documentary

Monday

Fresh Meat

Channel 4

10pm

Back for its final series, the university sitcom back with as many laugh-out-loud hilarious and toe-curlingly awkward moments as you could have dreamed.

Students were given the opportunity to listen industry experts about their craft.

From cameraman Steve Robinson describing how to portray personal moments on camera to editor of BBC One's The Missing explaining how a show comes together in the cutting room, the two-day masterclasses provided advice and insight into the television industry. 

Morgan Matthews has taken his camera in to places that most directors shy away from; into lives torn apart by mental illness, bereavement and addiction.

There is, however, another side to the award-winning documentary film-maker; one that delights in the quirky worlds of pigeon fanciers, Elvis impersonators and teenage maths prodigies.

His films, said the chair of the documentary student masterclass, Ruth Pitt, revealed “the extraordinary in the ordinary and the ordinary in the extraordinary.”

When it comes to producing great television, a good editor is where it all begins and ends. That was the clear message for students attending the RTS craft skills editing masterclass.

Ben Stark, a feted documentary film editor and Una Ni Dhonghaile, who has won plaudits for her work editing TV drama, delivered the masterclass chaired by media consultant Alex Graham.

Stark and Dhonghaile each discussed three examples of their work.

"BBC Three is not closing, we are reinventing online," promised Damian Kavanagh, controller of BBC Three, after it was announced the youth-channel would be migrating from televisions to tablets and computers in the new year.

The decision, which has been mooted for several months, was met with a mixed reaction.

So BBC Three is set to close in February. Good.

When documentary filmmaker Sean McAllister started his latest project, A Syrian Love Story, he had little idea of the journey he would end up on.

What began as a film following a family as they waited for their mother to be released from prison evolved to demonstrate how one family could be affected by the turmoil in Syria.

The story began in 2010, when McAllister met Amer, a Palestinian living in Syria, who was looking after his three sons alone while his wife, Raghda, was incarcerated for writing a book criticising the Assad regime.

Sky 1 has won the rights to air the new Muppets' television show, The Muppets. 

The programme will be the Muppets' first television network series since Muppets Tonight, which was broadcast between 1996 and 1998.

One documentary, Is Britain racist?, explores whether prejudice against ethnic minorities remains. It will air in September.

Undercover journalists take to the streets of Britain to expose the reality of discrimination against skin colour.

Presenter Mona Chalabi will be putting British people on the spot to discover how racism affects their way of life including who they decide to marry.

A trailblazing four-part documentary series on the history of women will air on BBC Two this autumn.

Charting the role of women in society over 10,000 years, The Ascent Of Woman is the first ever documentary to explore the history of women from the birth of civilisation to the contemporary era.

Focusing on the themes of freedom, oppression, inclusion and exclusion, the series aims to study the status of women and women’s rights.

The series is written and presented by Dr Amanda Foreman, the author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.