amid a tus- side of the BBC at a time when the programme-makers alike.” sle between independent producers budgets for public service broadcasting Let’s hope that this optimism turns and the BBC over the secondary rights are being squeezed [so]… why is money out to be well founded. n

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 23 When laughter tops the menu

Sliced UKTV

ver the past few idea [for a series) and I came up with years, UKTV channel Comedy Sliced because I’ve lived that life. We Dave has notched up kept it very authentic to south-east an impressive series London, not making it look dangerous of hits with home- Matthew Bell enjoys a and scary, but showing its light side.” grown comedies piece of Sliced, Dave’s Phil Bowker is steeped in comedy as suchO as Taskmaster and Dave Gorman: a producer (Ruddy Hell! It’s Harry and Paul Modern Life is Goodish. new pizza-delivery and Pulling) and, latterly, as a writer Now it has high hopes for Sliced, a (PhoneShop and The Javone Prince Show). sitcom based on Samson Kayo’s crazy sitcom, at an RTS “Samson would come to my house experiences as a South London pizza Futures event and I’d cook for him – I was like his delivery driver, launched this month. nan,” said Bowker, a Liverpudlian and Kayo, who made his name in Time- 20 years older than Kayo. “It was a wasters and Famalam, stars with White behind the show. “I’ve been doing lovely experience. We’d just chat and Gold’s Theo Barklem-Biggs as hapless comedy for quite a while and I’d never he’d tell me mad things. We’d then go drivers Joshua and Ricky. They deliver seen [lives like mine] depicted on telly away and write a draft [script] and pizza to their larger-than-life custom- [until] I saw Michaela Coel’s Chewing work on it.” ers on the estates of Peckham. Kayo Gum. It inspired me to tell my own When UKTV director of commis- wrote the three-part series with the story,” said Kayo. sioning Richard Watsham saw the show’s producer, Phil Bowker. The actor had worked on The Javone eight-minute taster tape for what Kayo, Bowker and Barklem-Biggs Prince Show with Bowker, who encour- would become Sliced, he was bowled were part of a panel at an RTS Futures aged him to write material. “He taught over. “It was unlike anything else we event in early May, which screened the me how to write. I had loads of ideas, were getting sent,” he said. “It really first episode of Sliced, followed by a but I didn’t know about structure,” said stood out. First, because it was really discussion with some of the talent Kayo. “Phil asked me to think of an funny, and – not just because you’re

24 sitting here – we thought you [Kayo] were quite good. Joshua is the most loveable character.” Sliced features newcomers, up- Assistance for new talent and-coming actors such as Theo ­Barklem-Biggs and Weruche Opia, UKTV and Film London’s Equal Access David Mumeni, who plays pizza take- and the seasoned star of Quadrophenia, Network have launched the All Voices away manager Mario in Sliced, founded Phil Daniels. initiative to boost the employment of Open Door, which helps young people “We’re looking for raw talent. If under-represented groups in the TV who lack financial support gain a place you’re right for a role, you’re right – it industry. For up to 12 months, those at the UK’s leading drama schools. doesn’t matter where you come from,” selected for the scheme – from new ‘We offer one-to-one tuition with said casting director Sally Broome, entrants to mid-level professionals to actors or directors who, perhaps, are who worked on PhoneShop and The returners to the industry – will from a similar background,’ he Javone Prince Show. She offered Wesley work in paid roles on UKTV explained. ‘They get work- Bozonga his first TV role as an angry original productions, shops, working with teenager in Sliced. helping them to movement directors Barklem-Biggs enjoyed working increase their expe- such as Polly Ben- with new talent on the sitcom. “It rience and build nett, who helped keeps things fresh and they always contacts in TV. Rami Malek win bring something a bit more interesting, ‘We weren’t an Oscar for which I envy in a way. But [Wesley] doing enough playing Freddie was also like a pro because he was at UKTV to get a Mercury; they get

