RTS Cymru Wales

Wales is in flames after a strike at the Port Talbot steelworks spirals out of control, forcing the Driscoll family to flee their home and country. Such is the premise of The Way, by turns doggedly realistic and fantastical, but always highly watchable.

The ambitious three-part BBC One drama, which imagines a civil uprising in Wales, is written by James Graham and marks Michael Sheen’s debut as a TV director. And, unusually, has the creative input of the iconoclastic documentary film-maker Adam Curtis.

Doctor Who is back, bigger and arguably better than before. RTS Cymru Wales was first off the mark, hosting a premiere in Cardiff two days before the show returned to BBC One. It was also 60 years to the day since the Time Lord first appeared on TV.

A roar rose from a sold-out audience at the conclusion of The Star Beast, which saw David Tennant and Catherine Tate return as the Doctor and his assistant after almost 15 years. Also back, as showrunner, was a visibly moved Russell T Davies.

It was part of an afternoon of sessions produced by the BBC Academy’s Production Unlocked initiative.

Rebecca Meredith, ScreenSkills training liaison manager for Wales, was joined by freelancers Ella Stockton, an assistant director, and two members of the RTS Cymru Wales Committee: script editor Edward Russell (Chair) and Joe Towns, a media lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, who is also a freelance sports documentary producer.

Many TV producers have been making great efforts to cut their carbon footprint over the past few years. There is still much more to do behind the camera, but more attention is now being given to environmental messages on-screen. 

The panel assembled for an RTS Cymru Wales event this month boasted the two winners of the Edinburgh TV Festival Green Award. Roger Williams’s bilingual cop series Bang won the inaugural award in 2020, while Sky Sports, represented on the panel by its manager for responsible production, Jo Finon, won this year. 

But the economic fallout from the lockdown will mean that the PSBs will face a fight to sustain the high-quality programmes and services to which audiences are accustomed.  

This stark message was made in a RTS Cymru Wales webinar featuring a panel made up of the heads of the country’s broadcasting organisations.

Taking part in “Broadcasting in Wales: Lockdown and beyond” were: Rhodri Talfan Davies, director of BBC Cymru Wales; Phil Henfrey, head of news and programmes at ITV Cymru Wales; and Owen Evans, chief executive of S4C.

During what will prove to be 2020’s most astonishing opening sequence – even this early in the year – Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) tries and fails to control his newly discovered sexual urges in a scene that ends in excruciating embarrassment in front of his therapist mother (Gillian Anderson).

During what will prove to be 2020’s most astonishing opening sequence – even this early in the year – Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) tries and fails to control his newly discovered sexual urges in a scene that ends in excruciating embarrassment in front of his therapist mother (Gillian Anderson).