In Britain, we are not very good at celebrating our success. We somehow find it embarrassing. We often see the cup as half-empty.
I've just returned from the annual TV Pilot Screenings in Los Angeles where
producers from around the world get to see the latest shows planned
for the American networks. It was exciting from this distance to be
congratulated on the huge success of BBC One's Happy Valley - and it
felt like an opportunity to re-assess our cup and celebrate British drama and
the BBC's in particular.
Before some readers begin choking on their corn-flakes, I make a
qualification.
Sometimes what the BBC produces falls short of expectations. Sometimes we fail.
Not everything we produce for licence-fee payers lives up to our
hopes and dreams.
This is the natural state of things in a creative industry. Indeed, at the BBC
I think we could be even better at celebrating creative experimentation
that goes wrong as well as the big drama hits that unite the nation and set the
global standard.
A creative culture that is comfortable with failure is a culture that is
more likely to take risks, innovate and succeed. Some of the drama scripts I
have been lucky enough to be associated with have felt like very risky projects
when green-lit, from Skins on E4 for young audiences to Last Tango In Halifax
on BBC One for an older generation. We loved the Last Tango script but
could not honestly say we felt confident that a touching love story about a
couple in their seventies would prove to be one of the biggest hits of the
year.
Setting aside the occasional primetime miss suffered by every television
network in the world, I believe we should more confidently raise the flag
for British drama which - beyond these shores - has huge respect and kudos.
A trope has developed, a cultural meme that asserts that American drama is far
superior to drama produced in the UK and at the BBC. It's an argument
driven by box-set consumers who have a louder voice in Britain's cultural
dialogue than the average family who sit down at night in Britain's towns and
villages to decide which drama they want to watch.
The meme extends to the notion that the US tradition of longer series is
necessarily better. I would argue that the right length for a series is
the one that most effectively and creatively fits the story being told. In
the same way, we'd all get a bit sniffy if a decision was made by book
publishers that all novels had to be either 200 pages or 400 pages, rather
than the right length for the story. Indeed, US television networks are now
increasingly of this view too. They have clocked the creative limitations
of the 24 or 13-part series and are ordering many more short-run stories -
'event dramas' or 'mini-series' as they call them
Personally, I'm a big consumer of US drama. I have huge respect for the quality
and sensibility of the very best of American output. But it is worth
noting that it is only the very best, the truly excellent that tends to
travel as far as our shores and get noticed. The Wire, Grey's Anatomy, Breaking
Bad, Mad Men are world-class and I salute them. But, thankfully, the saluting
is mutual. The chief of one of the most celebrated of US drama networks
recently proclaimed that 'They want to be the American BBC'.
At the heart of BBC Drama is BBC One. It's the biggest showcase and in many
ways the most challenging place to be. It's really hard to make quality drama
that aims to stimulate and entertain between five and ten million people, as
the mainstream reach of the BBC's largest channel demands. Our colleagues at
ITV will tell you the same.
So series like Happy Valley - which has received the highest ever quality score
from audiences for a BBC One Drama, as well as drawing huge viewing - are
moments that we should get better at celebrating. The same goes for Call
The Midwife, The 7.39, Doctor Who, Last Tango In Halifax, Luther, The Village,
From There To Here, Sherlock and many more in recent years.
It's a hit-rate and a quality-rate that any network in the world - public
service or commercial - would be very proud of.
Drama of course starts with writers, singular voices with a story to tell. With
Happy Valley and Last Tango, writer Sally Wainwright's personal story is one of
British creative excellence. The same goes for Steven Moffatt, the
extraordinary driving force behind Doctor Who and Sherlock. I could name many
others and add some glorious successes from ITV like Chris Chibnall's
Broadchurch and Julian Fellowes' Downton Abbey to this menu of quality,
excellence and popular appeal.
They stand for something the UK should shout from the roof-tops. Together,
as British popular drama, they form one of our finest exports.
These writers provide the range of drama on BBC One that we constantly
strive for. The world's most celebrated detective rubs shoulders with a
Time-Lord, Gangsta Grannies jostle for air-time with young men naively
signing up for war, lovers meeting on trains sit cheek by jowl with
extraordinary female crime-fighters. Curating all of this is Ben
Stephenson, the BBC's Head of Drama, who has driven this exceptional
creative risk-taking and delivered so many nationally-treasured, high-quality
drama hits.
Of course, this story of creative excellence in BBC Drama extends beyond BBC
One. Line of Duty, Peaky Blinders, The Fall, Dancing on the Edge, Top of the
Lake have created an extraordinary body of dramatic work on BBC Two in the last
couple of years that compares with anything produced for other less mainstream
audiences around the world. In The Flesh on BBC Three has enjoyed
wide critical acclaim and we will continue to produce innovative drama for
the proposed new online version of BBC Three in the future.
There is, as ever, still more to do. The BBC will, as always, strive to improve
further. We will continue to encourage risk-taking and accept that with
innovation sometimes comes imperfection.
But please do join me this morning in raising your cup of tea to the creative
vibrancy of British drama and the BBC's proud role in this story.
Danny Cohen is Director of BBC Television.
