The sold-out audience at an event to celebrate the final series of BBC Three comedy Man Like Mobeen was treated to an insight into the unusual way it is made. When Guz Khan, its star and co-writer, created Mobeen in 2017, he had not long left his job as a Coventry schoolteacher and it is perhaps because he had no experience of how to film a series that he developed the show’s improvisational and collaborative style.
At a time when the “special relationship” between the UK and the US is on a knife edge, one man is doing his bit to extend the hand of friendship across the Atlantic. Comedian Joe Lycett has brought together 19 places called Birmingham in both countries to make a formal alliance – which, he claims, could stand in for Nato if necessary!
Coming to our defence would be the United States of Birmingham, the name of Lycett’s new Sky TV series.
Making friends with drug dealers, gangsters and poachers for his new BBC documentary series sounds like a risky strategy for Ashley Cain. But the former Coventry City footballer and TV reality star told the RTS Midlands premiere of Into the Danger Zone: “I don’t support criminality but I do support humanity.”
Cain said he had travelled to some of the most hostile places in the world to meet violent offenders in a bid to understand, with no judgement, how the young men found themselves in these deadly situations.
It’s known to its loyal fans as the car show with a heart, bringing a tear to the eye of many a petrolhead. And while the presenters of Car S.O.S. manage to hold it together on screen for the emotional finale of each episode, when they return a secretly restored car to its surprised owner, they have confessed that they are also deeply moved.
RTS Midlands held a premiere of the first episode of series 13 followed by a Q&A, at which ebullient presenters Fuzz Townshend and Tim Shaw revealed some behind-the-scenes secrets.
This Town, Steven Knight’s pitch-perfect and loving recreation of the early-80s music scene in Birmingham and Coventry, took home three awards from the RTS Midlands Television Awards in late November.
Jordan Bolger won the prize for Best Supporting Acting Performance and Paul Whittington was named Best Director for the BBC One drama, which was made by Kudos and Nebulastar.
Laughter rang out and a few tears fell as hundreds of viewers, cast and crew gathered at an RTS Midlands event to bid farewell to the BBC soap Doctors.
Fans had travelled from as far afield as Essex and Wigan to celebrate the Birmingham-made daytime drama, set in a GP surgery and axed after nearly 25 years on screen. Memories were shared during an emotional evening, held the week before the final episode was broadcast.
The novelist and writer Michael Korda wrote: “One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.” It’s a theme that was highlighted as the West Midlands Combined Authority held its Creativity Week this autumn.
Phoenix Rise is a hit teen drama about a group of outsiders who help each other to fit in, so it’s good to hear the same thing was happening behind the scenes. Eloise Pennycott arrived in series 2 as Daisy, when the cast had already been working together for three months, but she was quickly welcomed – thanks to her new friends learning British Sign Language (BSL).
The new BBC One drama This Town opens with the streets of Birmingham ablaze with violence during the Handsworth riots of 1981, before the action moves to council estates.
But its creator, Steven Knight, wants to make it clear that his working-class tale is not bleak or tragic, but set in a vibrant world full of energy and promise. He even manages to make tower blocks and Spaghetti Junction look beautiful.
New documentary Brawn was described as “Succession with racing cars” at an RTS Midlands event in November. Executive producer Neil Duncanson said of the thrilling story: “Conspiracy theories, money, power, betrayal – it’s all there.”
Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story, a four-part Disney+ series, tells how an underfinanced team bought for £1 managed to defeat the greatest names in F1. And it certainly appeals to far more viewers than just motor racing fans, as director Daryl Goodrich explained.
