Dramatic day at the office?

I’m not sure this proves very much, but I was surprised to have a conversation the other evening – at the BAFTA premiere event for this, in fact – in which it proved a bit controversial. It’s this: most TV drama is workplace drama.

This isn’t simply about the setting or format: the cops ‘n’ docs shows are superficially all workplace dramas, after all. But the definition goes much wider than that.

There is, after all, a limited number of ways in which conflict can be generated; and no conflict means no drama (conventionally speaking, anyway). Sex, romance and other aspects of personal relations are a massive source; material self interest is another; and the demands of a job or vocation are also a huge source.

So, where the conflict comes from is key. Soaps are not workplace dramas: the characters interact by virtue of inhabiting the same precinct, and conflict arises from that interaction on its own. But beyond soaps, I reckon you can call a lot of things workplace drama: the conflict arises from the need to do the job.

I’m going to go into my DVD collection at random and get a few titles now. OK, here’s what came out.

The Sopranos is a workplace drama: the conflict arises from Tony trying to be a successful mob boss and successful family man at the same time (neatly here, there is clearly demonstrable internal and external conflict along these lines as, for instance, Tony at first tries to keep his profession secret from his daughter, and also unburdens himself to his therapist).

This Life is about a set of 20something lawyers… but it’s not workplace drama. It’s the classic houseshare drama – the conflict arises from the characters’ personal relationships, and work considerations occasionally intrude on them, not the other way round. Similarly, No Angels, despite being touted as starring “naughty Northern nurses” it is really about a group of friends who share a house, and happen to work together as nurses – its creator Toby Whithouse explicitly defended it in such terms against criticism from the Royal College of Nursing. Another Whithouse Creation, Being Human, is also really a houseshare drama, and was first conceived as such – the characters were housemates long before they were supernatural beings.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: classic workplace drama. The conflict comes from Buffy’s vocation; take that away, and you’ve not got a show.

Cracker: like Casualty, this is a riff on “physician, heal thyself”; accordingly, it’s a workplace drama – the healing vocation is central to generating the conflict.

Shameless: you could argue that the characters are essentially engaged in scrounging and scamming, and the conflict arises from it, therefore it’s a workplace drama. But that would really be stretching it; it’s a family drama, much like Only Fools and Horses (the dodgy dealing usually generates the comedy, but not so often the substance of the plots other than the frothiest).

Blackpool: conflict arises from Ripley’s business ambitions – clearly a workplace drama.

Class Act: the characters are pretty dedicated to scamming as a way of preserving their lifestyles, so this probably is a workplace drama.

Taking a few non-randomly chosen examples (OK, I’ll admit the Sopranos and This Life choices weren’t really random – the others were, though): Grange Hill is clearly a workplace drama, as the conflict arises from school life – they don’t get paid for it, but going to school is what the kids do dans la vie (the French idiom is probably much more useful and descriptive, actually!). Byker Grove, by contrast, is not one: the kids know each other via the Grove, and are very seldom seen at school. The Wire is obviously a workplace drama – not just for the cops, but for the drug dealers. Star Trek is a workplace drama (Doctor Who isn’t – I can’t honestly argue saving the universe is somehow the Doctor’s vocation).

Does it matter? Perhaps it’s a useful way for the writer to think about what sort of show they’re writing without getting dragged into rigid cop/doc/scifi/etc. genre categorisation, while still keeping things accessible for a reader. Perhaps also it provides a focus on what matters to the characters. Or perhaps it’s just stating the obvious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_Act_(TV_series)

Feedback loop

Occasionally blog posts stick in your mind: as an example, Phil Barron offers a good explanation of how, when you get feedback on a script, the more problems the reader – and this perhaps only applies to producers and other professionals, not local writing groups and the like – lists, the better. If there are only a few problems, they are likely to be big ones: the plot, the characters, the dialogue, the structure. But if there are lots of notes, they are likely to be smaller matters of detail.

Now, giving feedback is difficult. In the professional world, producers have a licence to be harsh towards scripts: it is, after all, a business transaction and it may well be that they have bought the thing already. Though that doesn’t mean they are always horrible. But if you’re giving feedback as a favour, it’s more difficult: part of the course I went on last year was about how to give – and receive – feedback.

So, “Dos and don’ts” include:

• try to give brief comments and avoid getting bogged down in particular details
• always start with a positive comment – it’s hard enough having work assessed without being presented with a solid wall of problems
• identify problems, but don’t try and re-write it – it’s not your script.

