Tag Archives: Casualty

Turning up the volume on hidden disability

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As long-running British medical drama Casualty dedicates an episode to its first regular deaf character, DQ speaks to actor Gabriella Leon and writers Charlie Swinbourne and Sophie Woolley about shining a light on this hidden disability.

Since it debuted on BBC1 in September 1986, medical drama Casualty has become a staple of the UK pubcaster’s Saturday night schedule. Set in the fictional Holby City Hospital, it follows the staff and numerous patients who pass through its Accident and Emergency department.

Now in its 34th season, the BBC Studios production has highlighted issues such as dementia, rape, OCD and organ donation, as well as becoming known for spectacular action scenes including fires and car, train and helicopter crashes. For the season 31 finale, Casualty also pushed production boundaries by filming an episode in a single take.

But in a new milestone for the show, its latest episode unfolds from the perspective of nurse Jade Lovall, the series’ first regular deaf character, as she reaches the conclusion of a storyline that has seen her searching for her birth mother.

Though it might be just another day on the emergency ward, with a cyclist being treated for head injuries and a heart transplant patient suffering dizzying collapses, viewers will spend the day with Jade and experience a small part of what life is like living with a hearing impairment when the episode airs tomorrow.

From waking to an alarm that uses flashing lights and vibrations to the muffled audio that only sharpens once she turns on her hearing aid, it is an eye-opening insight into Jade’s life. Loud noises trigger her hyperacusis (sensitivity to noise), while the ringing sound of tinnitus underneath dialogue punctuates the drama at regular intervals.

L-R: Sophie Stone, John Maidens, Gabriella Leon and Charlie Swinbourne

Seemingly simple tasks such as ordering a coffee are used to dramatise the struggle people with hearing difficulties can have when trying to communicate with those who are unaware of their hidden disability, while the episode also touches on the prejudices experienced by people who are hard of hearing.

Gabriella Leon, who plays Jade and has a hearing impairment in real life, joined the cast of Casualty in 2018 after answering an audition call for women who were not defined by their disability. “I identify with that,” she tells DQ.

Her character is “funny, endearing and perhaps a little clumsy,” she explains. “Jade’s a loyal friend and really cares about her patients and being a part of a team. She is a shining example of someone who is not defined by her invisible disability or her troubled upbringing and, despite the odds, has achieved what she has. Jade is always up for a laugh and a party.”

Though Casualty has previously featured guest characters with hearing impairments, Jade became the show’s first regular deaf character. Admitting she was surprised when she was told the news of her recurring part, Leon says she saw it as an opportunity to educate and normalise seeing characters with disabilities on screen. Her role off-screen involves ongoing conversations with the story team and writers about how to best portray Jade’s disability, which can often be based on her own real-life experiences.

“I always encourage working with a deaf team of creatives when specifically focusing on Jade’s disability, as it’s really important to me that everything is authentic,” she says. “It involves rehearsals with British Sign Language [BSL] monitors and interpreters to incorporate BSL and Sign Supported English, translating the script from English to BSL and making sure the signs we’re choosing are relevant and authentic for Jade and the person she’s signing with.”

This Saturday’s episode of Casualty focuses on deaf character Jade, played by Leon

Her current storyline sees Jade confronted by her past, as she decides the time is right to finally meet her birth mother. On the day of their meeting, she’s also dealing with a particularly hard day at work.

“This episode is really special. I have so many emotions!” Leon says. “There is such a lovely personal angle in the storytelling that I hope the audience can really get behind. Jade is faced with some overwhelming decisions and it’s a testament to herself, how she approaches these things. It’s a celebration of someone with a disability, in really being able to understand and experience what Jade is going through. It’s a triumph that the whole team should really be proud of.”

The episode is written by Charlie Swinbourne and Sophie Woolley and directed by John Maidens, all of whom are also deaf. Leon says she’d been pushing to do a story that would explore both a ‘day in the life of Jade’ and her character’s past spent in foster care, “and I’d said that deaf writers should do the episode,” she says. “We had a meeting to explore where we could see this going and it blossomed from there. There is something really satisfying and special working with people that share the same struggles and victories as you in terms of disability. Charlie and Sophie are wonderful to work with.”

