BBC

BBC Television’s new four-parter The Listeners is that rare thing – a drama that teases and tantalises, unwilling to offer the viewer easy answers.

The series is adapted by the Canadian author Jordan Tannahill from his novel of the same name, and made by Element Pictures, the Dublin indie behind Normal People and Conversations with Friends. It revolves round Claire, an English teacher whose contented life is disrupted when she starts hearing a persistent hum that no one around her seems to hear.

Despite being one of the world’s oldest games, chess is far from being forgotten. From 2020’s The Queen’s Gambit spiking sales of chess boards and books, to the chess.com app being the most downloaded in February 2023, new players across the globe continue to find love for the 1500-year-old game.

Now Chess Masters will bring together 12 amateur players from across the UK to compete in heats and knock-out rounds.

The series stars Josh Tedeku (Supacell), Jodie Campbell (No Return), Sekou Diaby, Myles Kamwendo (The School for Good and Evil) and Aruna Jalloh as schoolkids Jaheim, Leah, Toby, Omar and Femi. The talented teens were admitted to private boarding school St Gilbert’s after earning scholarships. Once there, it became clear the scholarships were a thinly veiled attempt at good PR… but the five are still determined to make the most of it. Creator Lawrence Taylor plays Gus, the new recruits’ mentor.

His career spanned roles at the BBC, Rank Taylor Hobson, DigiVision and De Montfort University, where he shared his love for technology and innovation.

Alan became a member of the Society in 1964, and served as a committee member for the East Midlands, and Nottingham and East Midlands centres, contributing significantly to the field of television and broadcasting.

Crimewatch has been helping the police catch criminals for 40 years, and production staff and presenters past and present gathered at an RTS Cymru Wales event to celebrate the enduring success of this unusual partnership.

Since it began in 1984, with the idea of getting the public involved in solving crimes by staging reconstructions to jog the memories of witnesses, Crimewatch has made more than 700 programmes and 7,000 appeals on behalf of police forces around the UK.

Financial and cultural value were discussed in an illuminating session that offered insights from what panel chair, The Telegraph’s audio director Kamal Ahmed, called “three titans in the area”.

Jane Featherstone, co-founder and CCO of Sister, commented on the current climate affecting the valuation of companies. “We’re in a state of change,” she said. “Budgets have risen, largely driven by getting movie talent in above the line,” she said. The feeling was that what was wanted wasn’t really TV any more, but long movies. This, she said, “pushed all the costs up”.

This summer, a quarter of a century after it first aired, BBC Four re-ran the first series of an unjustly forgotten British cop show. The Cops rarely makes the lists of best ever policiers, yet it’s as groundbreaking as The Sweeney, Prime Suspect, Between the Lines and Line of Duty.

The show follows Luella Shakespeare (Jo Joyner, Ackley Bridge) and Frank Hathaway (Mark Benton, Anna and the Apocalypse) after a case brings them together and leads to them joining forces.

Joyner and Benton will reprise their roles in the new series, alongside Patrick Walshe McBride (Dracula), who plays aspiring actor and perpetual understudy Sebastian Brudenell.