It's a Sin

In the continuity of the soap, the singer and actor has been rehearsing near Walford, and will stop in at The Queen Victoria. There, he’ll meet Johnny Carter (Charlie Suff), an old friend.

The same night, one of the denizens of Walford will get down on one knee and propose.

Ask Alex Mahon to name the best bits about her job and without hesitation she says it’s when outstanding programmes receive the recognition they deserve. It could be a breakthrough comedy such as Derry Girls or Russell T Davies’s bittersweet It’s a Sin – or the recent Cannes Grand Prix winner, Film4’s The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s German-language Holocaust film based on the Martin Amis novel.

What does the job involve?

I take all the material the director shoots and figure out how to tell the story in the most compelling and emotionally gripping way. There’s this misunderstanding that an editor’s job is simply to cut out the bad bits; it’s the opposite – you’re actually building something.

What editing software do you use?

I started just after the transition from film and I’ve always used Avid.

Do you regret missing out on film?

Quentin Blake: The Drawing Of My Life

BBC Two, 4.10pm

BBC Two celebrates one of Britain’s most iconic artists, Quentin Blake, in a one-off special that sees the illustrator tell his life story by painting a 30-foot-long canvas.

The series will explore the powerful reign and fall from grace of Gordon, the soap star and Queen of the Midlands.

Gordon became one of the most famous people in Britain playing the flame-haired widow Meg Richardson in the long-running soap opera, Crossroads.

But in 1981, at her and the show’s peak of success, she was fired without warning nor any explanation, despite appearing on it for 18 years.

On 18 November 1996, Hansard noted a parliamentary question from John Whittingdale, MP for Maldon: “Will my Hon Friend congratulate Channel 4 on its success in avoiding recourse to the ‘safety net’ and on making a profit last year of £128m? Does that not demonstrate that it is possible for Channel 4 to meet its remit and to operate commercially? Will he therefore consider its privatisation at the first opportunity?” 

For a show that took six years and multiple knock-backs before it hit our screens, It’s a Sin is a formidable reminder of the power of TV drama.

The series follows a group of gay friends during the Aids crisis of the 1980s, and earlier this year became All 4’s biggest ever show when it was watched by 18.9 million viewers.

Viewers were drawn in by Russell T Davies’s compelling story and his finely crafted characters, whom we couldn’t help but feel invested in.