Sky Arts

Sky Arts and Rankin join forces for new mass-participation photography project

Rankin’s 2020 challenges the nation’s best amateur and professional photographers with the documentation of 2020.

Photographers must submit a photo that represents their year by posting on Instagram using the handle @2020rankin, with the hashtag #2020rankin and the category they are entering in the description.

The categories include Family, Fun, Self, Beauty, Empathy and Nature.

There will be six episodes, one for each of the six categories, whereby Rankin will choose the best submissions with the help of celebrity guests.

Top writers discuss their craft: “First drafts don’t have to be perfect, they just have to be written"

Reece Shearsmith, Jed Mercurio, Melvyn Bragg (Chair), Heidi Thomas and Steve Pemberton (Credit: Paul Hampartsoumian)

Melvyn Bragg was talking at a special live edition of The South Bank Show, featuring four of the UK’s leading TV writers – Jed Mercurio (writer and creator of hit police corruption thriller Line of Duty); Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith (black comedy anthology Inside No. 9); and Heidi Thomas (period drama Call the Midwife) – discussing their craft.

TV picks of the week: 30 April - 6 May

The Royal Wives of Windsor

Monday: ITV, 9pm

This is one of a score of documentaries commissioned by ITV to celebrate the forthcoming nuptials of Prince Harry to TV royalty Meghan Markle. This programme explores the impact that other consorts, including Princess Diana, Wallis Simpson and Camilla Parker Bowles, have had on the house of Windsor. Historians, journalists and palace insiders take a look back and offer up their thoughts. Part two airs on Tuesday.

 

Urban Myths returns for more 'true-ish' tales to Sky Arts

What happens when you give writers with big imaginations a kernel of truth? Sky Arts’ Urban Myths, that’s what – charming, half-hour comedies that dramatise true, or “true-ish”, tales from the worlds of Hollywood, music, arts and literature.

The second series – which features stories ranging from Agatha Christie’s 11-day disappearance to the first meeting of the teenage David Bowie and Marc Bolan, and Johnny Cash duelling with an ostrich – airs this month on the channel and on-­demand. A third installment is in the pipeline.

Phil Edgar-Jones: "We didn't want some Euro-porridge that didn't work."

Just over 10 years ago, Sky took control of the struggling Artsworld channel and subsequently re-branded it Sky Arts. A decade on, it is the home of The South Bank Show and is renowned for its star-studded programmes. These shows have included Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe in A Young Doctor’s Notebook, and Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson in the forthcoming one-off, half-hour comedy drama Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon.

Sky Arts to air pan-Europe photography talent show

Sky, Sky Arts, Isabella Rossellini, photography, Rut Blees Luxemburg, Simon Frederick and Oliviero Toscani

Master of Photography will be an eight-part series which will include photographic challenges across Europe to test the competitors' range of styles and disciplines.

The programme has been created by the new Sky Arts Production Hub, based in Milan, which creates arts shows for viewers across the UK and Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria.