I had so much planned this weekend. I was going to do all
sorts around the house in preparation for an intense period of writing that
inevitably will result in the whole place being a festering shit tip. However,
what I actually managed to achieve was a couple of loads of washing and a trip
to the Co-op with my coat on over my pyjamas. And that was because I made a
fatal mistake. On Friday night, I watched the first episode of Sons of Anarchy;
the US TV drama about a Californian Motorcycle Club.
The show is a pretty heady mix of motorbikes, snarling powerhouse
performances, sex, drugs and violence. And once I’d watched one, I needed to
watch more. Unfortunately, thanks to the wonders of a Lovefilm subscription and
my Wii, I had the wherewithal to do just that. By Sunday evening, I was gasping
and sobbing my way through the Season 2 finale. And I could have gone on to
Season 3, but Monday morning and a trip to London prevented me.
By the way, I bought the Wii so I could get fit without
leaving the house. Yeah, that happened.
Still, as I watched episode after episode, one question hung
in the air. It’s something I believe every TV writer asks him/herself when
watching something they really love that comes from across the pond.
Why aren’t we making shows like this in the UK?
Because we’re not. Don’t get me wrong, we make good TV in
Great Britain. But seriously, are we making anything that inspires the loyalty,
love and devotion that shows like Dexter, Friday Night Lights, True Blood, ER, Glee,
Nashville, Southland, The Good Wife, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Mad
Men, Buffy, The West Wing etc. do? I’m
quite sure you could add to that list but those are just my personal favourites.
They are the shows that get my series
links and my hard earned box set money.
The US versus UK Television is a favourite topic of conversation
wherever writers gather. As we huddle together over black coffee and simmering
resentment, we wax lyrical about our favourite episodes and bemoan the lack of
something similar on our home grown channels. The thing is we never quite get
to the bottom of why UK TV does not compete. Is it just a question of money? Or
is there something more fundamental at play? I don’t pretend to know the answers,
but I feel the need to outline some theories and air some frustrations.
They’re not set in stone, I don’t have the answers and I welcome
anyone who disagrees or has their own theories. So…
The Financial Theory. It’s the go-to excuse when producers
and commissioners are quizzed about the gap between US and UK product. And it’s
a fair cop. The Yanks are seemingly drowning in money. It’s worth noting that
many of the shows on my list originated from pay-to-view channels like AMC, HBO
and Showtime. They have subscribers who pay to get the best telly and the
channels put that money up on the screen. In recent years, all this filthy
lucre has lured big names into TV production. Steven Spielberg, Frank Darabont,
Ridley Scott and his late brother Tony have all produced big budget beauties.
It seems a shame that Ridley is producing telly in the States and not his native
South Shields. However, it’s worth
noting that both Richard Curtis and the much-missed Anthony Minghella came back
to the BBC after Hollywood success.
As for actors, the road between TV and Film is no longer a
one way street. There’s no shame in going from box office to the box anymore. I
should imagine that decent pay scales have something to do with that. And you
can’t help but notice that much of the on-screen talent in those bid US series
is British. Stephen Moyer, Hugh Laurie, Dominic West, Damien Lewis, Kevin
McKidd have all dusted off their American accents and taken lead roles.
Of course, that’s not just about money but also the
availability and quality of parts. Especially for black actors like David
Harewood, Idris Elba, David Oyelowo and Marianne Jean-Baptiste who had to go
Stateside to get lead roles outside of the Holby NHS or Albert Square. For
God’s sake, the last thing that the impressive Colin Salmon did on British TV
was Strictly Come Dancing! Something wrong here surely? And heaven help us if
our female actors cotton on what is available over the pond, because there’s
precious little for them to get their teeth into over here unless they like
wearing bonnets.
So, we have the talent. It’s just all on the red-eye into
LAX.
Meanwhile, here in the UK, there is no doubt that money is
often too tight to mention. Smaller budgets and tighter schedules mean that
corners are cut and goodwill is often abused to breaking point. For a little while there, BSkyB was the big
white hope with writers assuring each other that the commissioners at Sky 1,
Living and Arts were chucking money about like it was going out of fashion. However,
when they paid a few billion to secure the Premiership, F1 Racing and the
cricket, it became clear where their priorities lay. They’re still showing top
notch TV but they’re buying it in from HBO and banging it on their own Pay To
View premium channel; Sky Atlantic.
And even when they were financing projects, can we really
say that they have produced anything truly unmissable? I’ve enjoyed Strike Back,
Stella and Mad Dogs but they haven’t inspired the same loyalty in me that just
one episode of Battlestar Galactica or The Wire did.
However, I would also argue that constrained budgets have
also produced some of the best British TV. It seems to bring out the gung-ho
inventiveness in our best writers and producers. Let’s think about Misfits,
Being Human, Skins and the recent In The Flesh. All mind-blowingly
well-written, cult TV shows made on a shoestring. They looked great, unearthed
new talent and inspired loyalty in their audience. Maybe UK writers and
producers work better under the financial cosh?
Still, could they have maintained that quality over 13
episodes per series? That’s the other big, enviable difference between us and
the States. And I mean enviable. How wonderful would it be to develop
characters and slow burning, far reaching, arcing stories over that number of
episodes? The very thought of it makes me salivate. And it works. US TV has
produced some of the most interesting, multi-layered characters in that
luxurious longer series format. Would we have a UK version of Don Draper,
Stringer Bell or Nurse Jackie if we allowed our series to run on just a little?
Of course, the reason our American cousins can keep a series
going for that length of time is because they use the far more sustainable Writers’
Room system. Series stories are
discussed, developed and planned by a committee of writers in an actual room
whilst individual writers go away and write scripts for the episodes. The shows
tap into both collective inspiration and individual flare.
Of course, it’s not true to say that we have completely
eschewed this system in the UK. That’s pretty much what happens on most of the
soaps in one form or another.
However, the majority of big ticket shows in the UK rely
initially on one writer beavering away and coming up with both stories and
scripts with sporadic input from producers and script editors. Other writers
are called upon but they tend to work in isolation too. Indeed, I would suggest
that the powers-that-be are seemingly terrified of putting us writers in a room
together; it happens so very rarely. And yes, I’ve heard all the arguments from
the big wigs about the cost of the system and the claims that it wouldn’t work
in this country. And you know what I say? Bollocks.
There is something magical that happens when writers work
together. Obviously once we’ve all drunk our own weight in coffee and bitched
about the last episode of Doctor Who. Still, once that is out of the way, there
is something about being in that unique atmosphere that emboldens and inspires.
Ideas are prefaced with phrases like “This is probably a bit mad…” or “We
definitely shouldn’t do this, but what if…”. And you know what? The ideas are a
bit mad and we shouldn’t do them, but the collective whirring of brains finds a
way to make it work. Those multiple “What if” moments don’t happen when you’re
alone and desperate to fill your page. And maybe that’s why British TV so very
rarely surprises me these days.
Maybe it’s time for the death of the author?
By the way, in my opinion, the Writers’ Room system provides a clear
career structure for writers instead of keeping them on tenterhooks as they go
from job to job. It gives them the actual power. Like I said, maybe someone is
scared of putting us in a room together.
However, there are also some (also in my opinion)
insurmountable cultural and national differences between UK and US TV drama.
First of all, if I remember my geography correctly; America
is quite big. So big that it is possible for big things to happen to small
communities without it turning into national news. Sunnydale can have a 7 year
vampire problem and then disappear into the ground without CNN sending in a
news crew. The small town of Charming can be run by biker gangs and bent
coppers without the Whitehouse sending in the National Guard. There is
dangerous wilderness and huge tracks of land to get lost in for a lifetime. In
the UK you’d struggle to be lost for a couple of days. It’s actually hard to
make stories feel big and impactful in a UK setting.
