I was nearly denied the joys of Gary Oldman’s farting detective. Slow Horses is much like The Singing Detective, if you were to replace the lip syncing and dancing with explosions, sometimes from Gary Oldman’s pants, sometimes preceded by a description of the curry that brewed them. That aside, it was an enjoyable British drama. One that very nearly didn’t happen. The Slough House books on which the drama is based, were dropped by the publisher in the UK, only to be rescued by another publisher stateside. These things no longer surprise me.
I know I’ll be accused of living in the past, but I assure you, while I do have the urge to hark back, I do accept that change is a constant of life, just as collaboration is an enriching part of it. What I’m going to write about here is not change and innovation but an increasingly gaping cultural hole. Created by a government ceding control of an entire industry, failing to defend it and then hampering innovation and opportunity.
So where to begin?
A tipping point occurs when commissioners and producers are too afraid to take risks. I’d be hard pressed to name risk takers within the arts, though they exist, rarely have they any clout.
The BBC is now risk averse but nothing in its makeup dictates that this be so. Quite the reverse. 1960 sees the end of Hancock's Half Hour, very popular, very safe, very clever. Ten years later, a policeman with the gravitas of Lord Kitchener drops from the sky to reveal pendulous breast. Terry Gillian admitted he didn’t know what his sketches were about half the time but still, there it was, Monty Pythons Flying Circus, on BBC1. Were it not so, we would never have heard of Mary Whitehouse but, and most crucially, though she was a pain in the arse, her complaints didn’t work. Artistic freedom and innovation were defended whereas now it is to be assumed that producers and directors will run scared, rarely getting as far as exploring whether the concerns have any validity.
Chris Morris and Peter Serafinowiczs have often cited the difficulties of getting anything done in this country as things stand. They possess genius and decades of experience. Something is wrong.
The decline of British Comedy is something that goes unsaid. Standup remains strong but standups are not necessarily the best writers. It seems very odd to assume that it’s a straightforward leap from standup to sitcom. Sarah Pascoe, Katherine Ryan, Josh Widdecombe, Romesh Ranganathan and Ashling Bea have confirmed to me that it’s not. They are safe names, they probably won’t do anything terrible but when it comes to sitcom writing, they won’t do anything extraordinary either. While we rightly look for diversity, we don’t see the obvious flaw in pooling from the same clique. None of these sitcoms come close to those of Sam Bain and Jessie Armstrong. Real unique talents are missed when you pretend otherwise.
It’s worth remembering that Tony Hancock believed he didn’t need writers Galton and Simpson and we know how that ended. Only the producers seem to have forgotten that most poignant story from our comedy history.
Hancock’s suicide note; “Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times.”
British comedians go abroad to a very different creative culture. Some, like Matt Berry, come back, collaborate and continue to work on original UK projects. Most don’t. All have to eat.
The BBC commissioned The League of Gentleman. Ten years later, it turned down Flight of the Concordes. Scarfolk was also recently dropped on its way to TV, despite being a uniquely British comedy, in the tradition of the dark surrealist comedies that began with John Glashan right through to the League of Gentleman and Garth Marenghi. To get an idea of what might have been and may still be, visit Scarfolk Council: Welcome to Scarfolk...
This however is about more than the BBC.
The Death of UK film
The first strike occurred under the Conservative Government when they axed the Eady Levy in 1986. Until then, filmmakers around the world could make films at the likes of Pinewood and by doing so fund British film. Hollywood didn’t like that funding model. Unbelievable as it may sound, the UK once presented real competition and who wants to help the competition?
The era of the Eady levy gave us films of a scope and scale we can now only dream of. Those films were written by our playwrights, screenwriters and historians. Writing talent that was nurtured from a genuinely diverse pool. (Historian John Prebble co-wrote Zulu, Roald Dahl a Bond screenplay and Harold Pinter wrote The Servant).
