What does the job involve?
As a writer, I think it’s easy to become overwhelmed and feel inadequate. I like to remind myself that it’s not brain surgery; it’s storytelling and it is supposed to be fun. I try to shut off the inner critic and listen to my gut.
Surely, it must be a trial sometimes?
The first draft is the hardest: it can take me weeks of procrastination; it feels like torture at times. I pace from room to room in my house, with quite a degree of self-loathing.
April has been a strange month. It marks exactly 10 years of my career being a film critic – my first appearance was on Radio 1 on April Fools’ Day. My mum, who recorded it (old-school, on a cassette), plays it back to me down the phone and I sound so nervous as I chat to Greg James about why Jake Gyllenhaal’s Source Code was a pretty great film and why Sucker Punch, starring Vanessa Hudgens... was not.
I was still a student at Reading University but had been thrust into one of the most exciting jobs I could think of.
“We think we all know Diana’s story, but I always ask the question: what must it have been like for any person going through that experience – what she was thrown into at such a young age?” said Benjamin Caron, the director of the Fairytale episode of The Crown.
A year ago, Normal People became the huge TV hit of the first lockdown, changing the lives of its young stars, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, overnight.
The adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel was the BBC’s most-streamed series of last year, clocking up almost 63 million views on iPlayer in the eight months following its April launch.
Like football scouts spotting a magical left foot, the deep-pocketed US streaming platforms have made no bones about scooping up the best of British on-screen talent. Charlie Brooker has signed to Netflix, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is in bed with Amazon Prime, and relative latecomer Apple TV+ is able to boast the likes of Ewan McGregor and David Attenborough on its books.
As Bristol City Council’s new senior film manager, I have finally reached a position where I can support and promote my two main passions – Bristol and filming in the West Country.
My role is to oversee the work of the Bottle Yard Studios and Bristol Film Office, and make sure that Bristol can build on its past successes and deliver a single, complete and consistent offer encompassing studio and location filming. And, despite the pandemic, there has never been a better time.
It’s a brave film-maker who takes on the story of the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci. Can their treatment hope to measure up to the real figure who – for starters – painted the world’s most famous canvas, designed flying machines and was a ground-breaking anatomist and scientist.
As she confessed, she is an “unashamed TV addict – I loved it, and I still love it”. As the London-based President of Vice Studios, the international TV and feature-film production arm of Vice Media Group, she commissions content for Vice’s worldwide outlets and for third parties, such as Netflix, Disney and Amazon, and oversees sales from a catalogue comprising 900 hours of shows.
Ward detailed her career to the RTS at an event chaired by Manori Ravind- ran, international editor of Variety.
From Father Ted to Derry Girls, Channel 4’s reputation for Irish comedy is second to none. Now comes Frank of Ireland, a new, six-part series made by Sharon Horgan’s production company, Merman, producer of BBC Two’s Motherland. The show stars Brian Gleeson, who plays the eponymous Frank, and his brother Domhnall. The Gleeson family are, of course, Irish acting royalty.
Going boldly where no woman has gone before, Sky’s new drama Intergalactic follows the exploits of a group of female prisoners who commandeer their penal transport to escape to the free world of Arcadia.
But their journey is made trickier as one of the convicts is Ash Harper (played by Savannah Steyn), the daughter of a high-ranking member of the Commonworld’s establishment. With Ash imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit, her own quest is the search for the truth. Imagine Orange Is the New Black, but set in space.
