Bafta Craft winners call for recruitment change

Decision-makers must recruit less frequently from privileged backgrounds if the TV industry is to diversify, according to a pair of Bafta Craft winners.

First-time director Marian Mohamed said change in the documentary space relied on commissioners and producers “hiring people who aren’t privileged”, while comedy writer Sophie Willan added improved diversity and opportunities for young people would “always starts with the gatekeepers”.

The pair landed their first Bafta Craft awards last night, with Mohamed winning the emerging talent: factual category for BBC3 documentary Defending Digga D and Willan taking the writer: comedy prize for BBC2 sitcom Alma’s Not Normal.

“In documentary – particularly high-end documentary – you go into an office and people generally look the same,” said Mohamed. “There needs to be opportunities for people to work on high-brow stuff, even if they’ve not been to Oxford University.”

Willan secured a script commission for Alma’s Not Normal as the first recipient of the BBC’s Caroline Aherne Comedy Bursary and said such initiatives were crucial to progress across production disciplines. She launched her own writing and outreach organisation, Stories of Care, in 2015.

“If you’re not coming from a background where you’re exposed to the world of telly or you don’t have the bank of mum and dad, how do you get into it?” she added.

The comments come a month after a report from the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) found nearly two-thirds of creatives in the UK’s screen industries are from privileged backgrounds.