It was a slow death, the tap wasn’t just turned off. The Mission was one of the last to profit from the Eady levy, the last British epic with a soundtrack by Ennio Morricone – so good that it was used on trailers for the next twenty years. There also a poignancy that it should explore so beautifully, how music and art connect human beings. It is music that connects the Jesuits to the tribes through a simple but haunting tune. A tribal leader is angered by the oboe’s spell and snaps it across his knee. A younger man examines it to see if it can be repaired, he hopes it can, he and the Jesuit examine the break, they don’t need words. The connection between them is forged.
I certainly wasn’t aware until recently that The Full Monty was not a British film. While it was highly profitable, all those profits went stateside. Trainspotting, on the other hand, had no American backing. Much of its success depended on a massive ad campaign, similar in size to the budget used to make the film itself. That ubiquitous, era defining campaign paid off. My school magazine even had head girls and boys posing like the cast (and looking like Adrian Mole on his way to buy drugs, most likely for someone else). The campaign wasn’t the only thing to pay off, so did PolyGram. The UK company behind the Trainspotting campaign was sold to a Canadian conglomerate and folded a few years later. There has been nothing on the scale of Trainspotting since. That was the nail in the coffin. Goodbye-eee.
And while it’s true that Harry Potter loses nothing by coming to us via Warner Brothers, that directors and actors manage to travel and collaborate and British talent remains very much engaged in Hollywood, the black hole remains when it comes to representing real life. Hollywood likes Etonians like Eddie Redmayne and always will. It doesn’t matter that his face is like a shiny non-stick surface that expression seems to drip off.
I have not watched the Crown. I like the royal family to open and award things, when that isn't possible I like to lightly take the piss out of them. I couldn't possibly take a drama about them seriously. (The Royal Family sticker album portrayed the Queen Mother standing and waving, Spitting Image had her in bed with Lester Piggot - guess which influenced me.) Nor have I watched Bridgerton, mainly because it’s called Bridgerton and doesn’t feature talking woodland animals. If it was called 'Posh folk with Syphilis', well then maybe I’d be interested, something a bit Hogarthian but no, what’s being offered seems to be wedding cake aristocracy and given that we’re recovering from Boris Johnson leading the country, I can’t stomach it. It’s bad enough to see the aristocracy peeing over all you love, I don’t want to watch them having a nice time afterwards.
Drama
When I am affected by a drama, it’s all I can think about for weeks afterwards. To be immersed in a good drama is a wonderful thing and TV dramas capacity to do so, surpasses film. As you revisit in installments, after consideration, perhaps with questions and answers still to come. To love a film so much is to become a pedant or enthusiast. A drama is more of a voyage, that may unveil the wonder to be found in real life. Drama often provides opportunities for actors that film would not, particularly as it reaches into regions that film rarely does.
One Summer is a story of two teenage boys who escape Liverpool, as one, played by David Morrisey, chases a childhood memory of a holiday in North Wales, when gang culture and deprivation, bring out his own brutality. It’s not a perfect drama, there is a sex scene that I’m surprised didn’t put David Morrisey off acting for life. Being filmed in the early 80s, the girl in question has hair so bouffant that, once mounted, she largely obscures David Morrisey. This may have eased the embarrassment he would otherwise have felt. It remains a compelling and well written drama. I’m highlighting it more for the opportunity it provided, launching the careers of Ian Hart, David Morrisey and more.
Ian Hart is one of the most intense actors of his generation, he can go from sweet to terrifying in an instant. The producers had trouble giving him his role in 'One Summer' because he didn't have a phone. A telegram had to be dispatched and he would get back to them using a neighbour's phone. He more recently starred in God’s Own Country, as a farmer whose ill health forces him to leave the running of the family farm to his son. While it tells the story of a working class family, the actor playing his son, was privately educated. I can’t fault his performance and nor should I assume his career was without struggle. However, if Tom Hanks and Eddie Redmayne now believe it is wrong to play a gay man and a trans woman, perhaps other actors could extend this self-sacrifice to others who clearly need opportunity. Had the film been made earlier, the role of his son might have gone to Lee Ingleby or, a bit earlier still, John Simm. They are both brilliant actors and both happen to have attended the same state school with the same drama teacher. That school has now been demolished and, while I presume another was built, the same opportunities are not available for working class kids. Cracker, by Jimmy McGovern gave a star performance from a teenage Samantha Norton, not long out of care – we couldn’t forget her after that, but again, do those opportunities still exist?
