The Art of Factual Television

Three award-winning television producers come together to discuss the art of factual television. Their collective credits range from Gogglebox and Race Across the World to Welcome to Wrexham and The Outlaws.

About the series

As we approach the centenary of television’s invention, the Autumn Art Lecture series will reflect on its distinctive possibility as a very public art. This term was coined in the last century on the premise that such arts rightfully ‘belong’ to the people and has tended to underpin judgements about television’s failures as well as its achievements. Today, the loss of a shared, national audience and the transformation of the TV industry into a crowded, global marketplace seems to have left little space for debate about what television could or should be, but these are precisely the questions to which this year’s lecture series will give room. The series will host prominent speakers from the worlds of both academic research and television production, including Gwyneth Hughes, writer of the RTS and BAFTA winning drama, Mr Bates Vs. The Post Office (ITV, 2024).

The Autumn Art Lecture series is hosted by the University of Bristol's Faculty of Arts, Law & Social Sciences.

Find out more about the other events in the Autumn Art Lectures 2025 series, Television: A Very Public Art. If you have any questions about this event or the series as a whole, please contact alss-research@bristol.ac.uk.

About the speakers

Sara Gibbings

Sara Gibbings has over twenty years’ experience in international production. A former Head of Production for four movie channels in Spain, Sara works across both scripted and unscripted in several languages. Her credits include Emmy award-winning series Welcome to Wrexham, Chef’s Table, and Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, as well award-winning features Zero Tolerance and UnBound. Sara has worked with a wide range of talent including U2, Ryan Reynolds, Sir Trevor McDonald, Sir Christopher Lee, Johnny Flynn, David Beckham and Ronaldo (both of them!).

Sara is also a Lecturer in the Department of Film and Television at the University of Bristol.

Tim Harcourt

Tim Harcourt is the multiple award-winning Chief Creative Officer for Studio Lambert. An Executive Producer with 20+ years’ experience of working in British and American television, he specializes in format origination and is the inventor of some of the most successful British TV formats of the past ten years.

He devised the BAFTA and award-winning Gogglebox for Channel 4, the hit Netflix show The Circle, and the BAFTA award winning Race Across The World and Celebrity Race Across The World for the BBC. He is also executive producer on a number of major shows, including Emmy award-winning hit The Traitors.

Michael Jenkins

Michael is an RTS West award-winning writer/director and producer from Bristol, with work commissioned by broadcasters such as Channel 4, BBC, and BET as well as by the BFI Network. His films have featured at international festivals including the Oscar qualifying PAFF(LA) and Encounters. His short PICKNEY, won an audience award and was a quarter-finalist in the HBO short film competition. Recently, Michael was additional material director on The Outlaws (BBC/Amazon) and second unit director on an Apple + TV series. Named among Bristol's 100 most influential people (2018 BME Power List), Michael is a full BAFTA member and co-artistic director of the Bristol School of Acting.