Past Festival Highlights

Throughout the Festival’s history we have attracted major names from all over the world, many controversial, some shocking, all passionately engaged with their chosen topic.

Key moments of past festivals include:

 
1.  1982: Brian Hanrahan and Mike Nicholson confronting military censorsover the Falklands war coverage

2.  1984 Arthur Scargill publicly denouncing TV's coverage of the miners' strike.

3.  Peter Mandelson spinning the audience about Labour's Campaign Trail.

4.  Louise Woodward with her lawyer Barry Scheck giving their verdict on cameras in the court

5.  Leah Betts’ parents speaking passionately on the portrayal of drugs on TV

6.  Robbie Coltrane and Jimmy McGovern putting Cracker on the couch

7.  David Baddiel attacking heavy TV censorship and regulation

8.  Sir John Harvey Jones making waves with his State of the Nation on Independent production companies

9.  In 2008, Gerry McCann, father of missing Madeline, taking time out of his search effort to address the industry, despite heavy backlash from the press at the time.

10.  AND the Festival's screening of Death of a Princess generating immense political controversy.