In autumn 2018, after Swinbourne and Woolley had joined the BBC Writers Room’s Writers Access Group along with other writers with disabilities, they were invited to visit the set of BBC daytime drama Doctors in Birmingham, where Loretta Preece was the producer. When Preece moved to Casualty, Leon spoke to her about exploring Jade’s disability, and Swinbourne and Woolley came to Cardiff, where the show is filmed, to discuss potential stories.

At the same time, Swinbourne was also involved in writing stories for fellow BBC soap EastEnders, involving character Ben Mitchell coming to terms with hearing loss and the introduction of deaf character Frankie, played by deaf actor Rose Ayling-Ellis.

Multiple individuals with hearing disabilities were involved in making the episode

“The big difference was that for EastEnders, I wrote and pitched a long-running storyline that was going to play out over many months,” he says. “With Casualty, we were focusing on one day in Jade’s life, one episode, and I was co-writing the script.

“As with my previous work, the aim was to tell an authentic story about being deaf, how it goes beyond just not hearing things, or having to work hard to lipread, but also how it shifts everything. I wanted to take the audience into a world they might not have experienced before, and for them to see new sides of characters they might have felt they already knew.”

The writers collaborated over email, Skype and WhatsApp, putting their own lives and experiences into Jade’s story. “Deafness is a hidden disability and, for that reason, it’s often misunderstood,” Swinbourne says. “People just don’t see the work that goes on beneath the surface when you’re deaf in a hearing world. I hope that, through this episode, the audience will get a different sense of Jade, see her inner world and what her life is really like – not only through her deafness, but also by meeting her mother and finding out the truth about her early years.”

Woolley says she “loved every minute” of working on Casualty, her first TV writing credit, having previously acted and written for screen, radio and the stage.

“After visiting Cardiff and speaking with Gabriella about her experience and the research she’d done for her character about meeting her birth parents, we wrote a draft every two weeks and had notes from the script editor and the medical editor, with the comments from their medical advisors,” she says. “I was over the moon when I found out [deaf actor] Sophie Stone had been cast as well [as Jade’s birth mother Susie].”

Sophie Woolley

Woolley, who went deaf over a 20-year period, reveals she has experienced a wide range of different deaf identities, from wearing hearing aids to lipreading and using BSL interpreters at work. She now has a cochlear implant, which helps her to hear well, but says she could relate a lot to Jade’s experience, which was made more authentic by the number of deaf creatives working on the episode.

“It makes a big difference in a show-making process to have more deaf people in all parts of the creative team,” she says. “If the only deaf person in the team is one deaf actor and they are asked to do an inauthentic line or directed to do something a deaf character would not do, it puts that deaf actor in a position of having to decide whether to say, ‘Actually, my character would never do this.’”

Working with director Maidens was “brilliant because, as a deaf director, he really understood everything in the script and related to it on a personal level,” Swinbourne says. “We were able to talk to him before filming about our intentions in certain scenes, how things might play out. I was also able to visit the set during filming and see him in action. He did an incredible job in this episode and made our script come to life.”

Leon also describes working with Maidens as “an absolute dream,” adding: “He’s one of the most prepared and creative directors I’ve ever worked with. He really made my experience so very memorable, and it was a really joyous set working on this. Again, it’s comforting to have other deaf creatives around me who understand. It makes the work so much more poignant, because they know themselves the best way to go about this.

“I want to see more d/Deaf [differentiating between deaf people who are hard of hearing and may lipread or use hearing aids, and deaf people who use sign language] and disabled creatives involved in episodes that aren’t necessarily connected to disability. A diversified set is rich and always makes the work better.”

For Swinbourne, the key to the success of the episode is authenticity. “Working with writers, directors and actors with experience of deafness and disability is key, because we’ve lived it, we know how complex it is and what’s interesting or novel about it,” he says. “This episode had two deaf writers and a deaf director, and starred two talented deaf actresses. Every one of us fed our own experiences into our area of work.

“Too often when deafness and disability is portrayed, there can be an illusion of representation, because often very few deaf or disabled people have been involved in making it, on screen or off. I hope this episode is a big step forward for the industry in realising what deaf talent can do, and I hope we are helping to open the door for more of our peers to follow behind us and show what they can do. There are so many talented people out there who deserve an opportunity.”

Leon’s message to those seeking to improve representation of disabled people in the television business is succinct: hire them. “It’s so important to actively go looking for d/Deaf and disabled talent for on and off-screen roles. It’s time for stories to be told by a different narrator and angle. Honour our stories by actually having people with disabilities play people with disabilities – the work and talent will be immense.