ad-libbing. He was on it – I remember mixture of differ- into the theatre for Hampartsoumian Paul being quite blown away.” ent people making free; and there’s a Even for established talent, acting shows,’ admitted hardship fund.’ can be a precarious profession. “I’ve director of commission- Weruche Opia He continued: ‘[We’re] known Samson for eight years and he ing Richard Watsham. ‘At levelling the playing field, had me in mind for [the role of Ricky), the end of their 12 months [on the [helping people] to catch up on which was flattering. I’m very grateful scheme], people will, hopefully, have cultural experience.’ Open Door aims to for that, because it meant I didn’t have three or four things on their CVs, which build confidence ‘so, when they enter to audition. It had been a hard year – I then gives them a decent opportunity those [audition] rooms, they feel that was doing unskilled labouring, getting to get work elsewhere.’ they deserve to be there’. all the worst jobs on a construction site,” recalled Barklem-Biggs. Weruche Opia (Bad Education and Inside No 9), who plays pizza worker Naomi in Sliced, had been working on How they started… and kept at it the stage. When the play’s run finished, she struggled to land a new job. “I was Theo Barklem-Biggs went to the Brit and KFC: ‘That was the first time I’d auditioning like crazy and getting School from the age of 14: ‘At 18, I got been in the realm of actors – from that really close to stuff,” she recalled. an agent, after doing a showcase, and I moment on I knew this was what I “That’s the reality of [acting] – there got a recall for The Bill. I decided not to wanted to do.’ are peaks and there are really dark go on a lads’ holiday to Benicàssim and times. Persistence is key. it paid off – I got [the role].’ David Mumeni studied at the Drama “As actors, we base our worth on Centre London: ‘I wasn’t one of those getting work but… there are lots of ele- Phil Bowker performed stand-up as a actors who just [took off] but, slowly, ments that go into casting, so not getting teenager before training as a comedy slowly, [it happened].’ a role doesn’t mean you aren’t good.” producer for BBC Radio: ‘It was full of Sometimes, however, everything Oxbridge people – they were so super- Weruche Opia studied drama at the clicks. “I read the script and thought smart, but then you get over that and University of the West of England and it was hilarious,” said Opia. “Phil left realise… you can make people laugh.’ then at the Identity School of Acting: after Weruche’s audition,” recalled ‘There’s been ups and downs since Kayo. “He said, ‘Right, that’s [Naomi Sally Broome started as a receptionist then – it’s not been plain sailing.’ cast], I’m off.’” n at a casting studio, met a casting direc- tor and did her apprenticeship with her: Richard Watsham began as a runner The RTS Futures event ‘Sliced: screening ‘I worked with Armando Iannucci, Steve and ‘people were just shouting in my and Q&A’, was held at the London Trans- Coogan and other comedy greats.’ face all day long’. He persisted on the port Museum on 8 May. It was produced theory that, ‘If I do enough shit jobs for by Ali Laurie and Gem Pinkney, and Samson Kayo made his debut in Aml long enough, eventually, other people chaired by Sam Homewood from Love Ameen’s 2011 short film Drink, Drugs will have given up on telly.’ Island Aftersun.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 25 t her very first World in Action meeting as a young researcher, Dorothy Byrne experi­ enced a feeling she couldn’t quite put her fingerA on. Until she realised that it was “the feeling I got if I accidentally wan­ dered into the gents’ toilets – I shouldn’t be here!” Being a rare woman in a man’s world in the early 1980s didn’t deter her, however, and Byrne has now worked in investigative broadcast journalism for nigh on four decades. News and current affairs supremo at Channel 4 for the past 16 years, she started out at ITV as a producer on World in Action and The Big Story, moving to Channel 4 in 1998. Films commis­ sioned by Byrne have won numerous Emmys, Baftas and RTS awards, and last year at the RTS Television Journal­ ism Awards she received the Outstand­ ing Contribution Award. Blunt, entertaining and impassioned, Byrne discussed some of the challenges she’s met head on – and those still to be fought – at an RTS North West event in late April. She started her career as she meant to go on. Byrne’s idea for her first World in Action was dismissed “by one senior man, [who] told her that marital rape wasn’t a story”. Another suggested that it was a subject “more suited to morn­ ing TV”. And a third said: “You can only make it if there is corroboration from other witnesses and medical evidence.” So Byrne pushed “for permission to ring a ‘real’ lawyer, not a ‘fireside’ law­ yer” and, after he came out in her favour, she was allowed to go ahead. She has continued to fight for wom­ en’s issues to be given equal weight and broadcast time. “People think that stories have to be a ‘news’ story’,” she Still shaking said, “but wickedness that’s been going on for decades is still wickedness, and we should expose it.” She added: “We hold power to account and, at our best, we investigate things up wickedness so it can no longer damage society and individuals. We should be really proud of what we do.” News and current affairs Byrne recently commissioned suc­ cessful films about breastfeeding and the formula milk scandal. “Individual women, particularly working-class Blunt and entertaining, Dorothy Byrne is clear women... get blamed for the fact that that more diversity is the key to outstanding they don’t breastfeed, but they don’t get the help and support they need. current affairs, reportsCarole Solazzo

