The first month of the new year, as has been the case now since 2012, heralds the start of another new series of the BBC’s flagship and consistently highly rated Sunday night drama of community nursing, midwifery and medicine Call the Midwife . Promos and advance publicity for the seventh series have primed audiences for the introduction to the regularly recurring cast of characters of a nurse of colour, for the first time in its

ITV recently broadcast Goodbye Granadaland , a 90 minute valedictory celebration of the output of Granada’s studios in central Manchester ahead of its forthcoming relocation to the nearby Salford Media City complex.

The big question of this year’s BAFTAs was how many awards Netflix would romp home with.

In a recent Sight and Sound article (March 3 2017) Nick James made an interesting observation about BBC1’s latest historical/period drama, Taboo (BBC1, 2017, Scott, Hardy et al). Likening its look and characters to an Alan Moore graphic novel (“ From Hell ”), Taboo , according to James, has a “peculiar iconography” that “yearns to be linked…with the shadows…only graphic novelists care

6-8 September 2017 University of Hertfordshire, School of Creative Arts, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB Deadline for proposals EXTENDED:

I finally got around to watching the new version of Roots (if you haven’t seen it yet, episodes 2-4 are still available on the IPlayer). The series, even in its new version, still feels monumental: it evidences just how rare it still is to see history told from any other point of view than that of a white, heterosexual man. Unfortunately, despite this feeling of observing television history, I also found myself being quite disappointed.

Big changes are taking place at Sky, even before the much anticipated buyout of non-Murdoch shareholders by Fox. This buyout is currently awaiting approval from Ofcom and the relevant minister. At least that isn’t John Whittingdale any more, but Karen Bradley is scarcely one to stand up to the all-powerful Murdoch machine.

The killing of Osama Bin Laden by American special forces may have rid the collective American psyche of a man who at times appeared to be a ghost, but it also raised another ghost.

Television often has subtitles in my household and not just when we are watching Euro-dramas on BBC4. I hadn’t given much thought to this until I read an excellent article on the topic by Maggie Brown in the Royal Television Society’s magazine (Television, May 2016), entitled ‘Sounding off about the unheard’. I thoroughly recommend it, particularly to anyone who teaches film/video making.

I like old things. When I was a teenager my granddad entrusted me with my great grandfather’s fob watch, and it always gave me a thrill to think that I was holding something of (it seemed at the time) inestimable age. It was probably only manufactured in the early twentieth century, but I carried it to school with pride;