BBC Drama

Well I’ve just seen Netflix advertising a series about Queen Victoria. It’s just ridiculous at this point.

I'd rather Wolf Hall was left as it was but there was also a TV drama series about the black people that actually were in the Tudor court, like John Blanke. There were hundreds of black people in Tudor London (the city had a total population of between 50K to 200K at this point), why not do a period drama about them? Colour blind casting can be done well but often is just a diversity box ticking exercise. You can make Anne Boleyn black in a TV series but that doesn't change everyone knowing she was actually white. You do a drama about John Blanke or one of the other black Tudors we know about and you change lots of people's understanding of the history of black people in Europe. There are lots of good black actors, they should be given meaty period drama roles.

ETA: thismay just be me getting old and fed up of yet another drama about Henry VIII and his wives.

I have watched a few episodes of this at my mum's, but don't have access to Apple TV at home.

This is an issue overall I find, differernt services have one or two things I might want, but I can't afford them all. And I'm not going out to buy an Apple product just to watch Slow Horses or really any TV.

I subscribe to Apple tv solely so we can watch Slow Horses. It's brilliant and worth every penny. It's the sort of thing the BBC used to produce, but you're right, they don't now. Even their news reporting is falling down in quality. Saturday night tv, all shit, absolute shit.

I thought 'Better' was really excellent drama on the BBC last year (not sure if they made it though). Possibly still on iplayer? And 'The Gold' although that was a bit more clichéd.

Does he look like he could have been an Elizabethan poet? Spanish, possibly? If so there's no issue, the nationality of his parents, or even their ethnicity, isn't relevant.

If it's not meant to be realistic, again, probably no issue. Which is one reason why it often works better in theater.

But in a historical drama that's meant to be highly realistic, it makes no sense, you might as well cast Ian McKlellan as Ramses the Great.

The larger issue is disrespect for the stories being told, which affects the writing badly in a lot of ways.

It's embarrassing to me that a Londoner with Egyptian parents can't pretend to be an Elizabethan poet on TV without causing an attack of the vapours.

I's kind of obvious though, isn't it, when a show like Wolf Hall is doing that kind of thing?

It's clearly not emerging naturally from the story, it's usually to fulfill quotas and requirements being set by the producers or the BBC.

I love stories set in all kinds of places with all kinds of people - I was really disappointed that they decided not to make a second season of Three Little Birds recently - it wasn't perfect but it's very similar to how my partner's mother left Jamaica and her experiences, although she came a little later. But a very interesting setting.

But Wolf Hall? It's tokenistic writing, obviously so, and I can never figure out how people don't find that embarrassing.

Very glad you drew attention to "woke casting" at the end there because it means I don't need to bother with the rest of your post.

Yeah, I feel it's gone downhill in the last 5 years.

Similarly with American TV which overall wasn't as reliably good, but for a few years there were some very good things produced.

Style over substance is part of it for sure. In the end it seems to come down to the writing.

I feel like there are a lot of lines writers need to toe. People will complain about stuff being woke or tokenistic, but I think that's a particular manifestation of a larger problem. It's like stories need to all include certain tropes, or can't really challenge certain tropes.

I find for example that even dramas are often deeply anachronistic, particularly around social attitudes and norms. Even where they are lighter shows that aren't meant to be challenging it's difficult to take them seriously because it's obviously a total fantasy. Call the Midwife now, while it used to be good on these things, is almost unwatchable it's so full of anachronisms.

I watched an older show the other day, The Cazaletts. Not a perfect show but what struck me was that so many of the characters had both very good and very unlikable qualities, or were in some ways quite awful people while also having done good things, and there really wasn't much direct commentary about this that you could pick up from the writing - the viewer was really left to make judgement. The writing was pretty solid in terms of characterizations, even if I might have quibbled with the plotting.

A lot of it seems to be about creating a cool scenario, a cool visual image, or a cool character. (Killing Eve suffers from this.)

Really enjoyed nightsleeper, watched series 3 of the tower which I had forgotten about and now watching and enjoying the perfect couple. Keep the recommends coming please 😀

This is an interesting article. It seems that the pool of those who commission shows in the UK is becoming ever more concentrated within few posh older men. We’re not getting a diversity of ideas. It may also be why they sledgehammer diversity on screen and make it seem inauthentic.

If there was true diversity behind the scenes and in storytelling, there would be no need to cast minorities as historical British Kings and Queens. There are a multitude of stories to tell. How many adaptations do we need of the same historical figures when there are reams of really interesting stories never brought to tv?

What about a show on a modern woman and her family living in Birmingham? Or the partition of India? Creation of Israel, the rivalry between Mandela and Thatcher, a beautician and her clients, a woman trying by to rise to the top in her career in the city, the other woman in a relationship?

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/sep/29/creators-of-new-drama-the-hardacres-decry-lack-of-working-class-tv

I'd love to watch A Fatal Inversion as I loved the book. I bought it on DVD but the quality was so poor it got stuck in the player (still there, I think). The little bit I saw was terrible quality.

So if anyone knows where I can watch it, I'd be grateful.

Oh I loved Last Tango!

I know what you mean. It doesn't seem that long ago since it turned September and you were bombarded with dramas and there were loads set to tape, now there's a couple and like you said, on random services like player and never making it to bbc1

Channel 5 has had some over the last few weeks but to be fair, they aren't great and haven't drawn me on and the acting awful

I do love All Creature Great and Small though

Have you tried Two Doors Down?

The glory days of BBC drama are long gone (Clocking Off, Cranford, A Sense of Guilt, Cutting It, A Fatal Inversion). Even the most recent series of Happy Valley was a bit crap.

The U.S is where the really good stuff comes from, generally. Probably because the networks and platforms have got the money to invest in superb writers and actors - just over the past few years the high quality stuff I've seen includes The White Lotus, Julia, Mare of Easttown, True Detective, The Last of Us. I'm really looking forward to Disclaimer, starring Cate Blanchett and directed by Alfonso Cuarón - that's only available on Apple TV+.

The BBC also has a habit of casting the same people again and again (such as Keeley Hawes and Adeel Akhtar) which I find boring. I enjoyed Wolf Hall, but note there's some woke casting in the next adaptation of her series, so I probably won't bother with that.

The BBC has been mismanaged for years. It should play to its strengths and distinguish itself in areas not covered by other broadcasters. Instead it reduces Newsnight to a discussion programme. The high quality dramas were another strength, now seemingly in decline.

It deserves to rot.

I love period dramas as well, but they are very expensive to make. We seldom watch live TV. I much prefer to watch some of the excellent period dramas on the various catch up channels. All4, which is Channel 4’s catch up/ iplayer, has some very good dramas from a while ago. GBH is excellent, as is A Dance to the Music of Time. A very young James Purefoy.

Any GOT fans, another blockbuster series that first aired on BBC2 is Rome, series 1 and 2. Be prepared for lots of nudity, gore, bad language, but it’s a tremendous re telling of the Julius Caesar/Emperor Augustus story, with a cast of some brilliant British actors. I think it does come up on iplayer occasionally.

Same. I binge watched it.

Night sleeper. Poor reviews but I was hooked!

I'm enjoying Ludwig too. In fact I love it. But it's not a drama, more of a sitcom. It's light watching even if there's some sad bits, but it's not serous drama territory.

That's what I was going to say. Sherwood is recent and excellent.

We loved Nightsleeper - although we did binge it all on iPlayer

Wolf Hall back in December. I can. It wait

Couldn't get into Killing Eve but Keeping Faith was brilliant.

Sherwood was amazing. I much prefer most home grown dramas to US ones, but Apples Never Fall was very good and on BBC.