Putting The Lead Character's Name In The Title

All good things come to an end - and some bad things go on forever, just look at the TV listings. Some of my favourite shows get cancelled after one of two series, some things I loathe and detest have gone on and on and on and on.

ITV have just got around to announcing it will no longer show further episodes of Taggart. ITV and STV have been at loggerheads over the series for some years - you can read about it elsewhere, the details of that dispute don't concern us here, save to say it's over for the Scots cops.

For ten years years the craggy-faced Mark MacManus played the title role of Jim Taggart; he was not a man to cross.  Glenn Chandler's scripts were a delight, he'd created three-dimensional characters that worked within a format, he'd presented us with some beautifully crafted stories and set the whole thing in Glasgow. In 1983 when it first appeared, the Scots cop show was superior drama.

Then, in 1994, in the middle of filming an episode, Mark Macmanus died (they covered it up (!) by saying he was in endless meetings). And that, you'd think, would be that. But no, not only did they keep going with the series - promoting side-kicks - but they also kept the name. Jim Taggart was dead but Taggart went on being called Taggart. It was a brand people understood, why change it?

I don't know if people would have deserted the show if they'd re-branded - the stories were still compelling, the subsidiary characters worked well and blossomed into the stars of the show. The marketing men would have had their say - perhaps Glenn Chandler saw no reason to change the name, I just don't know. It has continued for another seventeen years or so, it seems that continuing to call it Taggart didn't hurt it one little bit.
The fact that I stopped watching a show named after a character that no longer appeared in it didn't hurt them one jot. For me Taggart was about the man as much as the procedural, without the man it could be a perfectly good cop show but not the one I wanted to watch.

Imagine you're making a show called Sherlock Holmes and the actor playing the great man dies - do you continue the series with Dr Watson and promote Mrs Hudson from housekeeper to Detective? The stories stay the same, except the cocaine-snorting, violin-playing sleuth is replaced by the apple dumpling-baking, sideboard-dusting Mrs Hudson whose hitherto steel-trap mind has been overshadowed by...hang on, are you buying this? No. Exactly. Whatever Taggat was after the death of Mark McManus it blatantly was not Taggart. How could it be.

But it is not the only example on British television of a series with a character's name in the title continuing after that character has disappeared from the series. Step forward Blake's Seven. Actor Gareth Thomas - who played Blake - walked. No more Blake and now there were six. The BBC continued to use the title Blake's 7. Fans of the show waited for Blake's return....they are still waiting.

Would they have kept going with Columbo without Peter Falk, Hannah Montanna without Miley Cyrus, Two and A Half Men if Charlie Sheen had a melt-down ? Strike that last one.

I've been walking around with a character in my head for the best part of fifteen years. Every now and then I take him out and noodle with him and think I can make his world play and then find a reason why it might seem hackneyed or cliched or not the right time to pursue the project. The thing is the title is the main character's name. And that name tells us so much about the man.

He began as a down-at-heel detective, kicked out of the police after being wrong accused of...do I need to write any more cliches? The thing is, he's grown as I've grown. The cliches have gone, he's now a fully rounded character - and I know exactly who he would be played by: a forty five year old Paul Newman.

When I first came up with him Newman was in his seventies so without a time-machine this one was never going to work. But Newman continues to walk through the stories I've created for him offering THAT smile and flashes of THOSE baby-blue eyes. I can barely bring myself to think of him as anyone else but if he is ever going to see the light of day he'll have to work in another actor's shoes - and the reality is that once I find an actor to do it my man will take on that actor's shape and voice and thoughts of Mr Newman will disappear. Remember that Sylvester Stallone was originally going to play Axel Foley in Beverley Hills Cop, now who can imagine anyone else in that role except Eddie Murphy.

My point is that although I've carried this character around in MY head for fifteen years, fleshing him out, making him real, he's not in anyone else's head and until he's properly realised by an actor he won't be.

If I ever get to the point where he becomes a viable script there's no way I'm going to say to a producer - we can't do it without Paul Newman.

And do I put his name in the title, in the knowledge that if he becomes a huge hit and then dies those around him could keep the flame burning while I milk the cash cow? You betcha. My show dies with him.