The RTS NI Awards with support from BBC Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Screen and Channel 4 has today (18 June) launched its 2025 Awards for the local creative industries.
The two women behind TV’s favourite North East detective received a standing ovation when they collected Outstanding Contribution awards at a sellout ceremony in Gateshead. Brenda Blethyn, who played Vera Stanhope on ITV for 14 years, and Ann Cleeves, who created the character, were honoured at the RTS North East and the Border Awards last month.
Why are they Rosco 5? The truth is, they’re not entirely sure. Needing to be a ‘company’ to get paid for an editing job, they were given three hours to come up with a name. “We just wrote down loads of stuff on a piece of paper.
“The five doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why we chose it. I don’t even like the number… When I do my lottery numbers, I never pick five,” says Taheri.
“Occasionally I Google Rosco, and a lighting company and loads of dogs come up,” says Beresford.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office dramatized the unfathomable plight of hundreds of subpostmasters losing life-changing sums of money to Horizon IT.
But series director James Strong argues that part of the story’s success is that it isn’t entirely unfathomable. If you’ve ever felt your heart drop when checking your bank balance right before pay day, there’s a chance you can empathise with a woman alone in her Post Office, confronted with scarily large numbers.
Manners is the lead director behind the latest iteration of David Nicholls’ 2009 bestseller, the Netflix series One Day. Viewers get to know Emma, a working-class girl from Leeds, and Dexter, a privileged boy from London, through just one day a year, over a 20-year span. Manners’ role included setting the tone for the series as a whole, finding her ‘Emma’ and ‘Dexter’, choosing locations, and creating a visual language for the two of them, both when they’re together, and in the years where they’re separated.
The RTS Technology Awards returned to the historic Wokefield Estate in Berkshire after a gap of five years with an expanded number of awards – eight in total – on offer to leading industry lights.
DTG Chief Executive Richard Lindsay-Davies was named Leader of the Year. “[He] has been at the forefront of many of the UK’s key television industry developments over a number of decades and is known for bringing together people, products and technology,” said the judges in their citation.
BBC factual drama The Sixth Commandment won two awards at the RTS East Television Awards 2024, which were hosted by BBC Look East presenter Mousumi Bakshi at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cam- bridge, at the end of June.
The four-part series – written by Sarah Phelps and starring Timothy Spall, Anne Reid and Éanna Hardwicke – explored the shocking deaths of Peter Farquhar and Ann Moore-Martin. It won the Scripted prize and also Craft – Cinematographer for Rik Zang.
Pobol Y Cwm, which celebrates a half-century on air this October, was honoured at the RTS Cymru Wales Awards last month.
The soap, which is set in the fictional Welsh-speaking village of Cwmderi, was recognised by the RTS with a Lifetime Achievement award, as were Lis Miles, who plays Megan Harries and appeared in the first episode in 1974, and long-serving director/producer Robin Davies-Rollinson.
Pobol Y Cwm, which airs on S4C three times a week, is filmed at the BBC’s drama studios in Cardiff Bay.
Long-running CBBC drama The Dumping Ground won the prestigious Centre Award for its contribution to jobs and opportunities in the region’s screen sector at the RTS North East and the Border Awards in late February.
The children’s show, which made its debut in 2013 and is made by BBC Studios Kids & Family, is set in a care home and has been filmed across the North East. The series is a continuation of the CBBC drama Tracy Beaker Returns, which was based on the novels of Jacqueline Wilson.
Now, one studio album, one Queen of the Jungle crown, several presenting gigs and a decade and a half later, it is her tidying talents which have led to her dream show - Sort Your Life Out.
Solomon’s love for organisation derives from a need for it - becoming a mother at 17 meant it was a necessity: “as soon as I had Zach, I was like, I've got to get my shit together. Because I'm living on a fish and chip shop wage, with working tax credits.