“Equally, it’s doubly imperative for them not just to be used as ‘disabled characters’ but ‘characters that happen to have a disability,’ where that fact isn’t integral or even mentioned in the plot. That is how the industry normalises having d/Deaf and disabled talent represented, and a new wave of layered incredible stories will emerge for our viewing pleasure.

“There needs to be a genuine want for change, for better inclusivity, and a want to learn and be educated. There also needs to be a continuation of establishing characters like Jade, who isn’t defined by her disability but it is a part of her and her experience of life, and having more narratives from people with disabilities, written and created by people with disabilities. This is why I’m so proud of this episode and the work Casualty are pushing to do more of.”

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Being Morse

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As Inspector Morse prequel Endeavour returns for a seventh season, star Shaun Evans talks to DQ about keeping the detective series fresh, avoiding impersonations and stepping into the director’s chair.

In the beginning, it was a single drama commissioned to mark the 25th anniversary of Inspector Morse. But eight years later, prequel series Endeavour is now back for its seventh season, continuing the story of the young Endeavour Morse’s early days as a detective in Oxford.

Shaun Evans returns in the title role, once again joined by Roger Allam as DCI Fred Thursday for three new films again written by Russell Lewis, taking the characters into a new decade, the 1970s. Episode one, Oracle, sees Endeavour taking in the new year at an opera house in Venice, while Thursday is convinced he has found the man responsible for a murder on an Oxford towpath.

Shaun Evans steps behind the camera still in costume

New acquaintances and old friendships make themselves known, while a contentious college project develops into a fatal battle of the sexes.

The ITV drama – coproduced with Masterpiece in the US – may have been on air for eight years, but the limited number of episodes each year means Evans feels the series is as fresh as ever.

“We’re lucky because we only generally have four in the season, and this time it’s even less,” he says. “In a way that gives you more scope and because you’ve got a bigger gap between seasons it doesn’t feel like you’re constantly at the coalface. You can go away and do something else and then come back. That makes it easier, but also knowing there’s a shelf life [for the series] and that there is an end point focuses the mind. The great thing, though, is if the viewing figures are good enough, they’ll invite you to come back. It’s not taken for granted.”

With an eighth season already commissioned, the drama is now rapidly catching up to the original Morse series and it seems likely ITV will take Endeavour to its conclusion, however close that might be to the original series, which ran between 1987 and 2000.

“Having read the books [by Colin Dexter that inspired the original Morse series], that was my starting point of where the character was at the very beginning. But now, I feel like it’s got its own life,” Evans says of the prequel. “My only duty really is to finish the story we’ve embarked upon. To be honest, I think we’ll leave a big enough gap. There will be something like a 10-year gap before Morse starts, so I don’t feel too constrained by that.”

From the outset, the actor says he wanted to avoid any constraints put on Endeavour by the original series, particularly when it came to how he would portray the actor, who was originally played by the late John Thaw.

Part of the episode Oracle is set in a Venice opera house

“When we first started I said I didn’t want to do an impression, otherwise what’s the point? I’m not doing any creative work then,” he says. “Fortunately it’s snowballed and so my intention is, if we are going to continue, to continue in that vein, to just keep doing my work and doing the work I’m proud of and bringing immediacy to the role if I’m acting it or a dynamism to if I’m directing it, so I can sleep at night. Beyond that, it’s not my decision.”

The current trend in television drama is for stories to play out over eight or 10 hours, with just as much investment in character development as there might be in the plot driving through the series. With a restricted number of episodes and a crime to solve in each one, does Evans feel he’s able to dig deep into Endeavour’s own personality?

“What I have discovered to be interesting is the plot-versus-character aspect of it and negotiating that,” he says. “For example, what I enjoy now is the flexibility of whether something is implausible or unlikely. There’s the flexibility of going, ‘Okay, that could happen’ and how do I get this character from scene A to scene B in a way that’s as believable and as immediate as possible, even though it may be slightly implausible. That is the nature of this job, rather than me creating a character. So the whole experience has really made me rethink what I think about acting for the screen and what that is moving forward.”

As a producer on the series as well as the leading actor, Evans is constantly in touch with the ‘family’ behind the scenes, whether that’s series creator and writer Russell Lewis or the production team at Mammoth Screen. “We’re all speaking throughout the year so it there’s something that needs our attention, we’re already talking about it anyway. And by the end of each season, we’re all more or less on the same page about going, ‘That didn’t work so well, but that was really good.’ For better or worse, it’s a constant conversation, which is a really unique and joyous way to be working.”

