Scripting a soap like ITV’s Coronation Street is a gargantuan task. The writers pen 300-plus episodes a year, involving a cast of 80, to keep viewers engaged and entertained week after week.

How they do it was the subject of an RTS Futures online event that brought together a Corrie script editor and three writers, each trying to write a line as good as this one from brassy barmaid Bet Lynch, picked by Joe Parkinson as his favourite from the show: “You see this smile, Betty, it’s not really a smile – it’s the lid on a scream.” 

“What is it with me and trams?” Rita sighed as we landed a tram on her head in the Kabin for Coronation Street’s 50th anniversary, bonbons scattering around her feet.

Retiring after 40 years of working in TV puts you in a mawkishly reflective mood, and I can’t help but ponder: “What is it with me and TV buildings?” Almost all the buildings I have worked in have been turned into hotels, flats or redeveloped,
usually with me as the last person to inhabit them, charged with turning out the lights.

Channel 4’s Liverpool-set drama The Gathering, made by World Productions, was a big winner on the night, taking home three awards: Best Drama; Best Scriptwriter for novelist Helen Walsh on her TV writing debut; and Best Performance in a Drama for Eva Morgan in her first professional role.

BBC One’s campaigning magazine show Morning Live also scored a hat-trick of awards: Best Factual Series, Best Inclusive Practice (for programmes with deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent contribution) and Best Presenter for Gethin Jones.

Ferne McCann

TV personality

In the sleepy northern town of Chadder Vale, Katie Wells goes missing. Then, she comes back. Most of the villagers are content all’s well that ends well, except one.

Police officer Riya Ajunwa is relatively new in town, having been here for five years after a decade-long stint in the Met. Bored of investigating bins, she smells something fishy in Wells’s disappearance. As a series of devastating and unnatural crimes begin to be committed, her suspicions are confirmed. However, several questions remain unanswered.

If the actor is sleep deprived, it doesn’t show. The topic quickly turns to Doctor Who, she’s ready for it.

Gibson is joining Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education) in the TARDIS as companion Ruby Sunday. The Christmas special – quietly revealed by Disney+ to be titled ‘The Church on Ruby Road’ – will be her debut. Has a year of filming that and the new series been enough to take the pressure off joining a programme as big as Doctor Who?

What does the job involve?

Working with the brilliant producers and writers we have in this country, we look for dramas that we think people will watch and love on ITV – and then we facilitate the producers to make them. We’re out there telling people what we think might work for ITV, and the producers also come to us with great ideas.

We want ideas that will surprise and challenge us, so we’re not simply doing the same thing over and over again.

What was your route into TV?