LONDON - 3 May 2007 - 430 words
BBC wins top religious TV awards
The BBC has made a clean sweep of the prestigious television awards given by the Sandford St Martin Trust for excellence in religious programmes. They also took the Radio Times readers' award with The Convent at a ceremony at UTV in Belfast on 2 May where former Beirut hostage Brian Keenan presented the prizes.
The Trust's Premier Award of £2,000 went to the BBC One programme Greater Love Hath No Man, produced by Sian Salt of BBC Religion and Ethics. Roger Laughton, chair of the judging panel. felt the story of the Derbyshire plague village Eyam was "beautifully and movingly told - a story about faith, love, sacrifice and resurrection as relevant for today's world as it was over 300 years ago". 260 people died by confining themselves to the village to prevent the disease from spreading - a tragic story which young people from Oldham Theatre Workshop re-enacted in a specially written musical before an audience of today's villagers in Eyam parish church.
The Runner-up was a BBC Scotland TV Factual programme produced by Lynne Mennie called Art & Soul, broadcast on BBC Two Scotland. Richard Holloway traced the part played by art in religion from prehistoric times to the present day in Scotland in a visually stunning programme. He says that it is the artists, sculptors and storytellers who have come closest to understanding the elusive connection between Art and Soul.
The Convent was voted most inspirational TV programme by readers of the Radio Times and also won a Merit Award from the Sandford St. Martin Trust. Produced by Sandi Scott for Tiger Aspect, the 4-part series shown on BBC Two followed four women spending six weeks with the Poor Clares in Arundel in an attempt to find answers to questions in their lives. The nuns showed that cutting themselves off from everyday life in no way reduced their ability to give good and relevant advice. The Abbess was pleased that the programme let people see that convents "are full of human beings like themselves".
A second Merit Award went to BBC One's Every Parent's Nightmare, produced and directed by Roger Childs of BBC Religion and Ethics. In it the Revd Julie Nicholson confronts her grief after the death of her daughter in the tube at Edgware Road station on 7th July 2005. She also explores her own shaken faith by meeting other parents who have suffered in similar circumstances. The judges felt the programme worked "because of her sensitivity as an interviewer, careful production and above all the humanity of the people she met".
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