The Stage

Channel 4 dominates Rose d’Or awards

Published Thursday 10 May 2007 at 12:05 by Matthew Hemley

Channel 4’s arts programming was triumphant at this year’s Rose d’Or awards, scooping a hat-trick of awards.

The broadcaster won in the Opera category for Jonathan Dove’s Man on the Moon, while its animated version of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, set to a new recording by the Philharmonia Orchestra, took the award in the Performing Arts category.

Young@Heart, More4’s documentary about a pensioners’ choir, took the Best of 2007 award and the Arts Documentary prize.

The award ceremony, which celebrates the best in entertainment television, was held in Switzerland last night.

Commissioning editor for arts Jan Younghusband said: “Working with artists to commission original new work is crucial to Channel 4’s innovation culture, so I am delighted that these two outstanding performance films have been recognised by such prestigious awards.”

Elsewhere, Welsh broadcaster S4C’s drama Con Passionate won in the soap/light drama category. The series, which is based around a male-voice choir, beat off challenges from the likes of EastEnders and The Bill and became the first Welsh-language programme to take one of the awards.

Author Siwan Jones, currently working on the final series of Con Passionate, said: “It’s a huge privilege to win this award, considering the sum and quality of entries from every part of Europe.

“The fact that it’s a series about a male-voice choir may have struck a chord with the judges. In Wales, it seems to have appealed to many viewers who can’t speak Welsh, because people can relate to characters in a choir.”

The BBC picked up two awards, with Not Going Out winning the sitcom award and the Vicar of Dibley picking up the gong for comedy series. Meanwhile, Ben Elton was awarded an Honorary Rose for lifetime achievement.