26 And they’re still relentlessly flogged formula milk,” she said. A desire to increase the diversity of the voices heard on TV partly informs Byrne’s commitment to covering for­ eign stories, despite higher costs and lower audiences. To make programmes more economically, she often works with foreign organisations. “We’ve won Byrne on… Diversity in television a lot of awards for our foreign coverage, so, if we go to broadcasters in other ‘What shocked me, having come from department will move to Glasgow, and countries, they will often… come in Scotland and the North [Byrne was she plans to commission more pro- with us,” she said. born in Scotland and educated in grammes from Leeds and Manchester. And she is just as forward thinking Blackpool and Manchester] was [that] ‘Fifty per cent of all our output has to when it comes to using non-TV plat­ at Channel 4 everybody was so incred- be out of London. I’ve said to compa- forms. “The young woman who filmed ibly posh... loads of them had been to nies, “If you don’t move out of London, for us in a hospital in east Aleppo had Westminster School.’ I can’t commission you any more.”’ half a billion [Facebook] views in one Byrne believes strongly that ‘[get- To audience laughter, she added, ‘And year for the films that she made.” ting] working-class people in to TV is really move out of London. Not pretend Channel 4 also releases special cut- a major issue’, and she has set out to to move out of London to your holiday downs of Unreported World on social start redressing the balance with an home. What will [bring about] change is media network LadBible. The channel MA in investigative journalism at De pressure both from within the industry doesn’t make money from this part­ Montfort University, Leicester, devel- and from the public. There are a lot nership, but using the site gives it the oped by Channel 4, which takes half of more women [in TV] now. A lot of what potential of reaching many millions its students from diverse backgrounds. I’ve said tonight [happened] because of young viewers. On YouTube, Byrne She spoke about bringing more jobs women got positions of power. added, “our Unreported World channel to the North of England. ‘Channel 4 is ‘We changed [our] coverage of sub- is approaching 1 million subscribers”. moving 300 people to Leeds,’ she said. jects about women and society, and The news executive is passionate ‘We need a major rebalancing of where our whole way of looking at what a about reaching out to the next genera­ the jobs are and that will improve cov- story is. And we have an enormous job tion, both viewers and programme-­ erage. If the vast majority are living in to do that for all groups in our society. makers. After showing a clip of the Chiswick, you get a Chiswick view.’ Pressurising our broadcasters on a multi-award-winning documentary One of the four commissioners in her daily basis is absolutely essential.’ Syria: Children on the Frontline, she revealed that it had been the young photographer’s first full-length film. He had previously made two short Byrne on… Covering Brexit films in Aleppo for Channel 4 News. “I looked at them and thought, ‘He’s got ‘The issue about Brexit isn’t a remainer about saying our job isn’t just to fol- such an eye and such sensitivity, he versus a Brexiter attitude. It’s that we low other people’s agendas, it’s about

Channel 4 could make a whole film,’” she said. [all journalists]… spent too long saying, trying to identify... the really important Byrne brought ITN on board to pro­ “This is what one side says, this is what things that people need to know about. vide “an experienced producer and the other side says” in a desperate ‘[Hearing both sides out, then saying] executive producer to work with him. attempt to prove that we were duly what we’ve done is... investigated the What counts in journalism is the story, impartial.’ facts and found out these completely the idea, the access – you don’t need Being duly impartial ‘is a big part of different things, which neither [group] to have made 15 Storyvilles.” what we must be, but an even bigger is saying. It was our duty to seek out Turning to investigative journalism, part is telling people the truth. Brexit other truths that neither side wanted she noted that “a major trend is inter­ journalism [hasn’t been] daring enough to tell us.’ national teams of journalists working together to take on highly complex financial institutions. I see an appetite to take on much bigger international Byrne on… Getting your first break companies and it’s one of the reasons I feel very positive.” n ‘Be pushy. I went to 10 top people in Thomson was staying on holiday, and TV journalism... and got each of them walked up and down the beach... for ‘Dorothy Byrne: the future of investigative to nominate three young people who two or three hours until he found him. news journalism’ was an RTS North West they thought were successful,’ Byrne ‘He went up to Alex and said: “I really event held at the University of Salford on said. ‘[One] came from a normal want to be a journalist. Can I have some 29 April. It was hosted by Jim Hancock, background [in the North]. He found work experience on Channel 4 News?” former political editor of BBC North West, out where [chief correspondent] Alex ‘And that bloke is doing really well now.’ and produced by Rachel Pinkney.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 27 Can £57m reverse a decade of decline?

n March 2018, CBeebies pulled organisation Pact has campaigned on off a spectacular staging of Children’s TV the issue. The Tempest, a pacy version Ofcom’s 2018 report, “Children and that preserved all the best Parents: media use and attitudes”, “O brave new world” lines, A new fund, aimed which showed that children were while gripping its audience at reinvigorating moving en masse to the unregulated ofI under-sevens. YouTube, also made a big impact. They rippled with spontaneous kids’ TV, launched in The Government’s latest response laughter as Caliban and Trinculo, the is the new Young Audiences Content comic jester, sparred. Then sat in April. Maggie Brown Fund (YACF), an initiative designed to hushed, wide-eyed amazement as investigates encourage the commercial PSBs – ITV, Ariel performed magic. Prospero was Channel 4 and Channel 5 – “back to played with solemnity by Patrick Rob- the table”, as well as bolstering S4C and inson, the Lamda- and Royal Shake- BBC Alba, and injecting variety into a speare Company-trained actor, best mix currently dominated by cartoons. known to millions for Casualty, who A pilot three-year scheme was helped transform The Tempest into a launched quietly on 1 April. A modest family television show appealing to staff of seven, divided between Man- both tots and grandparents. chester and Leeds, is headed by the He was balanced by Captain Swash- respected and energetic ex-BBC Chil- buckle, a CBeebies entertainment char- Young Audience dren’s executive Jackie Edwards, who acter, acting as William Shakespeare’s Content Fund started work on 25 February. helper, and presenter Justin Fletcher. The fund will finance up to 50% of CBeebies had worked its passage each qualifying project, provided it has towards this triumph with A Midsummer Four objectives and… secured a free to-air broadcast com- Night’s Dream two years previously. It n Supports the creation of mission. Promising a 12-week adopted the slogan, “CBeebies loves high-quality content for audiences response to applications, YACF is run Shakespeare”, and demonstrated that up to age 18 under the aegis of the BFI, with deputy public service broadcasting can enthral n Contributes to funding pro- chief executive Ben Roberts taking a very young audiences on modest grammes shown on TV and online close interest. funding. platforms that have public service The controversial part is the fund’s This helps to explain why the RTS values source: £57m of licence-fee money Programme Awards recently named n Supports content that reflects diverted from the BBC’s 2006 settlement CBeebies Channel of the Year. the experiences of children and for digital switchover (plus £3m for Despite this celebration of CBeebies’ young people growing up in the UK audio). This “top slicing” to fund chil- good works, there has been a 40% today dren’s television initially raised hackles: decline in original British children’s n Covers entertainment, educa- The Voice of the Listener & Viewer said programming over the past decade. tion, factual, fiction and drama, it was “not a very good idea”. The BBC The malaise has been spreading since arts, culture and religion remains tight-lipped on the develop- 2003, after transmission quotas were ment. Disney declines to comment. removed, and restrictions on the … four criteria for funding Anna Home, Chair of the Children’s advertising of fizzy sugary drinks and n Informs our understanding of Media Foundation, which fruitlessly junk food in 2006 hit funding for com- the world campaigned for a subsidy solution that mercial PSBs. This was compounded n Stimulates knowledge and did not “rob Peter to pay Paul”, is by the 2008 recession. learning keeping a watchful eye on the YACF More recently, however, the Govern- n Reflects the UK’s cultural identity stakeholder committee. “The broad- ment has rallied to the children’s TV n Represents diversity and alter- casters have stepped up, the will is cause: tax breaks for children’s pro- native viewpoints there to make it happen, give it a go. It grammes were introduced in 2014; is good for the BBC to have some com- Ofcom was handed new powers to For more information petition,” she said. impose mandatory quotas on com- https://bit.ly/2JGyNkx Successive culture secretaries, mercial PSBs in 2017; and the producers’ including John Whittingdale and Karen