But when I think about our dramatists who provided these opportunities; Willy Russell, Jimmy McGovern, Alan Bleasdale, Stephen Poliakov, Hanif Kureishi and Peter Flannery I note that they are all men of a similar generation. I suppose I think they were lucky bastards, born much later it might have been impossible and I say that in the full knowledge that it certainly wasn’t handed to them on a plate. I knew as a teenager that Our Friends in the North was a masterpiece and so was dismayed that Peter Flannery had to fight tooth and nail to get it made, it took him decades. And I am conscious now that it is worse. For women worse still.
AIDS: How we make sense of our past
It's a Sin, a recent success, wouldn’t have been made but for a fortunate change of staff at Channel 4. This highlights my point. Russell T Davis is a popular writer – he is as safe as it is possible to be. For him to write a drama about AIDS and struggle to get it made, highlights an issue. Every country that was hit by AIDs should now be able to talk about how badly it let down those affected. We didn’t talk about it and so drama has a very special role in addressing it now.
But I must confess, when it came to dramas that deal with AIDs, I look to Europe with envious eyes.
120 Beats per Minute is the story of activism in France. The true story of Act UP who campaigned for better drugs treatment, better education and care in the face of the AIDS epidemic. The demonstrations were real, the role of women real too. The film starts with a messy demonstration that Sophie has organized, splattering fake blood on a politician after his party refuse to move on the issue of better treatment and public information. Sophie is enraged that her instructions for the demonstration have not been followed, the timing needed to be right. Watching her rage, I sympathized with the young man who has unwittingly let her down. I’ve been shouted at by women like that, sometimes I’ve done the shouting (but generally they shout at me). These women are formidable but they get things done. The role of women in the UK during the AIDs crisis is largely ignored. In the UK we have many such activists, including Booane Temple, who similarly broke into the six o’clock news to protest section 28. Other women abseiled in parliament as section 28 became law. While women are generally placed in caring roles, men the activists, this wasn’t the case with AIDs. Men were either fighting for their lives or caring for loved ones in the most awful circumstances. Women were in a better position to campaign. Any drama that deals with AIDS has an inevitable ending and when death comes, the same Sophie of 120 Beats Per Minute, cannot go into the room to pay her final respects. She watches, forlorn from the doorway. Emotionally shutting down and not facing the tragic reality, may have been what enabled her to be such an effective activist. While her story was told in France, It’s a Sin places women firmly in the nurturing caring role, lives entirely centered around men. If not focused on men, they are harpies.
But that’s not to say it has to be like that. Don’t Ever Wipe Tears without Gloves is perhaps the most moving drama I have even seen. Again, written by the voice of experience, this time from Sweden and women are very much absent but that’s because it’s about a gay couple, one caring for the other as he dies of AIDS. These young men have established another family in the gay community and, naturally, there are few women. While we are incredulous at 'It’s a Sin', 'Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves' shows how good people can override their sense of justice if it’s socially acceptable to do so. 'It's a Sin' features a mother, berating hospital staff, furious that this has happened to her son and later denying her child his support network in his dying days. With 'Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves', we have something more powerful. We find a unit of three, sharing the bedside vigil and all that includes. A mother has been knitting her son a jumper. By the time she has finished, she knows her own son will never need it and instead gifts it to his partner. Parents and partner have been staying in the hospital for days, they have fallen into a routine familiar to any who have had to stay in hospital for any length of time. The knife is twisted when the same mother and father tell this young man, hours after his partners death, that he cannot attend the funeral, that they do not want to acknowledge their sons relationship to him despite witnessing their love and devotion. They don’t want him at the funeral, they are from a small community, what would people think? And we know it happened. It’s heartbreaking and all too real.