Evans is now adding directing to his list of duties and with three episodes of BBC medical drama Casualty under his belt, he made his directorial debut on Endeavour with an episode on season six. Now in season seven, he repeated his dual role on the first episode, Oracle.

Roger Allam returns as DCI Fred Thursday

“I’m not going to lie and say I was a kid running around with a 16mm camera,” Evans says of his directing pedigree. “I wasn’t, but from the get-go I was always more interested in doing as much as I can and being as broad as I can. I was glad when I was given the opportunity.”

He got his first break on Casualty, where series producer Erika Hossington invited him on to the show. “She did some due diligence and called around, heard that my heart was in the right place and then gave me the opportunity,” he recalls. “I prepared like a motherfucker and went and did it. The great thing for me at least about doing that rather than making a short film as a transition [into directing] is there’s something that focuses the mind when, yes it’s a machine, yes in six months time this will be out and people will see it, but also you’re surrounded by paid professionals who can sniff out if someone doesn’t know what they fuck they’re doing.

“For me, it’s better to learn under a little bit of pressure. It was an amazing experience in that respect. I started to learn about scenes and covering scenes. It was nerve-wracking for the first day or so but you’ve got to have a thick skin and be like, ‘Okay, I wasn’t so great at that. I’ll learn for next time.’”

He went on to direct three episodes of Casualty before filming 2019’s Apollo episode of Endeavour. “That was a really good experience and then they asked me to do it again. We also have a shorthand together now, myself and the team, because we’re friends and because we’ve made so many of them. I understand the tropes of this kind of story so I’m not wasting time there. I also have a shorthand with both the returning crew and the cast, so it makes it very efficient.”

Oracle opens with shots across the Oxford skyline and above rooftops, with atmospheric images of haunting woods and fog-covered bridges and canals. These are cross-cut with pictures of Endeavour attending the opera in Venice, where an elaborate performance – created purely for the series – is taking place on stage. There are also shots taken through windows, framing characters in different ways, while the camera, rarely still, is often moving with characters as they walk through crowds or waiting for them to approach from afar.

Evans says directors on the show, which is distributed by ITV Studios Global Entertainment, are encouraged to be “as bold and as different” as they can to make the film their own, rather than relying on a directing blueprint.

Actors Naomi Battrick and Abigail Thaw (right), daughter of Inspector Morse star John Thaw

“I storyboard it for myself in a very rudimentary way and then I make a list of things I want to see and the backgrounds I want to see and where I imagine things will take place, and then throw it out, and then start again,” he says of his preparation process. “You have to build to be able to destroy but that’s part of the nerves. I want to be the one with all the answers, as a director should be. There’s nothing worse than seeing someone in that role falter and flounder. It’s most effective when that person is most decisive and has a clear goal and is confident enough to be open to better suggestions. That’s what I’ve noticed by working for 20 years.”

For Oracle, he also enjoyed the opportunity to film in Venice, where he and a skeleton crew spent just a few days collecting what they needed.

“When you’re working on a TV show, it’s a huge circus that comes around but it’s great because you have all of that support,” he says. “But we wrapped on the Tuesday and then me and three others went to Venice on Wednesday, so we were shooting it in a very different set-up. There’s much more of a guerrilla style then. I flew out on Wednesday morning, looked at the location Wednesday afternoon and then we started shooting Thursday so you’re open to the TV gods to give you what you need and then you make it. It’s as simple as that.

“After being in the pressure cooker of being on a TV set, there’s something very freeing about just being in this place with a camera and a small team and knowing what you need, with just very rudimentary equipment. There’s something about that I found really engaging that I hadn’t done before, either on Casualty or Endeavour.”

Evans says what’s great about directing versus acting is that you can learn to become a better director, while acting is more instinctive and intuitive. He has also learned that, behind the camera, both preparation and an openness to other people’s ideas are key.

In addition, “experience is all,” he notes. “Don’t be precious. Go and do a show just to have hours. That was my take on it. You can learn even on a job you know is not your ultimate goal, but you’ve started on the journey and you learn some things. And work begets work as well. There’s no point you being aloof, sitting in the house until you get your big opportunities to make your film. If you’re out there busy grafting, then you’re learning something and people are talking about you anyway, and you’re not becoming stale. That would be my last thing that goes for anything. That’s a skill to be learned.”

