This one of TV film stars Harry Potter actor Michael Gambon as Winston Churchill. In 1953 Winston Churchill has the first of several strokes which was kept secret from the world. Told from the perspective of his young nurse, Churchill fights to recover, all the while holding tight to the reins of the nation, refusing to relinquish his Prime Ministership.
W1A’s Ophelia Lovibond will star alongside Michael Landes, best known for appearing alongside Tamsin Grieg in Love Soup, in new Sky 1 drama Hooten & The Lady.
Landes will play Hooten, an adventurer, who teams up with Lady Alexandra Lindo-Parker (Lovibond) from the British Museum to go in search of lost treasures, from the tomb of Alexander the Great to the Buddha’s missing scroll.
“This is an incredibly ambitious show which I hope will be appointment to view television for a discerning drama audience on Sky 1,” said showrunner Tony Jordan.
When Kim Shillinglaw became Controller of BBC Two last year, one of her predecessors took her for a drink. Roly Keating had launched BBC Four, moved on to BBC Two and filled in as temporary boss of BBC One. In a meeting room in New Broadcasting House, Shillinglaw recalls with terrible clarity what he told her.
“He said, ‘You will find BBC Two is the toughest. Let me tell you that now. BBC Four has a lot of individual commissions but not very much money, so there’s a limit to how many things it can commission.
Watching an election campaign from an academic perch is very different to organising coverage in the newsroom. My university colleagues are no less engaged, but they stand outside the media-political bubble and are usually better informed.
This can make some of their questions more challenging than those of presenters, correspondents or politicians. They seem to think opinion should be based on rigorous research and evidence. Quaint notion.
We have had a team researching media coverage of the campaign that has been published in The Guardian each week.
Will television eat itself? A flat screen might be easier to get down than a cathode-ray tube, and cause less indigestion – but, still, it doesn't really sound like a sensible diet.
All trades and professions are fascinated with themselves and like nothing more than talking endlessly about their own work. The TV industry is no different. In it's case, making telly about telly is proving increasingly irresistible.
We are all a bit too wised-up to dream about "the magic of television" any more. The schedules struggle to hold our attention.