28 Channel 4 and Channel 5. Any content that receives funding needs to be easily found in the broadcasters’ linear sched- ules and VoD sites. “Netflix doesn’t need this money,” Edwards points out. She expects a “quite good even spread of spending across the age groups, up to 18. There is a lot of interest in different genres”. YACF does not expect to own intel- lectual property. The attached broad- caster will be expected to buy a licence from the producer. At a first public discussion on 11 April, Paul Mortimer, the head of ITV digital channels, including CITV, noted that the channel “had not had drama for some time and maybe it could get back to some. We have one project with [the fund] and we have more ideas going forward. The door to me is open”. At the same event, Sarah Lazenby, Channel 4’s head of features and for- mats, said that it would be “nice to dig deeper” into its remit to cater for 16- to 18-year-olds. S4C’s children’s content commis- sioner, Sioned Wyn Roberts, hoped to obtain funding for a teen drama and/or a comedy for 6- to 12-year-olds, while BBC Alba commissioner Bill Macleod, argued that “there is a great gap in live action. This is a fantastic opportunity.” The broadcasters, meanwhile, are holding their cards close to their chests. Lime Pictures, which supplies Classic ITV kids series The Worst Witch

ITV Hollyoaks to Channel 4 and Free Rein to Netflix, says: “We are very much inter- Bradley, have backed the principle of The fund has been designed with ested and have already had positive a contestable children’s fund: Bradley deliberately flexible rules (see box). “As discussions with ITV and Channel 4.” ordered a consultation/policy paper on this is a pilot, we can change things,” The producer has a variety of pilots in the matter at the close of 2017, just noted Edwards. Five per cent has been development. before she left the job. set aside for new content in Welsh and Another player interested in shaping Margot James, minister for the digital Gaelic. Another 5% will be for develop- the YACF’s spending priorities is the and creative industries, said last June ing new talent. These projects don’t International Broadcasting Trust. In its that “more needs to be done to protect need to have a broadcaster attached, recent report “The challenge of chil- children from online harm”. The fund, and Edwards hopes to fish in the BFI’s dren’s television”, the organisation she said, was “just one part of a nationwide network for the latter. lamented the lack of access to truthful broader Government effort to stimu- YACF’s funds do not stretch to the programming for children about the late the children’s TV market”. creation of any new platforms. So wider world. Aside from the DCMS, political pres- winning the support of existing broad- Many questions remain. How will sure has been coming from the House casters has been crucial: the pilot’s the fund fit with the lengthy timescales of Lords. One of the leading figures here decisions will “inevitably be led by of television production, especially has been Floella Benjamin, a tireless broadcaster commissioners”, says for scripted shows? And is it too little, lobbyist for children’s TV. Edwards. A priority is making the big- too late? Of her decision to take on the project, gest impacts on audiences, and the Edwards, hoarse from explaining the Jackie Edwards, previously head of hope is to find breakthrough hits. pilot to callers by the time we talk, is in acquisitions and independent animation Eligibility for the cash depends on Blue Peter can-do mode. Her rallying at CBBC, says “It was no small decision a project receiving a commitment to cry is: “Let’s deliver something to be – I loved the BBC, but it was an irresisti- broadcast from an Ofcom-licensed and noticed.” She senses that there could ble opportunity. The decline over 10 free-to-air platform for the first trans- be life after the pilot, provided that the years was quite devastating. Here was mission. European-owned subsidiaries £57m challenge works. an opportunity to try and put it right can apply if they have UK operations. One thing, though: perhaps it needs in some ways, a new big bold idea.” But the scheme is openly aimed at ITV, a better name? n