The actor says he would eventually like to direct something he had written himself, adding that he’s “ambivalent” to whether that be a film or on television. “My hope is I’m in all of this for the long haul, so you can just keep that keep getting better and not just have one film that you want to direct or one part that you want to play,” he adds. “To get better at your work would be my goal.”

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Lifting the mask

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London’s Royal Festival Hall hosted the most prestigious night of the year for British television as prizes were handed out to dramas including Peaky Blinders, Three Girls and The Handmaid’s Tale. DQ went behind the scenes at the Bafta Television Awards 2018.

Crowds were hanging over balconies, hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite TV stars as dozens of plush cars lined up to drop off their A-list cargo at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The red carpet outside was a scene of organised chaos as guests made their way past photographers and fans cheering their name before they arrived inside the venue for this year’s Bafta Television Awards.

Inside the grand building, which sits on the city’s Southbank beside the River Thames, the atmosphere was one of relative calm as the auditorium’s seats slowly filled up ahead of the start of the show, this year presented by former Great British Bake-Off host Sue Perkins.

BBC comedy This Country and drama Three Girls, which was based on real events, each scooped two prizes, while Molly Windsor (Three Girls) and Sean Bean (Broken) scooped the gongs for leading actress and actor. In the best drama category, Peaky Blinders beat competition from Line of Duty, The Crown and The End of the F****** World, while US series The Handmaid’s Tale triumphed over scripted rivals Big Little Lies and Feud: Bette and Joan to be named best international drama.

After the winners were escorted off stage, DQ was on hand to hear some of their reactions.

A fifth season of Peaky Blinders is on the way

Drama Series: Peaky Blinders (Caryn Mandabach Productions, Tiger Aspect Productions, BBC2)
This was Peaky Blinders‘ first Bafta award for best drama since the period drama set in 1920s Birmingham debuted on BBC2 in 2013. Season four aired last year, with a fifth commissioned by BBC2.
Steven Knight, creator and writer: “I’m shocked. I think it took that long just for people to get the idea of what it’s all about. Some things do take time. I’m really pleased. I’m hoping that next year it will be [actors] Helen [McCrory], Paul [Anderson] and Cillian [Murphy]. They are the Peaky Blinders. My ambition was to make it a story of family between two wars. I’ve always wanted to end it with first air-raid siren in Birmingham in 1939 – three more seasons. Now we’re getting approached to do all kinds of things – ballet, musical, a movie would be great. I wouldn’t want to do it at the very end but maybe between two of the seasons.”
Caryn Mandabach, executive producer: “I’m gobsmacked. What Steve’s not saying is many people were saying, ‘It’s not for me, it’s too northern, it’s too violent.’ What people didn’t understand was what he was really writing about was the effect of violence on people and the importance of respect for the family. Now finally everyone’s catching up with an honest depiction of people everywhere after some giant thing like the First World War. I don’t know how he actually writes them, personally. I think he’s got writer fairies that visit occasionally.”

O-T Fagbenle in The Handmaid’s Tale

International: The Handmaid’s Tale (MGM, Channel 4)
After claiming victory at the Golden Globes and Emmys, Hulu’s adaptation of Margret Atwood’s dystopian novel – a timely and often challenging watch – was a sure thing to continue its award-winning run following its UK broadcast on Channel 4.
O-T Fagbenle, who plays Luke, Offred (Elisabeth Moss)’s husband before Gilead: “The source material, Margaret’s book, is just a phenomenal piece of literature. Also we live in scary times, changing times, with populist governments on the rise and a greater awareness of the way patriarchy affects women’s rights in the world.
“What’s been really interesting about it is how so many people from so many walks of life related to it. When it first came out, Donald Trump had just been elected and everyone related it to Trump. Then there was the great #MeToo movement and people related it to that. Also people around the world are relating to the different ways, large and small, that men have oppressed women.
“Elisabeth is the greatest actress I’ve ever had the chance to work with, in so many ways. She’s phenomenal and she carries such a load with her. The material is so challenging and she’s just charming and generous on set. You couldn’t wish to work with a better partner in a scene.”

