A Kind of Spark Wins Best Children’s Programme at the Broadcast Awards

Taking place on Thursday 8th February at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House in London, the Broadcast Awards are one of the most prestigious events in the UK television industry calendar, celebrating the very best in British programming and channels and recognising the UK’s most ground-breaking content, creators and channels.

A Kind of Spark saw off impressive competition from fellow nominees including I Am Your Mother (Star Wars: Visions Volume 2), Aardman for Disney+, Lloyd of the Flies, Aardman for CITV, Newsround Special: Ukraine – The Children’s Story, BBC for BBC, Operation Ouch! Let’s Talk About Cancer, Maverick TV for CBBC and The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, Illuminated Films for CITV, to take home the award.

A Kind of Spark is a 10 part series exploring history, neurodivergence and self-belief with a magical flair, based on Elle McNicoll’s award-winning novel. The show follows Addie, a young autistic girl who wants to create a memorial in her village for the witches who were persecuted there. Looking to carefully focus on authentic on-screen representation, all the show’s autistic characters were cast with autistic actors and almost half the crew working on the show were neurodiverse.

As one judge commented;

‘Through strong performances and high production value, this series showcases neurodiversity in an organic and engaging way, without it being the sole focus.’

Shot on location in the north west of England, at the Tatton Estate was chosen by LS Productions’ expert location team as the ideal place for filming. The film-friendly estate allowed for the weaving of the past and present to take place at one controlled location, which was core to the narrative across all episodes.

A fantastic achievement, congratulations to all the winners and nominees.

Full list of winners on the Broadcast Awards website

Watch A Kind of Spark BBC iPlayer