Peter Whittle's So What You're Saying Is interviews are reliably good, and this week's is excellent. It involves Robin Aitken, the former BBC man responsible for three books about BBC bias: Can We Trust the BBC?, Can We Still Trust the BBC? and The Noble Liar.
The one bit I'll highlight in advance concerns the aftermath of Robin's recent appearance on The Moral Maze. Having listened to it and heard his complaints about the lack of diversity of opinion in the BBC's output as a whole, a woman who works on one of the BBC's longest-running drama staples - he didn't name which, so I'll guess EastEnders or Casualty - got in contact with him. She was asking for his help. The problem is that everyone who writes for the show shares the same socially liberal, left-of-centre outlook, and she couldn't think how to help them start creating sympathetic conservative characters or write convincing expressions of a conservative points of view. She hoped Robin would come to talk to them for her.
It's promising that someone of influence in BBC drama sees there's a problem and wants to do something about it, but it reveals how far the BBC has to go to bring in fresh thinking and burst the BBC bubble.
If they call themselves writers and don't know how to create varied characters and scripts, that suggests a lack of imagination and indeed talent.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC is fond of the word 'talent' but they should realise that using the word isn't enough.
They may well know how to create such a character but may be afraid that nuance may be rejected in favour of clarity by the production team.
DeleteThen again, they may be talent and humour-less.
The scripts of most dramas over the last 15 years have been bloody awful - not just plotlines, but character arcs. It's almost as if script writers have never talked to other human beings beyond ordering coffee from one.
I watched 5 minutes of Casualty last night for the first time in 10 years. It was as if somebody had spiked the water with Mogadon at a drama school and filmed the result.
See below comment on 'Going for Woke' - that Cardiff is the BBC's woke nursery for drama screenwriting as well as being the go-to place for a handy piece of research.
ReplyDeleteCasualty is produced there. In last night's episode, a gay nurse met a potential partner on line, but when they met, the white bloke of similar age complained that the nurse "wasn't white, but of Middle-Eastern appearance".
By my reckoning, white males are now to be labelled far-right regardless of age. The upcoming Noughts and Crosses would indicate the same theme.
How did the script get around the photographic aspect of dating sites ?
DeleteAsking for a hideous friend.
The real problem is that the entire BBC workforce and culture shares the same socially liberal, left-of-centre outlook. That’s why it can’t be saved.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't that suggest it could be saved if you could - to use a Brechtian phrase - change the people. Have a mass redundancy and then re-hire on a more impartial basis, taking in people with the full range of democratic opinion.
DeleteWoody Allen predicted the nature of PC Woke art back in the early 70s!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkxrBlyLjYQ
It should be illegal to have a 'soap' run for more than five years. Not only is it not good for story-telling, it is bad for the audience, many of whom begin to think the characters are real. (I worked with someone once who was in tears because a crime had been committed on Coronation Street).
ReplyDeleteTV/Radio drama takes on a life of its own. Forget the poltics etc. The classic is the multiple-murder story. Serial killing is rare and when it happens it can be years between events. Yet how many times in principle have we seen the vicar killing the curate because he wants the winning lottery ticket, who then kills the choirmaster who saw him hide the body, the cleaning lady who found the blood...
"Tell me Mrs Thompson, why do you think the vicar did it?" "Well Chief Inspector, he had the motive and... he's the only person left in the village!"
Of course it's difficult to enjoy a woke Detective series these days...you constantly find yourself saying "Well it can't be him, he's an African refugee...it can't be her, she's a successful Asian businesswoman...it can't be him, he's a Syrian refugee...it can't be him, he's disabled...not him, he's gay...nope can't be him, he's Left Wing...OK, that leaves only the successful middle aged pale male millionaire who we saw controlling his wife's behaviour in the first segment. And yep, it always is. "
DeleteIt's the inept heavy-handedness of it all. I'm afraid I given up being angry. The only effective weapon in the face of zealotry is ridicule.
ReplyDelete