BBC

Celtic shop props up TV industry

A group of RTS Wales members visited Celtic Prop Hire in early October, and saw items used in top TV shows, including BBC One’s Doctor Who, for which Celtic supplied various props in the current series.

Established in 1999, the Cardiff-based company supplies productions across the UK. Other recent credits include BBC's The Coroner and Sherlock as well as Sky 1's Stella.

The company also supplies a lot of props to the BBC’s Drama Village in Cardiff Bay, including for the long-running medical series Casualty.

Welsh broadcast media at risk?

RTS Wales joined the Institute of Welsh Affairs to host a lively debate on the future of Welsh broadcasting at Glyndŵr University in Wrexham at the end of October.

In a pre-recorded video message, the Welsh Government’s Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism, Ken Skates, expressed concern about the weakening position of broadcast media in Wales.

The RTS Centre’s administrator, Hywel Wiliam, gave a brief overview of the key features of the current communications market.

Our friend in the West

One of the best contributions to the issue of the public purposes of the BBC was written almost 20 years ago by a then-future Chair of the BBC Board of Governors, Gavyn Davies.

He wrote: “Some form of market failure must lie at the heart of any concept of public service broadcasting. Beyond simply using the catchphrase that public service broadcasting must ‘inform, educate and entertain’, we must add ‘inform, educate and entertain in a way that the private sector, left unregulated, would not do’. Otherwise, why not leave matters entirely to the private sector?”

TV comedy experts examine the challenges facing the genre

Nerys Evans, Simon Lupton, Gregor Sharp, Jessica Knappett and Boyd Hilton

The classic sitcom no longer rules the TV schedules in the way that shows such as Fawlty Towers, Open All Hours and Porridge did in the 1970s. Or does it?

A panel of TV practitioners attempted to tease out the answer last month at an RTS early-­evening event, “No laughing matter: how does comedy fight back?” This stimulating debate made one think that we could be living through another golden age of TV comedy without necessarily knowing it.

This week's best on demand TV

Catastrophe (Credit: Channel 4)

1. Catastrophe

Available on All4

Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney's acerbic comedy about a couple who get pregnant after a one-week-stand was one of this year's funniest new sitcoms. The second series has just started on Channel 4, and it's just as sharp, vulgar, and uproariously funny as the first. In the opening two episodes, the pair are adjusting to family life - and try to rekindle their romance with an ill-fated minibreak to Paris.

 

Five things to look out for at this year's Children in Need

1. A brand new Star Wars sketch

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens is out in December, but if you can't wait until then, there'll be an exclusive sketch tonight. R2-D2 and C-3PO will be joined by Warwick Davis (who played the Ewok Wicket in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi) and Lord Sugar as they "attempt to find a worthy winner to help trigger the first BBC Children in Need totaliser of the night."