Brían F O’Byrne as grieving father Steve Jones in Little Boy Blue

Supporting Actor: Brían F O’Byrne, Little Boy Blue (ITV Studios, ITV)
O’Byrne and Sinead Keenan starred as parents Steve and Melanie Jones in the four-part ITV series, which dramatises the real-life killing of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool in 2007.
“Jeff [Pope]’s script is so good and Paul [Whittington]’s such a wonderful director, you know you’re going to be in safe hands but also worried they may have actually called the wrong guy – there must be a mistake. I was living in LA at the time and I had just decided to move back to Ireland after being over there for three decades. I hadn’t worked in the UK before and got a call to go to Liverpool. I didn’t have the fear of getting a job until I met Mel and Steve, and then there was the realisation I could really fuck this up really badly and it would be terrible. It’s too sensitive a material.
“You’re not really thinking about it from an acting point of view as much as you’re invited into [the Jones family’s] home, and I got to meet two people who are grieving a decade later and are processing something we could all have empathy with and identify with. It would be our horror that your child, just coming back from football practice, could be indiscriminately killed.
“This award is Sinead’s really. I got to witness an incredible performance take after take. Actresses are the ones who really have to go from 0-100 right now and it’s expected take after take. She was living in grief for those several months. It was a really tough job for her.
“The odd thing was going to work on a set like that because everybody thought of it as we’re not just making a shit TV show. If you go and work on something like that, everybody there had care for the piece. There was great care and attention taken because we all met [the family at the heart of the story] and we didn’t want to lessen the loss they had in any way.
“They obviously wanted their story told because of their love for Rhys. I know they were happy about how the show ended up. [The existence of the show means] Rhys’s memory is still out there. I think ultimately that’s what they wanted. They want to show their grief continues and the senseless act of his murder is not just nightly news thing, it goes on and it stays with them.

Three Girls told the true story of a sexual abuse scandal

Miniseries: Three Girls (BBC Drama Studios, Studio Lambert, BBC1)
The BBC three-parter retold the true stories of victims of grooming and sexual abuse in the English town of Rochdale between 2008 and 2012. The series also won writing, editing and directing prizes at the Bafta Television Craft Awards last month.
Nicole Taylor, writer: “The first thing I did was turn it down repeatedly because I was scared to do it. I thought I had good reasons for turning it down but actually I was just scared  – and what I was really doing was turning away from the girls because I didn’t want to look, like everyone else. They didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want it to be true. I was scared of approaching it, and that was actually an appropriate place to start from. Once I went up to Rochdale and met the girls and their mums and dads, I was so stunned myself at the gap between the idea of Girl A and Girl B and Girl C and these anonymous people, and getting to know them was so enormous. I was so shocked by that; I thought, ‘Right, I’m definitely going to do this – I can’t not do this.’ I didn’t really do anything else for three years.”
Philippa Lowthorpe, director: “The really urgent thing for me as a director was to get inside those girls’ heads and see their experiences from their point of view, not on the outside, but to really try to understand from the inside what they might be experiencing and to be really truthful to their experience and honour their experience and to not walk away. It was very emotional. We had a brilliant casting director in Shaheen Baig and we chose very carefully girls not only for their talent, but also their maturity to be able to deal with this kind of subject matter.”
Simon Lewis, producer: “Before the programme could be broadcast, we showed it to [the real-life victims]. They came and watched it individually because we were obviously nervous and because we knew it would be emotional. One by one, sometimes with a family member or a friend, they all came in to watch. We were expecting them to say, ‘That’s not quite right,’ or ‘I didn’t go in that door’ or ‘I was never in that car,’ but actually the essence, the big stuff, they all said that’s how it was. When we showed it to them, there were a lot of tears. But there were a lot of tears all the way through making it.”
Susan Hogg, executive producer: “One of the girls said, which has really made me proud, that until she watched the programme, she didn’t realise she was a victim. Watching the programme, because we’d interviewed her and then put her character on the screen, she could see she was absolutely a victim, and that meant a huge amount to her. It’s not just about the three girls on screen, it’s about the thousands of others who have been abused and those trials keep coming up and more and more victims come to light. It’s for all them really that we made this programme, for them to be heard, because, for a long time, even when they went to the police, they weren’t being heard and weren’t being believed. Now we know that is changing. For the BBC to support a programme like this and for [director of content] Charlotte Moore to put her weight behind it and have the confidence to commission it is massive. With the way funding now works and we have a lot of money coming in from America and the SVoD channels, we’re doing a lot of coproductions, this really important domestic drama is very hard to fund, and the BBC absolutely does that. Long may that continue.”