In fact, here’s an exercise. Imagine a show about a
comprehensive school’s soccer team. For five seasons you follow the ups and
downs of the team members and their families. At the heart of the show is the
PE Teacher, a man who inspires loyalty, love and honour in the boys at every
team practise. Every match against other school teams feels like a fight for a
better life, for something intangibly British and human. Each episode leaves you heart broken and
uplifted at the same time.
Yeah, doesn’t work. Does it? But it did on US TV in the
critically acclaimed American Football drama Friday Night Lights. Why can’t we transplant that brilliant show
from Texas to Taunton? Is it that British love of self-deprecation that kicks
it into touch every time? Do we have too much perspective? We know that a high
school football game actually means very little in the scheme of things and we
can’t pretend otherwise.
Look at how we write teenagers and young adults. American TV
is awash with erudite, emotionally intense teen dramas; Glee, Vampire Diaries,
Gossip Girl, Revenge etc. the Americans write young people as they see
themselves; the centre of the entire fucking universe. There is no sense of adult
perspective. Of course when they fall in love, it will be forever. Of course
winning a high school choir competition is the single most important thing that
will ever happen to you. Of course, you can solve racism, sexism and homophobia
with a heartfelt speech at the Prom. Meanwhile, in the UK, we write teenagers
with a sneer, safe in the knowledge that the annoying little sods will get over
it by listening to a One Direction CD in their bedrooms.
There is also something else that we can’t ignore; gun
culture. I recently saw an interesting exchange on the IMDB page for Midsomer
Murders. An overseas fan of the show was perplexed as to why the Midsomer
constabulary are not armed. She pointed out the Inspector Barnaby and his DS
were often sent into high risk situations; surely a firearm was in order? Now,
I have written a few police dramas in my time and I have never felt the need to
have any of my characters pull anything out of their pockets more dangerous
than a police-issue notebook and pen. Still, it can’t be denied that US crime
dramas are often solved with a shootout or a stand-off. There is no better way
to raise the stakes than to write a deadly weapon into a scene.
And yet, that is one of things I definitely don’t want to
change about British Telly. I don’t want The Doctor armed with anything beyond his
Sonic Screwdriver. I think guns are often an easy out for a writer. The minute
a suspect pulls a gun, the case if solved. S/he is the baddie and they are to
be brought to justice, possibly with terminal force. I’d rather write deadly
dialogue, even if that does mean I work a bit harder.
However, I would like us to adopt the American’s less po-faced
attitude to criminality. For all the crime drama that this country produces, it
is very rare that we make the most interesting characters the lead; the criminals.
We’ve got every style of detective; old, young, clever, former Timelord,
tropical, opera-loving, violin-playing former coke addicts. We work so bloody
hard to make them, interesting; perhaps we could save ourselves a lot of work
by looking at the really fascinating characters, the criminals themselves. But
that still seems forbidden on UK TV. Sure we’ve had loveable rogues and the odd
plastic East End gangster, but no long-running crime syndicates or off-the-grid
outlaws. No Sopranos, Stringers or Sons of Anarchy.
And do you know how we could solve that? By banning script
editors and producers from asking a question that now makes my blood run cold –
But will we LIKE this character? Seriously, the next time I am asked that
question, I am going to refuse to answer; because the job of the screenwriter
is not to create a perfect little world where everybody is redeemable and
lovely. It is insulting to both the writer and the audience to assume that they
need to see character smile at a baby or cuddle a kitten before they can engage
with him or her. Drama is a safe space to explore the darker side of life. By
making the fictional world anodyne and safe, we are doing a disservice to the
real world.
So, that’s my analysis. It’s simplistic and born of
frustration not just at what I watch, but also at what I write. However, I do
wonder how many British writers have projects and ideas that they have never
dared to show because they sound a bit too ambitious? How many of us limit our
imagination and creativity because it’s all just a bit too… Big? How many of us
have started a pitch with the words “I know it sounds a bit American but…” like
that is something for which we should apologise?
As ever thoughts, comments and full-blown take downs of this
blog are encouraged.