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 29 RTS NEWS Conservatoire reaps awards

The Royal Conserva- Skills – Editing) and the Uni­ toire of Scotland versity of Stirling (Factual). enjoyed a successful “The judges were greatly

Scotland Centre night at RTS Scotland’s impressed by the high stan- Student Television Awards at dard and ambition of this the end of April. Students year’s submissions,” said from the Glasgow-based arts James Wilson, the Chair academy took home the of RTS Scotland’s Student Drama award for What Sepa- Television Awards. rates Us from the Beasts and The ceremony was hosted triumphed in four of the Craft by STV News entertainment Skills categories, including reporter Laura Boyd and by the new Writing prize, which comedy duo Link and Lorne was won by Robin Boreham at the Argyle Street Arches in for Incoming Tide. Glasgow. The University of Glasgow Simon Pitts, CEO of STV, entered the awards for the which sponsored the awards, first time and took the Short said: “It’s a hugely exciting Form prize for War Museum. time for Scotland’s creative The remaining awards were industries. By supporting won by Edinburgh College new talent we can ensure of Art (Animation), Glasgow that Scotland remains at the Clyde College (Comedy and forefront of creativity. University of Glasgow students won the Short Form award

Éva I Sibinszki, Éva Entertainment and Craft “Beyond tonight, my col- leagues at STV will offer RTS Scotland Student and Robin Boreham, Royal Conservatoire Craft Skills – Editing•The Last Sip• mentoring for the winners to Television Awards winners of Scotland Martin Waldie and Christy Kail, support their entry into this Factual•The Bad Guy•Cory Thomas, Laura Glasgow Clyde College vibrant industry.” Buchanan, Giulia Veronelli, Marco Di Gioia Animation•Cleaning in Progress•Grant Craft Skills – Production Design• All the films nominated for Holden, Edinburgh College of Art and Danny Flynn, University of Stirling Threnody•Paul Barrie, Royal Conserva- Comedy and Entertainment•Maroon Short Form•War Museum•Xavier Weiss, toire of Scotland the awards are available – as Kenneth Maguire, John Angelo Perdikou, JuEunhae Knox, Greig by Rob Auton• Craft Skills – Sound•Coalescence•Karo well as highlights from the Perivolaris and Katrina McDermott, King, Vincent Jozajtis, Alex Hodgson and Glasgow Clyde College Stephen Packe, University of Glasgow Pietilä, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland ceremony – on STV player Drama•What Separates Us from the Craft Skills – Camera•Coalescence• Craft Skills – Writing•Incoming Tide• (https://player.stv.tv/catego- Beasts•Edward Kondracki, Sedona May Johnstone Macpherson-Stewart, Royal Robin Boreham, Royal Conservatoire Tubbs, Kieran Howe, JP Pezet, John Dew Conservatoire of Scotland of Scotland ries/new-talent/). Matthew Bell

Talking to a packed their broadcast counterparts, RTS Thames Valley he said, adding that, because event at Henley Rugby Sport’s hi-tech future the internet model does not

Thames Valley Club in March, Richard “scale” to the same degree, Bagnall and Charles Balchin being enhanced by IT com- remote minicams and drones broadcast television produc- from global sports outfit IMG munication. As well as pro- have added significantly to tions offer a much richer revealed how technology is viding a fully uncompressed production values, although viewing experience. driving state-of-the-art tele- service to traditional broad- he warned that they could be Balchin spoke about how vision production. casters, Bagnall demonstrated over-used. e-sports, or video-game Diving deep into the tech- how OTT (over-the-top) While the internet has tournaments, are gaining nology, IMG Media head of internet delivery was being brought sport on mobile ground, with many tradi- engineering Richard Bagnall achieved. devices to millions, Balchin tional sports production gave a description of how IP Balchin, who is head of expressed his fear that pro- providers now taking a keen (internet protocol) has programmes at IMG Produc- duction quality could be interest. The e-sports market changed the face of outside tions, discussed the analysis eroded in the process. Inter- is forecast to be worth $1.4bn broadcasts, with SDI (serial tools now available to sports net-delivery-only productions worldwide by 2020, he said. digital interface) circuits presenters. He said that tend to be much cheaper than Tony Orme

30 How does a back- ground in TV drama prepare you as a direc-

East Centre tor for making the transition to feature films? This was just one of the questions put to director David Jackson by RTS East’s Fiona Ryder, following a screening of his impressive debut feature, Winterlong, at the Arts Picturehouse, Cam- bridge, in late April. Jackson, who received his first big break from Nicola Shindler at Red Production Company, where he directed the RTS award-winning series Winterlong

Clocking Off, said he owed Films Nox everything to TV drama. “Television was my train- ing ground. I’d made a cou- ple of BFI shorts before that, Film poaches director but I didn’t know anything, really. The reality of shooting upwards of seven pages [of Winterlong­ in just 18 days, including Doon Mackichan his estranged teenage son is script] a day under intense with no pick-ups. The film, (Smack the Pony, Plebs), Ian left on the doorstep of his scrutiny while negotiating a evocatively shot in and Puleston-Davies (Tin Star, remote caravan home, has large professional crew was a around Hastings, East Sussex, Coronation Street), and, nota- been widely acclaimed wake-up call. I learnt that, was praised by the Guardian’s bly, Francis Magee (Game of by critics. not only do you have to be film critic, Peter Bradshaw, as Thrones and Witless). Winterlong premiered at the good, but you have to be fast, “sumptuously shot” and Magee’s tremendous 2018 Edinburgh International too,” he said. “technically assured”. central performance as a Film Festival, earning a Jackson turned his TV The director cast some solitary, though charming, nomination for the Michael drama experience to his notable TV actors he had poacher who must take on Powell Award for Best British advantage by shooting worked with previously, new responsibilities when Feature Film.

