Carolyn McCall, CEO at ITV, sets the scene for the RTS Cambridge Convention 2019 with a wide ranging look at the challenges and opportunities for the television industry in a fast-changing world.
Host Susanna Reid talks to Neil Mortensen, Kevin Lygo and the consumer panel in Leeds with Ranvir Singh, about the the changing TV landscape.
Presenter and actor Nadia Sawalha will get households ready for the busy weeks ahead with her family recipes in her new cooking series Nadia’s Family Feasts.
Sawalha, who won Celebrity MasterChef in 2009, will be joined by a guest chef each week and together they will cook breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert.
Each episode will be themed around different cuisines including British, Chinese, French, Indian, Italian, Middle Eastern and North American.
McCall is joined by Susanna Reid, Neil Mortensen, Kevin Lygo and the consumer panel in Leeds with Ranvir Singh, as they discuss a wide ranging look at the challenges and opportunities for the television industry in a fast-changing world.
Chairs
Susanna Reid, Journalist and Broadcaster
Ranvir Singh, Journalist and Broadcaster
Speakers
Too Close follows Dr Emma Robinson (Emily Watson), a forensic psychiatrist who is assigned to assess Connie, a patient accused of a terrible crime that she cannot remember committing.
Robinson attempts to determine if Connie is fit to stand trial and learns of a complicated relationship between Connie and her beautiful best friend Ness, who appears to have a strong influence on her mental condition.
Speaking to the RTS he said: “It meant that people came to me with their ideas. Steve Coogan came to me with Philomena (Coogan and Pope’s screenplay was nominated for an Oscar and won best screenplay at the Venice Film Festival).
“Success gets you meetings, but it still doesn’t get something past the finishing line if it’s not good enough…It also means you can be more ambitious and more expansive.”
It may be Carolyn McCall’s first RTS Cambridge but she knows what she wants from the convention’s speakers. They should be positive and provocative. She also wants to hear from the voices of the people who consume the content.
“There is no point going into the Cambridge Convention with an attitude of ‘It’s all doom and gloom’. Yes, there are challenges but the opportunities for content creators have never been greater,” she emphasises.
OK, in the spirit of apologetic full disclosure, this ain’t a normal week for me. It’s August. Piers and Susanna are off (deservedly – thought I’d better slip that in) on their French car factory-style summer sojourn. I’m also sneaking in a bit of R&R and extra-curricular that the normal 100-hour week doesn’t allow.
At Latitude, the hybrid Glasto crossed with church fête Suffolk festival, where, among the middle aged of the mojito-fuelled mosh pit, I bump (literally) into my ex-ITV boss Peter Fincham for our annual blokey embrace.
The contemporary crime series, created and written by Robert Murphy (DCI Banks), gives viewers a new story each episode.
A classic crime story is at the heart of the series and the first episode features two crime mysteries investigated by chalk and cheese duo, the wildly ambitious DCI McDonald (Tala Gouveia, Cold Feet) and the shy, modest DS Dodds (Jason Watkins, The Crown); the pair form a quarrelsome but effective partnership.
Although he assures me he’s “too old to play Tim [again]”, you can see the similarities he shares with his famous character.
He is affable and self-deprecating, joking that he thinks the real Steve Fulcher, who he plays in upcoming ITV drama A Confession, was happy for him to play him - although might have wished for “someone taller, maybe?”
With more than 80 film and TV credits to his name, Freeman has starred in everything from cult classic TV series to huge blockbuster franchises.
