Rebuilding TV Drama

Went to the first of three meetings yesterday, in my old hometown of Birmingham. This was of a strategy group working under the aegis of the Producers' Forum and Screen West Midlands. The issue to be discussed - how to rebuild a sustainable TV drama industry in Birmingham and the West Midlands.

The drama industry in Birmingham was the casualty of a cultural sea-change in British TV. I remember it because I was working on a couple of Birmingham-based drama series when the sea-change happened.

There was a BBC1 drama series called "Back Up". It was an interesting one for me because it was based around a police support unit in Birmingham, and my kid brother was then a member of a police support unit in Birmingham. Which meant that, for a week or so, as part of my research I was effectively working alongside my brother.

The first series went pretty well. That was when management looked on Birmingham as a production centre in its own right, and the Head of Drama at good old Pebble Mill took the trouble to find out what Birmingham and the region had to offer. There was a real sense of an alternative to London, and that BBC Birmingham had just enough independence of outlook to develop and produce its own slate of drama projects.

The second series turned into a bit of a nightmare. The management had changed - and the new lot simply didn't want to be in Birmingham. They hated spending time there. It was like a gulag to them. They couldn't stand being so far away from The Groucho Club. They feared that, if they weren't stalking the corridors of BBC Television Centre or hanging around Soho House, somebody else would get noticed, somebody else would get the promotion.

The atmosphere, the culture, and the quality of the product had changed radically, overnight, and for the worse.

There was no third series. Not long after that, there was no more Pebble Mill. What we got instead was Doctors, a kindergarten for people entering TV. The BBC's weird obsession with medical stuff had meant a conveyor-belt daytime drama, pumped out of Birmingham for the benefit of those who happened to be at home, was the contribution of my great city to the schedules.

You can tell how bad things are: Doctors doesn't even admit it's in Birmingham; Hustle came and filmed here, but only to keep costs down (the viewer was not meant to realise they'd popped up to Birmingham for some shots) and Survivors ... well, that was just crap.

So how do you rebuild an industry that has been destroyed by cultural prejudice rather than economic conditions? Maybe we should be asking other regions who have suffered a similar kind of devastation for what were purely political reasons. But one thing's for sure - for as long as there were senior managers in the media who felt such contempt for the audience that they couldn't bear to be out there where the viewers actually are, there was never going to be a strong drama industry anywhere in the UK.

I mean, just because people are in work - in the mythical town of Holby, or that strange London suburb of Walford, for instance - doesn't mean that the drama side of things isn't on life support.

Maybe the return of a viable TV drama industry in the Midlands will mark the rebirth of TV drama in general. Now wouldn't that be nice?

Old Friends

Went to a talk last night in Birmingham. The two guest speakers were Tony Garnett and Hilary Salmon, both top TV producers. I worked with both of them in the 90s.

It was great to see them both again, and really nice to chat with them briefly afterwards. But it felt rather odd. See, I've been out of TV for nearly ten years now, because - well, basically, because it just wasn't worth it. I'd learnt at the feet of the masters, and now a bunch of minnows had taken over and were screwing up everything in sight. I couldn't afford to carry on writing for television, not if I wanted to retain my last remaining shred of sanity.

At the same time, it was odd to think that I had worked with some of the best, and had really learnt my craft. And that, for the whole of the noughties, all that know-how was redundant. Even thinking about working in British TV was a waste of my time.

Could things be changing? Is it possible that, with big cuts coming to all sectors (the BBC included), we can get rid of the thousands of spin-doctors, marketing wonks and unnecessary 'executives' who have been cluttering up the BBC for years, getting in the way and preventing the creatives from making good programmes?

I'm almost daring to hope so. Of course, I still want to carry on with my books; I've done far too much research and development on them to let all that go to waste.

But I would be happy to go back to TV, if I could bypass all the bullshit and just work with a first-class producer on a real good project.

After all, at one point I had a four-part series with the BBC, who were eager to discuss a potential second series and would I be interested in a screenplay adaptation as well? Then somebody new came along and I've never worked for the Beeb since. Maybe it's time to venture back - just dip my toe in the waters - listen out for the approaching-shark music - see how we go.

Meanwhile, I've stared into the hole in the ground where Shakespeare's house was (you can see the cellar walls now) and may well be helping to enlarge it before too long. That should help me keep my feet on the ground (or even under it) while thoughts of TV drama begin to distract me.