Robson Green has done it. Professor Alice Roberts has also given it a go. Darcey Bussell tried it in Scotland recently. Kate Humble did it naked. Susannah Constantine took an axe with her when she did it. Barely a week goes by without someone from either Countryfile or The One Show doing it. And Port Talbot resident David Bryan credits it with helping to save his life.
I think it’s fair to say that reporting for Newsround is a job like no other in journalism. I know John Craven and all those who’ve followed in his footsteps would agree. This week alone, I’ve gone from explaining the situation in Myanmar to revealing which celebrity was behind the sausage costume on ITV’s The Masked Singer. In case you were wondering, it was Joss Stone… all in a day’s work for a Newsround presenter.
The topsy-turvy Test series in India is bringing much-needed entertainment – though, latterly, little cheer for England fans – during lockdown. When time is hard to fill, what could be better than six hours plus of cricket a day shown on free-to-air TV.
There were many raised eyebrows when Channel 4 bought the rights to the four-Test series. Why would a channel that prides itself on risk-taking and a young demographic clear its morning schedules for a game with an elderly and declining fan base?
There is already something of a buzz around Richard Sharp, the new BBC Chair, and about what he and Director-General Tim Davie might achieve together as they navigate the corporation towards what we all hope is a post-Covid world.
Inevitably, not everyone at the BBC was pleased that another money man was chosen as successor to Sir David Clementi – himself a former deputy governor of the Bank of England. But many across the TV sector were relieved that a more controversial candidate was not appointed.
If you want some light reading, please do not dip into the Creative Diversity Network’s recent report, “Diamond: The Fourth Cut”. The statistics are grim, particularly when it comes to disability. According to the report, the UK TV industry has “urgent” work to do on disability representation, both on- and off-screen. This is an understatement of monumental proportions.
Through the comedy-drama chic of Call My Agent! (Dix Pour Cent), the down and dirty cop-show grit of Spiral (Engrenages), the adventures of gentleman thief Assane Diop in Lupin or the political thrills and spills of The Bureau, international viewers are devouring subtitled French sass with gusto.
In each episode of In Writing, journalist Hattie Crisell seeks solidarity and insight from one of the best of any and all genres. Among the 25 to date are playwright and screenwriter Lucy Prebble, novelist David Nicholls and writer and performer Robert Webb.
The interviews feel less like formal conversations than intimate visits. Crisell starts each one by asking the writer to describe their writing room.
There must be something in the water at Channel 5. In 2020, it won Channel of the Year at both the RTS Programme Awards and the Broadcast Awards. The RTS’s judges remarked that it was “a confident broadcaster reaping the rewards of years of steady growth and development – a channel that increasingly now both surprises and delights”.
That momentum careered into 2021, as The Drowning – the four-parter about a mother who befriends a child she believes is her missing son – became its most-watched drama to date. A record 5.1 million tuned in for the first episode.
Grace was shot under stringent coronavirus protocols but you would never know an epidemic was sweeping the nation from watching ITV’s new Sunday-night drama. This was as the broadcaster and the show’s producer intended – and immensely pleasing for its star, John Simm. “No one wants to see anything about Covid. It was the most depressingly boring year and we don’t want to see it on film,” he says.
Simm plays detective superintendent Roy Grace, the eponymous hero of Peter James’s bestselling crime novels.
It’s a sign of a true TV phenomenon when any one of a handful of catchphrases, a haircut, a song about a malodorous puss or just a single word – “Pivot!” - can instantly propel you back to the turn of the millennium and six people gathered in a West Village apartment, always strangely affordable, or on their local coffee shop sofa, always strangely available.
