Soaps or Continual Series
Awarded to a TV or radio soap transmitted twice or more each week continuously for at least six months of the year. Alternatively, this can be a continual drama series where stand-alone storylines conclude within each episode but the main characters continue throughout.
Winner: The Archers
BBC Radio 4
After months of denial, Elizabeth Pargetter finally recognises that she needs help. Elizabeth, played by Alison Dowling, is fearful of what to expect in her first therapy session and thinks that she may have made a mistake.
In this episode of The Archers, she tells her therapist Jamila, played by Lorna Laidlaw, that she is confident that her struggles are the result of recent concerns about her two children. However, Jamila begins to uncover much deeper traumas from Elizabeth's past.
Shortlisted entries
Coronation Street
ITV Studios
Broadcast during International Mental Health Awareness week, this instalment of Coronation Street follows Alison King's character, Carla, struggling with psychosis. In this emotional episode, viewers see snapshots of Carla's perspective as she wrestles with guilt over her involvement in Rana's death. We watch her experience hallucinations and paranoia, witnessing her descent into psychosis and the impact it has on her friends and family.
EastEnders
BBC Studios, BBC One
Sean Slater, played by Rob Kazinsky, returns to EastEnders to find that his ex-wife Roxy died two years previously and Jean is ill. Already struggling with his mental health, Rob finds it difficult to come to terms with the news. He and Jean decide to escape Walford but when Jean accidentally hurts herself, Sean assumes the worst is going to happen. Sean tries to take his own life and is stopped by Jean and Stacey.
Hollyoaks
Lime Pictures, Channel 4
Hollyoaks' self-harm storyline began in 2017, following teenager, Lily Drinkwell as the pressures of being a young carer, losing her mum to Cancer, and being involved in a car accident, affected her mental health. As the storyline came to an end in 2019, Hollyoaks showed Lily struggling after the breakdown of her marriage and with the mounting pressures of getting into university. This led to Lily relapsing and contracting Sepsis, which was undiagnosed until it was too late, and caused her death.
Pobol y Cwm
BBC Studio, S4C
In Pobol y Cwm, Britt begins to exhibit depressive and manic episodes that lead her to discover that she has bipolar disorder. Britt's teenage son Aaron cares for her and calls for help one evening after Britt reaches a state of near psychosis and accidentally hurts herself. Britt is sectioned and spends a few weeks in a psychiatric unit.
