Irish director Neasa Hardiman's 'Tracy Beaker Returns' scoops BAFTA for Best Children’s Drama
Irish director Neasa Hardiman's 'Tracy Beaker Returns' has won the BAFTA for Best Children's Drama at this year's BAFTA British Academy Children's Awards which took place at the Park Lane Hilton in London on Sunday 28th November.
IFTA nominee Neasa Hardiman is Lead Director on both series of the BBC drama, developed from the novels by Jacqueline Wilson.
In the drama series, Tracy Beaker is twenty years old. She's impulsive, angry, but also strong, funny and loyal. She reluctantly takes a job as a care assistant at the same care home where she spent her own troubled childhood. There she meets other young people struggling like her, each with their own problems and grief. Each episode focuses on one of the home's denizens as they come to terms with their own past and try to map a better future.
‘Tracy Beaker Returns' is Neasa Hardiman's first drama for children. Neasa says: "I knew the producer of the series, Gina Cronk; we had wanted to work together for a while. When she suggested getting involved with the ‘Tracy Beaker' stories I was delighted. We were both experienced programme makers, but neither of us had made a children's drama before. We talked a lot about how to approach a narrative specifically for children. Our intention was to take on serious subjects, to make a kind of "Play for Today" for children, leavened with some humour. In the end, I think Neil Gaiman got it right when he said ‘There are no such things as children's stories, there are only good stories and bad stories'."
Neasa's other recent credits include School Run (IFTA nominated feature drama for TV3), An Gaeilgeoir Nocht (IFTA nominated feature drama for the Irish Film Board / TG4) and drama series Totally Frank for Channel 4. Neasa is a former Producer Director with RTÉ, where she made numerous documentaries and directed Fair City as well as designing the RTÉ logo.
Series Two of ‘Tracy Beaker Returns' screens on BBC1, BBCHD and CBBC next January.
The Irish animated series ‘Roy' received two nominations in the categories of Best Drama and Best Writer. ‘Roy', which was created by Alan Shannon is set in modern day Dublin but tells the story of Ireland's only living animated character born into a live-action family. The children's TV drama was produced by Mark Cumberton for Dublin based animation company JAM Media. It originated as a short animation film called Badly Drawn Roy, funded by the Frameworks scheme which is co-financed by the IFB, the Arts Council and RTÉ, before being developed into a television series.
The BAFTA British Academy Children's Awards celebrate excellence in all forms of children's moving image entertainment, whether in film, television, video games or online. While the annual Awards are voted for by BAFTA members (including film-makers, programme-makers and games developers), the Academy also gives children a voice, as they get the opportunity to vote for their favourite film, TV programme, video game and website of the past 12 months.