Few novels have excited as much love and devotion as Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies, a funny, tender but heart-rending tale of male friendship. Now, only two years after its publication, an adaptation is coming to the BBC, an astonishingly quick turnaround for television drama.
Good morning. Today, 100 years and 23 days after the first BBC broadcast, I want to talk about choices. Choices for us all.
Choices that have profound consequences for our society; its economic success, its cultural life, its democratic health. Our UK and its essence. Of what we hand to the next generation. Of growth.
Choices that concern not just the role of the BBC, but something bigger. About whether we want to leave a legacy of a thriving, world leading UK media market or accept, on our watch, a slow decline.
Tim Davie, Director-General of the BBC, delivered a speech on leading the UK into digital. His speech was followed by a Q&A with RTS CEO Theresa Wise on an internet-only BBC, the streamers and the future of PSBs.
The event took place on Wednesday 7 December at St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Written by the multi-RTS-Award winning writer Jack Thorne (Help), the four-part series sees Horgan and Sheen star as the married couple Nicci and Andrew. The pair have two daughters: Katie, played by Alison Oliver (Conversations With Friends), and Marnie, played by Niamh Moriarty (Jack Thorne’s A Christmas Carol).
During an RTS Cymru Wales tour last month, Bevan and Roger Crothers, head of technology at BBC Cymru Wales, said the £120m Central Square building was conceived as a fully integrated IP operation, which will be the largest digital broadcast centre of its kind in Europe when complete.
Tom Kerridge will travel all around the UK to discover the business owners and staff who are going above and beyond to provide the best in British hospitality.
With a career spanning over 30 years, Kerridge is a passionate supporter and advocate for the industry.
The eight-part series will see Kerridge visit family-run cafés, restaurants, pubs, bars and wedding caterers. He will go behind the scenes to learn about the people running the business and how they are surviving in today’s tough market.
The film followed Andy (Stephen Graham), a head chef at upmarket London restaurant Jones & Sons struggling to cope during one of the busiest days of the year.
The new series promises to be full of twists and turns as a new group of characters find their lives turned upside down as they face a battle with loyalty, faith and morality.
Christine Rees (Rakie Ayola) is a social worker who along with her children, Megan (Mali Ann Rees), Will (Lloyd Everitt) and Jamie (Aaron Anthony), is dealing with the loss of her son and their brother Liam.
The family’s life is thrown into turmoil when an out-of-town stranger Connor (Jordan Wilks) claims to be a previously unknown Rees sibling and looks strangely like Liam.
Session chair Amol Rajan: Is the licence fee the least bad option for funding the BBC?
Tim Davie: Yes…. If you believe in universal broadcasting… the licence fee, for all its problems, [has] enabled a few things: the BBC has been able to keep [to] its mission, it’s kept us independent [and] impartial; and it provides a certainty of funding in the medium term….