But there is no right and wrong to giving feedback… as I have discovered. I finally put my full-length script in for feedback at my local writing group, and a few of us met in the pub to discuss it on Monday evening. One chap who couldn’t make it very kindly went to the trouble of sending me and others feedback on our scripts by email. The bloke in question is a nice guy, whose comments are usually fair, well-reasoned, and hard to disagree with.

Trouble is, he seems to have been given lessons on how to give feedback by Pol Pot: what I got was a list of about five serious problems with my script, and nothing else. Now, I can see where he is coming from on all the points, and several of them are neatly aligned with some niggling doubts I have had; and I’m grateful that he has taken the trouble to read what is, after all, a pretty long script. But, well… ouch, y’know?

That said, as I wandered up to Acton High Street, I reflected that it smarted a bit but was probably very useful and necessary advice. Mentally I began sketching out some possible rewrites… Except everyone else at the meeting disagreed with almost every point, and felt the script worked pretty well. So – confusion ahoy!

But this did make me reflect on different approaches to feedback, both giving and taking. The only time I’ve received feedback from an experienced professional, it was extremely helpful in pointing me in the right direction, while being so courteous as to be almost over-generous – but certainly extremely heartening.

By contrast, Steven Moffat once observed that Russell T Davies will be totally blunt about identifying problems with a script: he’ll tell you what he likes, but if something doesn’t work he’ll just say “that doesn’t work” and leave you to deal with it. It’s a characteristic Davies himself ponders in his frequently self-lacerating book of correspondence, The Writer’s Tale: in a passage that particularly stuck in my mind he recounted how, as producer on Children’s Ward, he announced that a particular child actor would have to be replaced, and was perplexed that the rest of the crew seemed to treat it as a big deal that needed to be handled sensitively.

Adrian Mead’s excellent book on screenwriting advises that feedback is essential, but also has a section headed “Why advice and criticism are bad”. Mead recommends the writer seek questions, but not comments: you are, after all, trying to write your own script, not a script by committee, and most people you get feedback from are no more qualified than you. Good points all – though even the inexpert reader may have the advantage of being less close to the subject.

Mead’s advice was reinforced via the wonderful medium of Twitter. Having received my splendidly confusing feedback, I wrote a tweet to that effect. Almost immediately Lucy Vee very kindly tweeted back that I should concentrate on what I want to do with the script, and pay more attention to the readers who had found positive things in it. So that’s the plan: it’s still going to be a heavy rewrite to bring the length back down (accidentally 25% too long – strange mistake, lesson learnt) and address the things that need addressing… but hopefully keep the good stuff and not tearing it all up needlessly.

Skinning up

A little while ago the BBC Writersroom advertised a competition to write a webisode of Skins, for young writers who had never had work produced. “Aha, that’s me!” I thought. I was wrong – the upper age limit was about 23.

But that’s the point of Bryan Elsley’s vision: not only is he making heavy use of a US-style writers room, but he is stuffing it full of young and untested writers. The result is undeniably dynamic, and as I’ve said before, even if Skins falters it is sure to do so in an interesting way.

That said, I do wonder to what extent the show represents a new way of making TV, to adapt to a changing audience to whom a screen in the corner of the room is not so important as it is even to people my age (26 – but a technological revolution away from today’s teenagers, or so I’m forever being told). When all’s said and done it’s still a 10 x 45 minute ensemble drama, and it’s not the only show to be making heavy use of web-based promotion and extra material.

So, Skins embarked on its brave new era this week, having ditched all its main cast and brought in a whole new set of characters. I was excited and impressed when this gambit was announced; inevitably, after only one episode it’s hard to tell whether it has paid off to the extent of bettering the previous series – but there’s a lot of promise on display so far.

The obvious point of comparison is the start of series one, and there are big differences immediately apparent. The first is that we are seeing the group of friends encounter each other for the first time, whereas they are already established at the start of the first series (bar the arrival of Cassie in the first episode). There are pros and cons to this new approach: as the characters are on a journey of adventure and discovery, so is the viewer; then again, we are not being given privileged access to a warm group of friends as before. It’s quite a contrast.

But Skins itself has moved on since those first episodes, where the breadth of the humour and the deliberately OTT hedonism alienated many critics who subsequently missed out on the show’s blossoming into a powerful drama and had to pretend for series two that they’d liked it all along (I can claim a bit of credit for seeing promise and watching it from the start, despite the promotional approach frankly not doing the show justice). But the kind of stylised storytelling that gave us a character called Mad Twatter seemed to belong to a different show altogether by the closing episodes of the first series.

Episode 3.1 dipped into that style briefly, and a bit incongruously, with the broad and crude humour of the school hall scene in which the staff welcomed the new intake. Two of the old teachers were present again – both of those who featured in the disco dancing sequence with Cassie in series two. Not sure I remember the bloke being Welsh, though – nor did the comedy accent (if that’s what it was) add much. Cook’s deception of Effy’s dad early in the episode was deeply funny and told us about his character; the comedy farting was kinda funny, but by contrast didn’t add much.