In 120 Beats Per Minutes, the cruelty of the everyday is shown in a scene were the activists are promoting safe sex on campus. They are trying to engage in conversation and giving out condoms. They are neither angry, nor dramatic because that just doesn’t work when you are trying to engage. A shy, smiling bookish young woman seems to be listening but when she speaks it is to say is doesn’t need condoms because she’s not going to get ‘your dirty Aids’. Still shy, she almost giggles at having said something bold. The young man she’s been speaking to, looks over at his fellow campaigner who responds with a simple shrug. They are used to it. That’s just how it was.
This communicates to me, as much as anything can, not just that this happened but how it can happen.
The Rules for the Palatable British Film made with US money
Pride (2014) is a lovely film in many ways, it tells an important true story of Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners. It belongs to a tradition of British films that explore political and cultural subjects but from a safe, accessible cradle which cushions those hard hits. That Mark Ashton was secretary general of The Young Community League is not shocking in the UK, by would be in the states and so no mention of it is made. As with Brassed Off, Pride, Billy Elliot, Sixty-Six and the Full Monty, there is a very familiar portrayal of working-class communities. What is shown is their simplicity – at times closed minded, their tea shop coziness – a place of escape that is at risk often due to change and technology. Their upright dignity – laced with a stiff, dry humor. This sells, it appeals innocently enough, to the part of us that responds to identity politics and nostalgia. There is, Hollywood knows, a divisive political energy that goes down well in the UK. I wouldn’t change any of these films because I believe that films need to be easily accessible as well as hard hitting. However, there are other stories that are not being told.
Neil Jordan
In the 80s and into the early 90’s, Neil Jordan had a way of elevating difficult subjects into the public conscious. He still does, and aside from a continued partnership with Stephen Rae and stories of Ireland, there is no formula. Where once he worked with Handmade Films in the UK, his attention is based more between Ireland and the States. As a feminist, I am grateful to him for bringing The Company of Wolves and Mona Lisa to the big screen. The Company of Wolves sees Terence Stamp's suave Devil, come to the aid of an insecure young man, only to turn him into a tree. I'm on the side of the angels, but a devil who punishes macho desires with instant rewilding, could be the Satan to tempt me.
Cinema and pop culture glamourize prostitution. That’s male fantasy for you, as though their fantasy could be made real and they could easily rescue Roxanne. The empowered prostitute may exist, but must be a rarity. There are many who may want you to believe it is strength that men desire but the evidence points to the opposite, submissiveness and vulnerability being the preferred flavor. If you can watch Three Girls, a brilliant three part drama about the Rochdale paedophile ring, and confidently assert that sex work is work, I’d be baffled. Not that there are not arguments to be made, its just that the simplicity of the message is incredibly dangerous left unexplored. However, I would challenge you to say the same thing after watching Mona Lisa by Neil Jordan. Very young, very vulnerable girls, kept loyal to pimps through addiction. They are drug-addled, giggling and refusing to be saved. Bob Hoskins character sees them and marvels that they are the same age as his daughter and no, he cannot rescue him. Since that film was made, the problem has worsened. Prostitution increasingly seen as socially acceptable, demand increases and so supply must be sought, often from girls brought over from Romania, perhaps as young as thirteen. As seen in Mona Lisa, they often run back into the arms of their pimps. How important are the stories we struggle to tell? Warning: This clip isn’t easy viewing.
Cathy Tyson, the star of Mona Lisa, has the most amazing voice, commanding and as smooth as silk, she plays an effortless manipulator with the kind of femininity rarely seen on screen. We don’t need to be told she’s strong, she doesn’t need to show it, we instinctively know that she is. This was true even in her fairly minor role in the film Priest – if you weren’t convinced by her voice, you’ll be convinced by her eyes. Cathy Tyson now works to encourage other women of colour into the arts. I wonder what her take is on changing opportunities, I hope there at least, there has been some improvement. But when I think of the films that made her name, I know it is now harder to make them. Or they might get made but who brings them to our attention?