University Belfast in its own production studio. Belfast boost for TV crafts Film-makers Dr Thomas Scott and Steve Earley, from Belfast Metropolitan College, RTS Futures Northern Mooney; animator Jessica latter was “working in a radio were joined by actor Frank Ireland, in partnership Patterson; and animation station for free for two years, Cannon and offered advice with Queen’s Univer- director Simon Kelleghan. making tea and hoping on how to make the most of

Northern Ireland sity Belfast, ran a suc- They discussed how to get someone would call in sick”, micro-budgets and working cessful season of film and TV your foot in the door, as well before landing his first job. with unpaid actors. crafts and skills workshops as giving practical advice, “Capturing the Seven King- “We are so pleased with the over four days in early April. including how best to struc- doms”, featuring Helen Sloan, success of the film and TV The first event, “Sketchy ture a showreel. the on-set stills photographer crafts and skills season. We business: making it in anima- “The ultimate presenter’s of Game of Thrones, pulled in took a risk by running such tion”, brought together a panel panel” was hosted by RTS the largest audience of the niche, specialised workshops hosted by the university’s Futures NI’s Vice-Chair and week, who saw unseen stills but it paid off, and it’s always Dr Helen Haswell and fea- University of Ulster student from the HBO series. so encouraging to see so tured three experts from Conor Finn and included BBC “Zero-budget film-making: many enthusiastic, passionate Belfast animation house JAM Radio Ulster’s Vinny Hurrell, a how-to guide” ended the young people who want to Media: visual effects super- UTV Live host Paul Clark and series of workshops, which learn,” said RTS Futures NI visor and director Niall Cool FM’s Pete Snodden. The were hosted by Queen’s Chair Stacey Burns.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 31 and funny host.’ and, inNick, we had afantastic from entered, the region indies News Central, and ITV theBBC tothetest. Teamsedge from really put the teams’ TVknowl- night was had by all and we Davies said: year’s inaugural quiz. – repeating their victory inlast Brainwaves,Radio triumphed including one about the host. 10 tough rounds of questions, it out for the trophy, facing Twenty-three teams battled April at the Cube inBirmingham. are made there. workingand many and students never towin fails era operator/editor. works cam- forSkyNewsa as Production University’s Television andVideo Solent ofSouthampton uate receive an RTS Bursary. Agrad the first cohort of students to sey, who, in2014, was part of offering advice Mas was Dean andcareer development.industry the production, in opportunities ­professionals todiscuss across met media theregion from universities students ern Centre institution. event- become has South this a in March. Now inits 10th year, University Bournemouth at held Midlands Midlands RTS second the hosted Owen Midlands Today presenter Nick Brum quiz triumph repeats Radio BBC ‘ view Sky offers graduate Bursary 32 Meet theprofessionals’Meet was RTS Caren Chair Midlands team fromA theBBC, the The RTS The event Southern One oftheprofessionals production-based Some 200 IN BRIEF IN RTS events ‘ Big telly quiz’ inearly course, now Massey ‘ Another brilliant Another brilliant professionals alike, approval from contacts contacts TV TV

- - C show’s 20th anniversary. Trevor McDonald –the Tonight’s first presenter, Sir to celebrate –alongside Compass Room in early April fans, packed the Lowry’s with someof itslegionsof past andpresent, together current affairs programme”. ain’smost-watched weekly helped to make Tonight “Brit Julie Etchingham –has nals” –claimedcurrent host ticians andthelowest crimi 20 years on TV Tonight marks ‘Coughing Major’ to top poli Millionaire? contestant] the

Many of theshow’s team, North West Centre [ Michael Jackson and people –“from overing stories and that show television isinrude health inthe region reports Solazzo Carole from two RTS Salford events in Who Who Wants To Be a RTS

- - - NEWS organisation [ITN].” Granada, with a strong news affairs, sostrong in theold great tradition of ITV current story-telling. [It unites] the put peopleat theheart of our our viewers andthedesire to the questionsthat interest instinctive of understanding Jermey suggested, were “its [are] in theITV heartland.” bubble’”, heargued. “Its roots been part of the‘London in theNorth West, “hadnever which hasalways been made show sosuccessful”. Tonight, alchemy that makes the Jermey outlined“the Etchingham, in Setting theshow apart, ITV news chiefMichael Julie Etchingham Julie