Overall the new cast of character – and their actors – show enormous promise. I’m not sure any is quite as immediately sympathetic as Sid was from the get-go in the first series – perhaps shy twin Emily comes closest. I fear Effy might be showing signs of degenerating from enigmatic ringleader to tiresome slut, but all being well we can trust the writers to avoid that – and even if she does lose some of her sympathy, it will be in keeping for Tony’s sister, I suppose. But why is she best friends with Pandora? No indication is given – when we first saw the pairing, Pandora was with Effy very much on sufferance. That said, I suspect there will come a moment when Pandora shows her mettle, and I’m looking forward to it; in the meantime, I can’t help but love her introducing herself with “Hi, I’m Pandora, I’m useless.”

The nods to the previous series, such as Sid’s locker, were nice touches and got the balance write between self-reference and looking forward. The skateboarding sequence at the start was fabulous, but it was perhaps a bit easy to overlook how good it was, considering that the previous series started withan even-more daring three minutes of contemporary dance.

It’s certainly a promising start. I can’t help but feel that some critics have approached it expecting the kind of pay-offs that routinely cropped up in series two, and are disappointed that we only got a load of set-ups, and that consequently it felt a bit slight. It shows the dangers of opening episodes, I suppose: they can often frustrate, and seldom satisfy. But if anyone tunes out on the basis of this, I’m willing to bet they’re mugging themselves: Skins is a bold show made by some of the country’s best TV talent, and while the opener might have been “merely” decent, there is surely much, much better to come.

Human nature

“Bloody hell, is that Julie Gardner?” I thought to myself. I imagine if you work in television, you find yourself thinking “bloody hell, is that Julie Gardner?” at least once a fortnight, and the answer will usually be “yes, it is Julie Gardner!” Over the last few years the BBC executive has been associated with some of the most exciting drama projects on British television, most famously the revived Doctor Who, Life on Mars and now BBC Three’s Being Human.

It was in fact celebrity-spotting heaven for geeks at last night’s preview screening of the first episode of Being Human at the National Film Theatre. The event was publicised as including a Q&A with cast and crew, and I was impressed with the turn-out: Russell Tovey and Leonora Critchlow were both there, though only the former was on the Q&A panel; producer Matthew Bouch and writer Toby Whithouse were also on-hand as was executive producer Rob Pursey. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, that is Rob Pursey of Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research and now Tender Trap! The Rob Pursey! Must admit I had no idea his day-job was as a TVwriter /  producer, but it is – if Ash Stewart had been there I’m sure his head would have exploded in a spectacular but inconveniently sticky fashion.

So, is the new episode as good as the pilot that I have raved about on here before, despite the re-casting and reported tweaking of the format? (NB: mild spoilers follow, but – I believe – nothing that should ruin the episode for you.) The answer is: yes, it undoubtedly is; indeed, much as I still love the pilot, I can see why they have made the changes, and they seem to make a lot of sense.

The first surprise is that the episode does not re-tread the plot of the pilot, in which George and Mitchell move into the house and discover Annie the ghost in it. Instead, it picks up more or less from the point at which we left the characters at the end of the pilot: the trio are installed in the house, and Annie is newly visible to humans… some of the time. Indeed, George’s containment cell is made unavailable to him, which leads to a frantic search for somewhere else safe to transform.

There are big changes to the casting. Leonora Critchlow replaces Andrea Riseborough as Annie, and is every bit as good as you’d expect. Brilliant though Riseborough was in the pilot – and I was certainly sorry to hear she was no longer involved – I do wonder whether the frail and kooky insecurity she brought to the part would have worked well over an entire series. Critchlow brings a warmer take on the part, though her acting chops are every bit as impressive – the sequence in which she attends her own funeral and screams at her relatives who cannot see her is devastating.

Additionally, Aidan Turner replaces Guy Flanagan as Mitchell, and is altogether more of a hunk and a lothario in the role. He’s very good, and it should please those who felt Flanagan was a bit “drama school”; myself, I thought he brought an understated charisma to it, a bit like Paul McGann in Withnail and I. But I’ve not got anything bad to say about Turner’s performance, which puts Mitchell’s dilemma across very powerfully. The re-casting apparently arose at least in part because by the time the show was commissioned the cast of the pilot were no longer under option, though it seems likely from the Q&A that the tweaking of the format was at least partly responsible too.

