In 1971, Nigel contributed a script to the final season of BBC2’s science-fantasy anthology series Out of the Unknown: The Chopper. “It’s a long time ago,” chuckles Nigel. “I don’t really remember it very clearly.
As a writer, does Nigel prefer creative writing to the demanding task of adapting the works of others? “Obviously it’s much more interesting writing your own stuff.
Quite often these days, I’m asked about the possibility of reprinting some of my earlier articles from fanzines and long-defunct magazines… and my instinct is almost always to say ‘no’. And the main reason for this is that I, as a reader, would rather read a new piece on a given subject rather than a rehash of something that was originally written when we only had a fraction of the research materials that we do now.
A BRITISH SOCIETY OF AESTHETICS CONFERENCE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Jason Mittell (Middlebury College) Iris Vidmar Jovanović (University of Rijeka) The Aesthetics Research Centre at the University of Kent is delighted to invite paper proposals for ‘Television Aesthetics: Now What?’ (7-8 July 2022), a conference organised with generous funding from the British Society of Aesthetics.
When Inventing Anna debuted on Netflix on 11 February, a familiar debate about the relationship between fact and fiction was ignited. While Anna Delvey’s (Julia Garner) claims to be a German heiress were a web of lies, her extorsions as depicted in miniseries did occur – and the characters that surround her equally exist.
On Monday evening 4 April, the UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries tweeted that she intended to push ahead with the privatisation of Channel 4. Twitter is her favourite medium. She also tweeted her decision, before any negotiations, to freeze the BBC’s licence fee for two years, a real terms cut of £2 billion.
With the British government’s latest diktat concerning the future of the public service broadcaster, Channel 4, now fully revealed, it is time to consider the contribution Channel 4 has made, not only to the British media landscape, but to personal and public experiences as a whole over the last 40 years. I say both personal and public experiences because that is how television works, and Channel 4 has been influential in both respects.
When it comes to the shortage of Production Managers there’s a coyness about stating the blindingly obvious, argue Christa van Raalte and Richard Wallis The shortage of Production Managers and Coordinators has become a hot topic. It was highlighted in the recent Screen Skills review of unscripted television, with some of the underlying issues further discussed in Adrian Pegg’s impassioned Broadcast article.
“Materialism,” “materials,” “materiality,” “matter”: for scholars in screen and media studies, is there anything these terms can’t do? They shape our common critical vernacular, from references to “source material” to discussion of “subject matter.” They also sustain a range of approaches to screen media—from cultural materialist frameworks (Garnham; Williams) to theories of the cinematic apparatus (Baudry; Hanich; Pedulla; Straw;
Channel 4’s first programmes were broadcast on 2 November 1982, 40 years ago. Royal Holloway University of London’s School of Performance and Digital Arts, and Centre for the History of Television Culture and Production are planning a conference for 23 and 24 September 2020 to assess Channel 4 on its 40 th birthday.
28 April 2022 will mark the centenary of the birth of Nigel Kneale – or more properly Thomas Nigel Kneale – a Manx-born writer whose works loom large in my own areas of interest and also across various genres of British television as a whole.
