Happy Valley

RTS winners unite for new Channel 4 crime drama Kiri

Sarah Lancashire RTS Programme Awards 2013-14

Happy Valley actor Sarah Lancashire stars as social worker Miriam who is thrust into the spotlight when a child in her care, Kiri, is abducted and killed after an unsupervised visit to her biological family. The no-nonsense social worker loves and believes in her job, but has a maverick and instinctive approach to dealing with the children she looks after, which draws attention as the media buzz intensifies.

Miriam (Lancashire) and the families at the centre of the storm are forced to ask tough questions, not just of themselves, but of those they love the most.  

Happy Valley's Sally Wainwright: "I write people I want to be, not who I am"

The screenwriter received the Judges’ Award among others at the RTS Programme Awards 2017 for her “outstanding contribution to the UK’s television and media industry.”

“I feel very lucky that I have been able to achieve my ambitions and been able to do the things that I want to do,” she says humbly.

She is humble too about her past achievements: Baftas, RTS Awards, TV Choice Awards, Broadcast awards and more litter the shelves of her study in her Cotswold home.

“It’s nice to be recognised,” she says.

Sherlock's Andrew Scott takes on monsters for CBeebies

The animated pre-school series, School of Roars, is about five young monsters as they experience school for the first time.

The five monster-lings tackle each school day with the help of their lovable teacher Miss Grizzlesniff, voiced by Kathy Burke, who guides them through monstery classes in maths, music, cookery and life.

Sarah Lancashire appears as the Headmonstress, Mrs Twirlyhorn, and Sherlock villain Andrew Scott, plays the narrator – as well as a number of other characters including Mr Marrow the cookery teacher.

Watch: Expert tips on entertainment, journalism, documentaries and drama

Speakers included Sally Wainwright, creator and writer of Happy Valley; Rohit Kachroo, ITV News Security Editor; documentary filmmaker Rowan Deacon and Suzy Lamb, Head of Entertainment at Thames TV.

We've rounded up the very best of the day's tips in the video below.

Sally Wainwright tackles the Brontë sisters for BBC One

To Walk Invisible takes a closer look at the extraordinary lives of the Brontë sisters, who overcame many obstacles, to rise from obscurity to producing some of the greatest novels in the English language.

Speaking at a recent RTS event, Sally Wainwright explained her interest in the characters. She told audiences how when she wrote the script, she wanted the characters to reflect real life. She complained that past retellings of the story have seen actors with sparkling teeth and RP accents, describing it as “offensive.”

Sounding off: Inaudible dialogue is rife among dramas

The recent controversy over poor-quality sound on the hit BBC One show Happy Valley has once again focused senior TV executives’ minds on the problem of inaudible dialogue in drama.

Last month, BBC Controller of TV Channels Charlotte Moore pledged to tackle the “big issue” of sound. She added that it was “incredibly hard to get to the bottom of where things go wrong”. She explained she had introduced a new set of best-practice guidelines to help avoid future problems with inadequate audio.

Sally Wainwright to tell story of the Brontes

To Walk Invisible will star Jonathan Pryce as the novelists' father, and reunite Happy Valley actors Charlie Murphy and Adam Nagaitis as sister and brother Anne and Branwell Bronte. 

"I am such an admirer of Sally Wainwright that if she were filming the phone book I would want to be in it!" said Pryce. "Her film will be a characteristically honest look at the whole Bronte family."

Tony Hall: Don't compromise Britain’s creative culture

Tony Hall

Today, I want to talk about one thing: content, programmes – the reason we’re all here. In this country we have a really vibrant creative ecology of broadcasting. It’s a great national success story.

But the question I want to talk about this afternoon is whether one part of that ecology will continue. Will we carry on making content to the degree and quality that we do now?

I’m concerned that, in all the arguments and debate about the BBC’s Charter, in a decade’s time we might look back and say that we missed something crucial – a big trend.