One other point on which the pilot was criticised was the rather gothic depiction of the scheming vampires, particularly the character of Herrick as played by Adrian Lester. Herrick has now been re-thought, although the overall threat from a vampire plot has been retained; but in the guise of Jason Watkins, Herrick is a more down-to-earth and ambivalent villain, and all the more menacing because of it.

The greatest strength of the series is of course the writing from Toby Whithouse, and the deftness with which he has crafted the characters. It was interesting to learn from the Q&A that originally the show was envisaged as a house-share series for BBC2, as more of a This Life style drama without any “genre” elements. Much of the character development had already been done on George, Annie and Mitchell before it was decided that they would be a werewolf, a ghost and a vampire. There’s a lesson in there for the developers of other shows – perhaps if ITV’s Demons had started with the characters rather than the monsters it would have been more engaging – decent though it is.

One thing I found interesting was that the first episode felt able to open with a voice-over and flashback sequence, these being two things that new writers are constantly warned off, on the basis that script readers tend to view them as suggesting the writer is using cheap gimmicks rather than having a command of their material. I’ve heard and read this so many times that when I now see a voiceover or flashback it jars with me – and if I remember rightly, the pilot steered clear of them as it tried to establish the show, even though it was from an established writer. Maybe it’s just a coincidence – after all, the new episode has to convey the set-up very quickly at the start.

In sum, Being Human is a great achievement for the writer, cast and crew; I thoroughly recommend you watch it on BBC3, Sunday January 25th.

Cynical, moi?

This is perhaps a slightly cynical post. I’m putting it up for the sake of possible future visitors, who may never get directed here. Put like that it sounds decidedly optimistic… something is out of character round here, anyway.

Truth be told, I should have done the googling six months earlier than I did. After taking an extremely enjoyable ten-week course of evening classes at City University, on Writing Television Drama, I should have been on the look-out for a writing group near me. I had signed up for the course on a bit of a whim, for the enjoyment of it and for its own sake; but it was a stimulating set of classes from Edel Brosnan, and I resolved to keep writing, with a view to seeing how far I could take it.

And then of course I did nothing for nearly six months. Well, next to nothing: I was ill, work was busy, and there was an intermittent possibility that my fellow class members would re-assemble as a writing group. This looks like it might be about to happen on a small scale – two people plus me is hardly a group, more a gin appreciation club – but it’s a start. Still, what were the chances of a writing group existing within walking distance of me, in West London?

The answer to this question was in fact: actually rather good, if I had but looked. So it was that, belatedly, I ambled along Acton High Street last night to hear a section of my work read out loud for the first time. For when I say I did nothing for six months… I just about managed to complete two drafts of the screenplay idea I had been working on as part of the course, so by the end of 2008 I did at least have something to show. I’m not going to spell out what it’s about here – Steven Moffat once said something about it losing the magic if you say it out loud, which is almost the same thing – but for ease of reference it’s called Who’s Laughing Now?

By this point I had spent so long on it I had no idea if it was any bloody good or not. The group was given a section of seven pages or so, and parts were allocated to helpful attendees (myself, I ended up playing a cockney wideboy and one of a set of identical twins later in proceedings as we went through other scripts). I had heard a lot of horror stories about hearing your stuff out loud for the first time… but actually it was, to say the least, OK. There was laughter from the readers at the funny bits, and afterwards there were a lot of questions about what would happen next, and suggestions for what other bits would be good either before or after the extract.

This was pretty heartening, but also made me think about the things I need to be sure about in other parts of the script: the motivation of the central character needs to be clear, which is stating the obvious a bit, but it’s never an unhelpful reminder. Now, I deliberately chose the section of the script I’m happiest for the read-through, as in other sections I think I can see problems and want to fix them myself before getting feedback from others – no point getting other people to point out the issues I’m already alive to… But it allays a nagging doubt that I might have been on completely the right track.

It also shows there is a lot of work still to do. Firstly, I need to re-write the script (90 minute, a TV single) into a 45-minute radio play for a competition that closes at the end of February. Nice and easy, then. After that, the TV version needs another draft, after which it probably needs to go in a drawer. Then I need to write some different things, amass a portfolio of scripts and implement a selling strategy. Oh, and somewhere in among all that I need to get good.

The selling strategy is the reason for the cynicism of this post, incidentally. Many writers blog about their work, in extremely entertaining terms – a selection of my favourites are linked on the right, but I’ve got at least 20 in my RSS reader. Having a web presence is, according to all the best advice, a good way of convincing possible future commissioners that you are a professional and can be trusted – so, this blog needs to be populated with some posts about writing as well as the usual nonsense!

And I now join the honourable tradition of updating my blog when I should be working on my script. Professional to the core.