Writing Victoria: Daisy Goodwin’s TV Diary

It doesn’t. For inspiration, I look at Victoria’s own watercolours of Christmas at Windsor. Albert wanted to recreate the Christmases of his Coburg childhood and he put up a tree for each of their nine children, hanging them from the ceiling with tables, called altars, for presents underneath. For all their cosy, domestic image Victoria and Albert, weren’t afraid of a little bling.

Levison Wood's tips for budding explorers

Levison Wood crossing the Caucuses (Credit: Simon Buxton)

You can’t just get up one morning and decide to be an explorer.

Well, you can, but you’re not going to get on television with that attitude. You’ve got to jump through lots of hoops to get there and it’s not just a case of how many countries you’ve been to. You don’t have to join the Army to get into TV, but I think it’s good to have some level of expertise or niche knowledge. Once you’re an expert in anything, in any industry, people will come to you. That’s where you want to be.

Soaps are powerful in changing people's perceptions say Corrie's Daniel Brocklebank

Coronation Street's Daniel Brocklebank (Credit: Richard Kendal)

But, argued the actors, writers and producers on the panel at an RTS event in mid-July – “LGBTQ in soap: job done?” ­– the fight against prejudice is not yet won.

“Soaps are incredibly powerful in terms of being able to get a message out and in changing people’s perceptions,” said Daniel Brocklebank, who plays gay vicar Billy Mayhew in Coronation Street.

Inside Sky's Election Campaign: Covering the Election with Esme Wren

As part of the RTS Inside Sky’s Election Campaign series, Sky’s Head of Politics, Specialist and Business Journalism Esme Wren, who is overseeing the broadcaster's election coverage, reveals her plans for covering the surprise General Election.

For the broadcaster, getting outside of London is key to covering the campaign, after lessons learned from the Brexit and 2015 General Election coverage where the opinion polls were out of touch with the final result.