documentary

For the one-hour film, director Hilary Fennell followed seven artists attempting to have their work accepted for Ireland’s most important open-call art show, the Royal Hibernian Academy Summer Exhibition. 

It was the first time cameras have been allowed behind the scenes at the 196-year-old Royal Hibernian Academy, including access to the judging process. The film was broadcast on RTÉ One in June 2019.

The venue has hosted royalty, rock stars and world leaders for over 130 years and will now open its revolving doors to ITV viewers, giving them a taste of what it means to be a guest at the prestigious hotel.

The five-part series will be filmed during the winter season and will showcase the hard work  and challenges that the employees overcome to make a visit to The Savoy magical.

Adam Hills: Take His Legs will follow The Last Leg host as he undertakes a personal and physical challenge to realise his boyhood dream of playing competitive rugby league.

The documentary will chart the remarkable inception of Physical Disability Rugby League (PDLR) in the UK and the underdog success of the Warrington Wolves PDLR team, who rose from open trials to World Champions in just six months.

As a huge rugby league fan, Hills put his passion into practice and became a driving force behind the establishment of the first PDLR team in the UK.

Davis received a Bafta nomination this year for her work on the BBC Four documentary Amy Winehouse: Back to Black. Bacon specialises in formatted and entertainment series such as Channel 5 reality show The Bachelor and the BBC’s Masterchef.

How to get into editing: Emma Lysaght: “I left school at 16. My father was a film editor so I grew up watching my dad cut film. It was something I’d always wanted to do.

“It was quite a male environment, I was very nervous and very shy. I didn’t get into the cutting room until I was 19. My dad knew of one female editor.

“She needed an assistant so I stepped in and became her assistant. Within the first few months I was cutting news for Channel 4, which was very pressurised but you know exactly what you’ve got to do in those three minutes.

From comedy to docs, via reality TV: “With my writing partner from university, I was writing script-based comedy… we got close a few times to getting things away but it wasn’t quite working,” recalled Cary.

He landed a job as a runner at Endemol, working on BBC Three show Celebrity Scissorhands and then Big Brother: “I exploited every connection I had at Endemol and got a job at North One, which used to make a lot of Cutting Edge [documentaries] for Channel 4.”

Ant & Dec’s DNA Journey will follow Ant and Dec as they attempt to uncover their ancestral roots with the help of expert genealogists and historians.

Using their DNA, the duo’s journey will take them to Ireland and the US, meeting far-flung relatives along the way. The show will reveal some astonishing truths about both Ant and Dec’s heritage, including celebrated war heroes, ‘historically important’ ancestral bones and even Royal descendants.