Robert Carlyle worked on a film in the UK that he cared about deeply, but failure to distribute and promote it means it was seen by very few. By 2009 this left him disillusioned and so he went stateside, projects he cared less about but at least they would be seen.
More seriously, and why I feel compelled to write this, is that the hope that we could tell our own stories as effectively as once we did, fades. With the axe of the Eady Level, brutal cuts to the BBC and the privatization of Channel 4, the conservatives were to prove the greatest cultural vandals. It is said that when asked to cut arts funding to fund the second world war, Churchill responded, “Then what would we be fighting for?”
I started this piece with the story of a UK publisher dropping a UK writer only for their career to be resurrected stateside. Lets look again at publishing. The costa book awards have cut six of their awards and the BBC Blue Peter Book award has also gone, inevitable in this time of cuts. There are now very few prizes for UK based writers that do not expose them to international competition.
Female artists of the UK have another hurdle. Their feminism has to reflect the feminism accepted on US campuses and what vanishing opportunities you might have, vanish entirely if you don’t submit to that particular school of thought. Were Angela Carter alive today, I doubt she would surrender her views and as a consequence, I doubt Neil Jordan would find the finance to make The Company of Wolves. Just as Warner Brothers might have made things difficult for JK Rowling, had they known that she would voice her views as a feminist. Perhaps they wouldn’t have made those films at all.
It’s hard not to feel bitter when I read about comedians of the past, having sketches accepted for radio or television while they were still in education and thus the once vast doors of opportunity were opened. Just as many of the Old Grey Whistle Test team, all beards and corduroy, were thrust into an epic scale with Live Aid, well, British culture did that again and again with people who were in no way glamorous, just passionate professional people who knew their stuff and would go wherever it took them.
Many will argue that with streaming services, it was always going to be a battle. This is true and so I would argue to hamper it further is downright irresponsible. A Uk streaming service, linking the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, (essentially Brit Box), was planned many years ago. At the time, streaming services were gaining popularity, and this opened up awkward questions about the future of the BBC license fee. A service for streaming UK TV presented something of a solution. The plan was rejected on the grounds that it would provide unfair competition for the likes of Amazon and Netflix. By the time Brit Box finally came into being, the most popular content was already available on US streaming services and the horse had bolted the stables, gone to pasture and whatever we got back, could barely be sold to make glue. The concern was never for the UK arts, as with the Eady levy, our government did not act in our interests.
Wary of cultural imperialism, I have been accused of being anti-American. However, in writing this I must acknowledge how grateful I am. For instance, Submarine by Richard Ayoade was only possible due to Ben Stiller just as so much of our talent was unlocked by Game of Thrones.
But it’s too important to be left to others. Opportunities for writers and actors have shrunk, replaced by those with no sense of duty to tell our stories well. Ours is a government that has shirked any responsibility to our culture beyond the commodity it may present.
I was truly captivated as a teenager by the dramas I took in, they inspired me to write. I remember not wanting to love Brideshead Revisited but I couldn’t help it. Later, I recognized the sleaze of Howard Kirk in the History Man, even watching four decades after it was made, as I recognized the political climate in latter episodes of Our Friends in the North and the Glasgow and Argyle of The Crow Road. Relate or recognize, sometimes both. These dramas stayed in my head, lodged in my very visual brain, jostling for space with my own ideas. Ideas that in Britain, have few places to fly to.
I could have gone further, and delved into the consequences of Brexit on the livelihoods of touring musicians. Howard Goodall, (EMMY, BRIT and BAFTA award-winning composer of choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores) has already written about this at length. To sum up his piece below, it's a nightmare.
But make no mistake, great acts of cultural vandalism have been committed. Be careful when you trash the BBC, it’s exactly what the vandals want you to do and if we let that go, we may have nothing left but caricature.
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