Vanessa Kirby accepts her award for her performance in The Crown

Supporting Actress: Vanessa Kirby, The Crown (Left Bank Pictures, Netflix)
Kirby stars in the epic British royal drama as Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy)’s younger sister. The award marked the first major Bafta for Netflix, following craft prizes for photography & lighting and sound. 
“I just felt like the luckiest person in the world to play someone so colourful, vivid, brave and strong, so actually this is for Margaret, wherever she is.”

Aysha Rafaele on stage at the Baftas last night

Single Drama: Murdered for Being Different (BBC Studios Documentary Unit, BBC3)
This film, from the award-winning team behind Murdered by my Boyfriend, retold the brutal 2007 killing of 20-year-old Sophie Lancaster, who was kicked to death by a gang of teenagers. Her boyfriend Robert Maltby was also severely beaten and ended up in a coma. Both were targeted because they were goths.
Aysha Rafaele, the former creative director of BBC Studios Documentary Unit who is now setting up a drama hub within the organisation: “A big thank you to Robert Maltby and Sylvia Lancaster, Sophie’s mum, for their bravery and courage in allowing us to tell this devastating story. Sadly since Sophie’s death, hate crime in this country has continued to rise. It’s our duty and our privilege as filmmakers to not look away from the dark corners in our society.”

Daisy May Cooper writes and stars in This Country

Scripted Comedy: This Country (BBC Studios, BBC3)
Female Performance in a Comedy Programme: Daisy May Cooper, This Country
The BBC3 mockumentary, about two young people living in a small village in the Cotswolds, also earned its stars and co-creators (and siblings) writing accolades at the Bafta TV Craft Awards last month.
Charlie Cooper, writer and actor: “We had an idea in our head that we thought might be funny but we were never intelligent enough to articulate it. As soon as we met these guys [producers Tom George and Simon Mayhew-Archer], they knew immediately what we were on about and transformed what was a seed of an idea into something that’s good and funny. It’s amazing.”
Daisy May Cooper, writer and actor: “What we were worried about when the first season came out was that people might not be able to find it [on online network BBC3]. Now with a second season coming out, people are really talking about it and I get stopped a lot more, which is brilliant. I absolutely love it.”

Toby Jones clutches his award

Male Performance in a Comedy Programme: Toby Jones, Detectorists (Channel X North, Treasure Trove Productions, Lola Entertainment, BBC4)
The comedy series, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, saw Crook and Jones play a pair of metal-detecting enthusiasts. It previously won the 2015 Bafta for scripted comedy. Jones won the award for its third and final season.
“I think it’s fantastic writing. It’s a strange thing in world of TV now that I was cycling through New Orleans making a film last October and these guys came out of a bar and just went, ‘Man we love the Detectorists.’ It’s so extraordinary that a show made in a village in Suffolk is big in America and Canada. It’s a testament to how Mackenzie’s created characters that are archetypal. It’s about friendships, maybe about a life a lot of people want, where they can go to the pub with their mates and they have time.
“Mackenzie and I have worked on the same things before but never worked in a scene together. Then we were in Muppets Most Wanted as a double act and he said to me, ‘I’ve written this thing with you in mind. You don’t have to do it. I know it’s a nightmare when people tell you they’ve written something for you but, if you don’t mind, I’ll email it to you. You probably won’t like it and you don’t want to do a comedy show, do you?’ He emailed it to me and it was just the most amazing dialogue. It’s not comedy in the sense of gags, it’s about humane characters. That’s what appealed to me.
“I always think the most glamorous thing about our job is the contrast. You get to move medium, you get to move where you’re working, the scale you’re working at and the people you’re working with. That always feels to me like the most glamorous thing you can possibly do. So to work on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and then go and stay in a pub and make Detectorists, it just feels fantastic. Neither one is better. It’s just a huge contrast.
“Mackenzie was pretty clear that he didn’t want to say goodbye in a big way, but there’s a challenge in the show that you find treasure. You can’t keep finding treasure. It felt great that he’d found a third season because it felt like the second one, where we found treasure at the end, that was a good place to stop. Nut he said, ‘What if the treasure was up in the sky?’ So it actually feels good and appropriate to finish it. I really miss those actors because it was such a chilled-out job. You stroll to work in a field in the sunshine every day. The scripts are immaculate. It’s very rare you don’t have to change anything.”

