Chewing Gum creator Michaela Coel is to give the prestigious MacTaggart lecture at this year’s Edinburgh International Television Festival – becoming only the fifth women its 42-year history.

Coel, who has also starred in Black Mirror and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, is one of the UK’s rising on-screen and off-screen stars since creating the E4 comedy Chewing Gum, which airs on Netflix in the UK. She is to appear in Netflix’s forthcoming musical feature film Been So Long.

She joins a short list of women who have given the lecture, following in the footsteps of former Doctor Who producer Verity Lambert, 60 Minutes reporter Christine Ockrent, Janet Street-Porter and Shine Group founder Elisabeth Murdoch. Other big names from the world of television to have given the speech include Norman Lear, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, and Google’s Eric Schmidt. In recent years, the now-disgraced House of Cards...