This panel discussion will delve deeper into life behind the lens on these two amazing observational documentaries made here in Yorkshire.

We'll hear more about how the programmes came about and the fantastic access both series had to recruits and the teams working at the bases.  Along with the challenges faced around security and being embedded within the Army and RAF during a time of conflict in Europe.

Speakers:

• Paul Wells (Series Director - Soldier)
• Mark Tattersall (Executive Producer - Top Guns: Inside the RAF)
• Chair - Fiona Thompson

Soldier

Under the watchful eyes of Lieutenant Wahab, Sergeant McIntosh and Corporal White, recruits face the reality of what it means to be a frontline soldier at a time when war is raging in Europe for the first time in a generation.

This five-part series charts the transformation of the recruits as they leave friends and family behind for the British Army’s Infantry Training Centre in Catterick, North Yorkshire. 

Soldier is a BBC Factual and BBC England co-commission and has been produced by Label1, makers of the multi-award-winning BBC series ‘Hospital’. The first episode airs on Thursday 5 October at 9pm on BBC One and the series will then run weekly.

Top Guns: Inside the RAF

Top Guns: Inside the RAF from True North Productions, follows the men and women based at the Royal Air Force’s frontline Lossiemouth airbase in northern Scotland. 

Home to fast jet fighter bombers and long-range maritime patrol aircraft, this series takes the audience in to the cockpit, flight deck and station HQ as the crews defend Britain’s skies from any threat.

Whether that’s policing NATO airspace in the skies over eastern Europe; patrolling the North Sea hunting suspicious Russian warships or deployed to carry out the fight against Daesh in the Middle East, this series takes us to the frontline and shows what life is really like for the service personnel at the heart of the UK’s defence.