RTS West Of England Award Nominations Unveiled

The Royal Television Society (RTS) West of England has revealed this year's award nominations, in association with Evolutions Bristol.

Dominating this year's awards are dramas filmed and produced in the region, including Poldark, Wolf Hall and The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies (all based at The Bottle Yard Studios and facilitated by Bristol Film Office), as well as Cider with Rosie.

The On Screen Performance category features Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall), Jason Watkins (The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies) and Aidan Turner (Poldark), alongside newcomer Ruby Ashbourne Serkis (Cider with Rosie).

The BBC Natural History Unit has a total of 16 nominations for a number of programmes it has made and commissioned, including Shark, Natural World: Super Powered Owls and Natural World, Iceland: Land of Ice and Fire.

BBC Features and Daytime Production Bristol have 11 nominations for categories including on-screen talent (Anita Rani for Countryfile), new on-screen talent, as well as in Factual for Fake or Fortune and Countryfile, and three shows in Factual Entertainment (DIY SOS: Homes for Veterans, The Great Chelsea Garden Challenge, A Cook Abroad: Tony Singh's India).

Other BBC Bristol shows to be recognised are Protecting our Foster Kids from BBC Documentaries and A Very British Romance with historian Lucy Worsley.

Aardman secured four nominations including the Christmas 2015 animation Shaun the Sheep: The Farmer's Llamas, and for Morph.

Icon Films support emerging new production talent with three nominations in 'Flying Futures', and their programme Natural World: Africa's Fishing Leopards competes in Best Natural History, alongside BBC series, The Hunt, produced by Silverback Films.

Two reporters from BBC West go up against Erika Jones from See Hear and Victoria Davies from ITV News West Country, while BBC West has three of the four nominations in News Coverage, in which the Becky Watts Murder Trial features.

Lynn Barlow, Director of Creative Industries at UWE, TV producer and chair of RTS Bristol, said: "We now have some of the country's best drama being made in the city and we are delighted to be celebrating that in 2016 with some of the industry's biggest names in line for awards. Alongside some ground breaking television, animation and digital creativity, this has been our best year yet with more than 200 submissions."

The RTS West of England Awards will take place on Sunday 6 March at the Bristol Old Vic.

www.rts.org.uk

(JP/MH)