ITV US President. Similar meth the publicface of thethen- British viewers to seebehind cameras rolling andallowed anchor decidedto keep the House,White theTonight showing him around the questioning in favour of Bush cut short McDonald’s George Wuncomfortable tan Police. at thetimein theMetropoli institutional racism rampant the public. Tonight to put thecasebefore of Martin Bashir, enabled time under theclosescrutiny and giving theaccused air- in theflat of one of themen from police cameras hidden niques, such as using footage of Stephen Lawrence. accused of theracist murder interviews” of thefive men TV screens with “scoop Tonight burst on to Britain’s dients werecombined when have put into theshow”. skilled programme-makers care anddedication allthe mey acknowledging “the off-screen talent, with Jer McDonald allpraised the questions].” audience there [asking those equally effective to have our want asked, but it can be the questionsour audience Tonight: “Not only do we ask that this was quintessential sible”. Etchingham reflected war] andheldBlair respon connected [with theIraq who hadbeen intimately down in front of “people ald, move, describedby McDon to 134countries”. Etchingham revealed “sold Michael Jackson, a show that inods were used illustrated how theseingre conversationMcDonald, with In 2003, when a clearly Tonight helpedto expose the Groundbreaking tech Jermey, Etchingham and In another innovative Tonight sat Tony Blair Living with -

n - -

- - - -

ONLINE at the RTS

n As an educational charity, the Royal Television Society offers lots of opportunities to those working in television – and to those who want to get in. From our bursaries and internships to masterclasses and careers fairs, there’s a lot going on. That’s why we’ve relaunched the Education & Training section James Stirling, Stevie Knows, Elle Bracher and Lucy Skinner of the RTS website. From signing up to mentor a bursary student Clink

Channel 5 to finding out how to write a CV, there’s lots of information for everyone at all levels in the industry (www.rts.org.uk/ Through the keyhole Education). n How to get into TV: this part A Productions’ new work [for female offenders]”. “tight, yet effective, turn- of the Education & Training drama Clink takes Potter echoed this view: around [was] one of the fast- section is full of information viewers into the “When men go to prison, est on record” and, for this, for those in the earliest stages tough environment of women look after the chil- Molloy praised the “quality of their careers. It includes an La women’s prison, tackling dren. But when women go to of the talent” behind the ever-growing list of job roles contemporary issues such as prison, whole families are camera, as well as the available in the industry, plus female genital mutilation. decimated.” “amazing cast”. advice on how to get work Clink began its run on The project was a response Unusually in television, experience, how to prepare for Channel 5’s young-adult to a request from Channel 5 said Molloy, most of “this an interview and how to channel, 5 Star, last month. commissioning executive incredibly supportive team” survive as a freelancer (www.rts. At a screening of the first Sebastian Cardwell for a on both sides of the camera org.uk/WorkInTV). two episodes at the Lowry in “women’s prison drama”. were women. McKeown April, executive producer and The production process was added that LA Productions n Masterclasses: hear from LA founder Colin McKeown facilitated, McKeown said, by has set out “to create more industry experts, including BBC spoke of the “importance Cardwell’s “demanding but opportunities for women News journalist Clive Myrie, of research and authenticity”. trusting” attitude. in the industry [and] Clink editor Pia Di Ciaula and writer Head of development “The journey from con- was the perfect vehicle”. Sally Wainwright, as they dis- Justine Potter described how, ception to delivery [took] a Developing talent is also cuss their careers and offer aided by charities, the Liver- mere 10 months,” continued part of the indie’s ethos. Gil- advice to those hoping to follow pool indie was able lian Kearney, who in their footsteps. Taken from to speak to “former starred in LA’s BBC the RTS Student Masterclasses, prison officers, pris- ‘ON BOTH SIDES OF THE One daytime which are held every Novem- oners, governors drama Moving On ber, the areas covered include and even managers CAMERA, MOST OF THE in 2013, made her craft skills, comedy and factual of mother and baby TEAM WERE WOMEN’ directorial debut entertainment (www.rts.org.uk/ units”. The drama on Clink. Masterclasses). was therefore Clink was shot “informed by, and faithful to, McKeown – and just almost exclusively in Huyton, n Training schemes: our list of those inmates, procedures 10 weeks to shoot the 10-part Liverpool, and at a Territorial entry-level training schemes is and stories”. series. Katherine Rose Mor- Army barracks at in a nearby one of the most-visited pages LA head of production and ley, who plays newbie Chloe, medical centre. on our website, but you can the producer of Clink, Donna said that the rapid shooting McKeown was proud that also find information here about Molloy, was proud that the schedule meant the actors “every aspect of the show mid-level training and appren- show “shines a light” on had “to let that day go and was produced in-house and ticeships (www.rts.org.uk/ women in prison, adding get on with the next one”. screams the North West, TrainingSchemes). that “the system doesn’t McKeown thought this specifically Liverpool”.n Pippa Shawley