Casualty first aired in 1986

Soap & Continuing Drama: Casualty (BBC Studios Continuing Drama, BBC1)
The long-running BBC drama follows the staff and patients at the fictional Holby City Hospital’s emergency department.
George Rainsford, who plays Ethan Hardy: “Casualty has been around for 30 years. It keeps challenging itself and keeps challenging the viewers, keeps producing big stories people can relate to, hopefully, and it keeps championing the NHS. I’m really speechless. I genuinely didn’t think we’d be here.”
Chelsea Halfpenny, who plays Alicia Munroe: “I think it shows authentically the realities of the NHS. The business, the lack of funding…  I get a lot of tweets and messages from nurses and doctors saying thank you for showing the struggles.”
Simon Harper, executive producer: “There isn’t particularly a gender pay gap on Casualty, I wouldn’t say. One thing that came to light in the [BBC] pay publication thing last summer was just how hard our artists work, and every single one of them deserves every single penny that they earn. I would agree in the industry wide there’s still a lot of work to be done but I think we can hold our heads high on that issue.”

Sean Bean collects the leading actor prize

Leading Actor: Sean Bean, Broken (LA Productions, BBC1)
Former Game of Thrones star Bean won the award for his portrayal of Father Michael Kerrigan, a Roman Catholic priest who tries to be a confidant, counsellor and confessor for a congregation struggling with its beliefs amid the challenges of daily life in contemporary Britain. The series was written by Jimmy McGovern.
“It kind of developed with Jimmy as an idea. I’ve worked with Jimmy before on a thing called Tracie’s Story, where I played a transvestite, so I knew it would be something unusual. It was kind of semi-autobiographical for Jimmy; it was based on his experiences but it stemmed from scratch really. There was no script, no story, it was just his ideas and he was very passionate about that. I got on board very early and said I’d love to work with him again and let’s see what you come up with. I wasn’t really taking a gamble because I love him – and whatever he comes up with, it’s going to be interesting. But it was very exciting for me. It was a nucleus that developed.
“We got the first episode and that was brilliant. It started off well and it was great to work with Anna [who played Christina Fitzsimmons], who was someone I’d wanted to work with for a long time. She was so perfect for the role, she was so fragile and vulnerable and yet a very strong woman, a woman with great self-belief but who has been battered around by her circumstances.
“I like looking at who the characters are, how they’re written and how they develop. That’s always been the case. When you read a script, if there’s detail that’s great but, in terms of characters, there are not a great deal of scripts that have characters that develop and we can relate to. There are quite a few one-dimensional characters you can play but you’re trying to supplement it with whatever you do to improve the character, whereas something like Broken, Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, the characters are there and you live up to their expectations. It’s up to you to reach that peak of characterisation. I’m just a bit more selective [now] and I like to know the directors and producers. Fortunately I’ve worked a few years and got to know quite a few people. I look forward to playing characters like Father Michael Kerrigan again.
“I worked as a producer on Broken. I’d like to spend some time looking at other things and maybe books I’ve read or ideas people have and become a producer. I wouldn’t say I’d like to direct, I can’t see myself doing that at the moment, but I’d like to be involved in the process of starting something from scratch and developing it and finding interesting characters to play. I don’t want to play something extreme. I think often the very simple stories as in Broken are the most powerful.”

Three Girls star Molly Windsor on stage

Leading Actress: Molly Windsor, Three Girls
Windsor plays Holly, a young girl new to Rochdale who is keen to make friends and fit in, but soon finds herself drawn into a world she cannot escape, despite her pleas for help.
“It’s surreal, absolutely bizarre. Philippa [Lowthorpe, director], Nicole [Taylor, writer] and Simon [Lewis, producer] were working on Three Girls for a long time before I came on board. They’d done so much research that they were my first port of call and they introduced me to Sara [Rowbotham, an NHS health worker] and Maggie [Oliver, a police officer who investigated the real case] and some of the real girls. Any questions or bits of research or bits of things I wanted to know, they were so great and kept us all in the loop and told us everything. The biggest challenge was the responsibility, the weight of knowing, because you want to do it right. If you look at it as a big mountain, that becomes a bit scary. So for me it was taking it scene by scene and taking it each day as it came and just committing to it – because if you look at it as a big project, that’s a big challenge.”

Hear from the winners of the Bafta Television Craft Awards 2018 here.

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