In front of an audience of students from Solent and Bournemouth University, Sen gave a fascinating insight into the job of masterminding the 52-minute, single-shot episode, which aired last July.
Sen explained that the programme – a celebration of the 30th anniversary of BBC One series Casualty – was shot in a single take to heighten the sense of drama in a busy A&E department.
It is a motto she has picked up from Fleabag’s creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
“We wanted to shoot it like a drama and cut it like a comedy,” she explains. “Sometimes it feels like drama is comedy’s big older brother.”
For Hampson and Waller-Bridge, it wasn’t enough to create a ‘typical’ comedy. “We were trying to go for the ambition of drama, but not at the expense of the laughs.”
It is said that costume suppliers can spot the next television trend by the sudden emptying of certain bins and racks. A run on tuxes and flapper dresses heralds more 1920s dramas in the schedules; a rush order for spats, monocles and driving goggles means that another PG Wodehouse dramatisation is on the way.
Andrew Billen wonders if BBC head of factual Alison Kirkham can fly higher still and compete against the US giants
The adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s novel was a smash hit in America, becoming the highest rated premium cable show this year. “The fight for eyeballs and the fight to get noticed is more intense than it has ever been,” Frost believes. “Our audiences grew week-on-week and there was such a buzz about it on social media. It really became such a talking point… which was thrilling for us.”
"The UK is sleepwalking towards a serious, long term weakening of its TV production industry," said Hall, in front of a DCMS committee in Westminster on Tuesday November 7th .
Hall proposed the idea of a new, paid-for on-demand service featuring BBC programming, following the closure of the BBC Store after only 18 months.
The appetite for video on demand (VOD) and other third-party platforms is growing in the UK and abroad, in what is a rapidly changing TV market.
The awards recognise the huge variety of skills involved in programme production from editing to lighting, and costume design to digital effects.
BBC dramas lead the way in nominations. Taboo, which stars Tom Hardy is up for six awards, whilst Broken and Three Girls received four nominations each.
Three Girls director Philippa Lowthorpe received a nomination in the Director - Drama category alongside Euros Lyn for Damilola, Our Loved Boy and Julian Jarrold for The Witnesses for the Prosecution, all for BBC One.
Jonathan Dimbleby was in the chair to lead a 90-minute discussion – “Have We Got News for You?” – on the future of local news in the regions. The panellists were journalist and academic Roy Greenslade; controller of BBC English Regions David Holdsworth; Ujima FM station manager Julz Davis; and Trinity Mirror editor Rachel Sugden.
The event featured filmed provocations from Richard Sambrook, director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University, who charted the decline in print media and argued that there was a lack of local accountability.
From Blue Planet II to Stranger Things, here's what's coming up this week