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 33 OFF M E SSAGE

t’s that man again. Who else digital days due to storage costs. Or, and he oversaw a portfolio of hit but the brilliant Jed Mercu- to put it another way, the screen time original commissions. Dynamo: Magi- rio. Not content with creat- for the series equates to 10 crew days cian Impossible, Taskmaster, Flack and ing and writing 2018’s most for every minute of the show. now Sliced are some of the commis- popular TV drama, Bodyguard, sioned shows that succeeded under he’s gone and done it again. ■ Caroline Frost divulged a novel Darren’s watch. Clocking up 9.6 million approach to maintaining good His management skills helped to overnight viewers for BBC One, mental health at the Society’s early-­ create an enviable working culture. Iseries 5 of Line of Duty is the most- evening event this month on pro- This was reflected in the fact that watched series of the year. This is moting wellbeing in the TV industry. UKTV was the first TV broadcaster to a considerable achievement for the The Broadcasting Press Guild’s TV be listed in the Sunday Times Top 100 screenwriter, the TV equivalent of chair asked a serious question – “At Companies to Work For. Manchester City winning the Premier what point does a stressed-out day League two years running. become something approaching a ■ And, finally, a fond and heartfelt In the streaming era, that figure, and more serious mental health issue?” adieu to perhaps the greatest TV a 44.1% audience share, represent the – and then offered a solution from political interviewer of them all, the kind of popularity that speaks to the her childhood. “We’ve all had a bad matchless Brian Walden. resilience of linear broadcasting. day. My mum used to say, ‘Go and do Those who worked with him at Line of Duty’s stunning success, like a press-up.’ Just the one, as if that was LWT, including executives John Birt Bodyguard’s, is also a reason for ITV to going to make a difference.” and David Cox, need no reminding be cheerful. Both shows were made Stranger still, one of the panellists, that behind Walden’s prowess as a by World Productions, which, of Julia Lamb, from mental health char- Westminster interlocutor was a course, comes under the ITV Studios ity Mind, had the same memory: “My regime of meticulous planning. umbrella. mum used to say that about the Around 1 million viewers regularly press-up as well – I’m wondering if made a Sunday lunchtime ITV date to ■ We all know that making natural we are distantly related.” watch Walden’s relentless questioning history programmes requires patience of the day’s political giants. and is very labour intensive. ■ Off Message wishes the very best To paraphrase Birt, 30 minutes with Just how much time it takes to of luck to Darren Childs, the new Walden was a real heavyweight bout obtain material such as Our Planet’s Chief Executive of Premiership that only the best – such as Margaret shocking footage of stranded Russian rugby. He begins work in his latest Thatcher – were up to. walruses was made clear at the RTS’s role next month. Incidentally, the erstwhile Labour recent screening of the documentary. During an eventful eight years MP also liked nothing better than to Series producer Keith Scholey leading UKTV, the former BBC World- talk at length – as Off Message dis- revealed that the shooting ratio for wide exec successfully transformed covered during a highly entertaining Our Planet was 1,000:1, a figure that the company into a multichannel afternoon in the company of the would have been impossible in pre- powerhouse. Revenues grew by 66% great man.

34 May 2019 www.rts.org.uk Television RTS PATRONS RTS Principal BBC Channel 4 ITV Sky Patrons

RTS A+E Networks International Netflix International CGTN The Walt Disney Company Patrons Discovery Networks Turner Broadcasting System Inc Facebook Viacom International Media Networks Liberty Global YouTube NBCUniversal International

RTS Accenture EndemolShine KPMG Sargent-Disc Major Amazon Video Enders Analysis McKinsey and Co Spencer Stuart Patrons Atos Entertainment One Motion Content STV Group Audio Network Finecast Group The Trade Desk Boston Consulting Freeview netgem.tv UKTV Group Fremantle OC&C Vice BT IBM Pinewood TV Virgin Media Channel 5 IMG Studios Studios YouView Deloitte ITN S4C YM&U Group

RTS Autocue Isle of Media Red Bee Media Patrons Digital Television Group Lumina Search Grass Valley Raidió Teilifís Éireann

Who’s who Patron Chair of RTS Trustees CENTRES COUNCIL Education at the RTS HRH The Prince of Wales Tom Mockridge Dan Adamson Graeme Thompson Lynn Barlow Vice-Presidents Honorary Secretary Tony Campbell RTS Futures David Abraham David Lowen April Chamberlain Alex Wootten Dawn Airey Dan Cherowbrier Sir David Attenborough OM Honorary Treasurer Agnes Cogan RTS Technology Bursaries CH CVO CBE FRS Mike Green Caren Davies Simon Pitts Baroness Floella Kieran Doherty Benjamin OBE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Stephanie Farmer AWARDS COMMITTEE Mike Darcey Lynn Barlow Cat Lewis CHAIRS Greg Dyke Julian Bellamy Will Nicholson Awards & Fellowship Lord Hall of Birkenhead Tim Davie Tony Orme Policy Lorraine Heggessey Mike Green Fiona Thompson David Lowen Armando Iannucci OBE David Lowen Michael Wilson Ian Jones Anne Mensah Judith Winnan Craft & Design Awards Baroness Lawrence of Tom Mockridge Lee Connolly Clarendon OBE Simon Pitts SPECIALIST GROUP David Lynn Sarah Rose CHAIRS Programme Awards Sir Trevor McDonald OBE Jane Turton Archives Wayne Garvie Ken MacQuarrie Rob Woodward Dale Grayson Gavin Patterson Student Television Trevor Phillips OBE EXECUTIVE Diversity Awards Stewart Purvis CBE Chief Executive Angela Ferreira Siobhan Greene Sir Howard Stringer Theresa Wise Early Evening Events Television Journalism Keith Underwood Awards Simon Bucks

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2019 35