National Television Awards 2023 - Special Recognition Award for Sarah Lancashire.
Includes fabulous interviews with people who’ve worked with her; Sally Wainwright, Nicole Walker, Siobhan Finneran, Nina Sosanya, James Norton, Dawn French, William Roache. Presented by Sir Ian McKellan
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Before Gentleman Jack: Emma Donoghue on Anne Lister and Eliza Raine
Bestselling author Emma Donoghue introduces Anne Lister (now often known as Gentleman Jack) and Eliza Raine, the real women behind her latest novel, Learned By Heart.
Who was Eliza Raine, and what was her relationship with Anne?
I wish Anne Lister’s first lover was just as famous as her, but Eliza Raine (1791-1860), shamefully mistreated during her long life, has been ignored ever since she died in obscurity. This fascinating woman – orphan heiress of an English East India Company doctor and his Indian ‘country wife’ – deserves attention not just for her beauty, her importance to Lister and her vivid letters, but for her outsider perspective on Regency England. Banished to the so-called motherland to be ‘Englished’ at six, with a sister she never got on with, Eliza Raine must have witnessed society from a uniquely critical perspective, and so I found it was her untold story that ended up as the centre of Learned by Heart.
Is Gentleman Jack based on a true story?
Yes, the two seasons of Sally Wainwright’s BBC/HBO series Gentleman Jack (2019-22) are not only gripping, big-budget period drama, but they’re based on archival documents. Wainwright somehow managed to craft the dramatic arcs of each episode from the daily minutiae of Lister’s five-million-word secret diary. I can’t think of another example of TV adaptation actually contributing to an archive in a virtuous feedback loop: Wainwright not only used a screenwriting award to fund scans of the massive diary, but the fandom spawned by her show helped inspire hundreds to sign up as Code Breakers (aka Lister Sisters) and do the comma-by-comma work of transcribing it. A smaller group of the Code Breakers also made it possible for me to write Learned by Heart, by transcribing and making sense of about a hundred letters between, by or about Lister and Raine.
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Adam Nagaitis as an art model for a Branwell Brontë knitted doll
(+ the whole 'To Walk Invisible' knitted dolls collection 2017 by Denise Salway)
(Instagram: @knittingwitchuk)
Something unprecedented in terms of Adam related art
A knitted Adam? Yes, please!!
The collection also includes Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Patrick Brontës as well as the director of the film Sally Wainwright!
'To Walk Invisible' is a British television film about the Brontë family that aired on BBC One on 29 December 2016. The drama was written and directed by Sally Wainwright and focused on the relationship of the three Brontë sisters; Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and their brother, Branwell.
Denise Salway's Instagram:
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'As we get ever closer to the brand new Christmas episode of Doctor Who, more snippets of information and interesting anecdotes about the show continue to come out – and, quite frankly, it's something Whovians will never tire of.
Is there any better feeling than discovering a lesser-known fact about one of your favourite series? We think not, and with the help of Imagine... Russell T Davies: The Doctor and Me, fans have found out even more about the sci-fi than they could have... well, imagined.
One of the most intriguing parts of the one-off special was the admission that David Tennant originally only wanted a minor role in Doctor Who, perhaps as some kind of monster that would only appear for a day.
That's right, the fan favourite Doctor could've been little more than a temporary villain, but showrunner Russell T Davies had faith in the actor – so much so that he didn't even ask Tennant to audition for the role.
Speaking about the casting process for Tennant, Davies said in the Imagine episode that he was "already working with him on Casanova, and he turned out to be a Doctor Who fan".
Tennant continued: "I finally was on set and met Russell – one of the first things I said to him was, 'If there’s any little walk-ons in Doctor Who, I’d be very happy to come and wave a tentacle in a suit for a day.'"
But Davies clearly couldn't see the tentacle vision for Tennant, saying: "In my mind, he kind of melded over and became the Doctor quite naturally. There was no audition for him, it was a simple offer."
Of course, fans most recently got to see Tennant return to Doctor Who as the Fourteenth Doctor, being part of a surprise bigeneration with the Fifteenth Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa.
The new Imagine episode goes behind the scenes of Doctor Who as fans gear up for not just a much-anticipated goblin-filled Christmas special, but also a brand new series with Gatwa and Millie Gibson at the helm.
According to the synopsis for the episode: "Imagine… follows one of Britain’s most celebrated TV writers as he prepares to once again return as the showrunner of Doctor Who.
"Back in 2005, Davies was responsible for relaunching the action-adventure series after many years away from our TV screens. Few could have imagined the phenomenon it became. And now, in the programme’s 60th anniversary year, he’s back – with two Doctors and bigger ambitions.
"Imagine… goes behind the scenes at Cardiff’s Bad Wolf Studios to see the adventures of the time travelling hero being filmed, touring the enormous sound stages and meeting Ncuti Gatwa, the 15th Doctor, ahead of his eagerly anticipated tenure as the Time Lord following the unexpected regeneration of David Tennant."
It continues: "Doctor Who is just one of Russell T Davies’s many TV successes, and Alan Yentob traces the evolution of his writing, from his beginnings in BBC children’s TV to finding his voice as a queer writer on Channel 4’s landmark gay series Queer as Folk and to more recent successes, including 2021’s critically acclaimed AIDS drama, It’s a Sin.
"The film also features interviews with David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Ncuti Gatwa, Helena Bonham Carter, Olly Alexander, Sally Wainwright and Caitlin Moran."'
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