The Hour

The BBC's new drama The Hour is now two episodes in. If you tuned in expecting to see a British Mad Men you'll have been disappointed. It may be a period drama from the 50's - where Mad Men began but that's about all they share in common. With the words Mad Men being printed in every article I read about The Hour, plus the whiff of Mad Men about the BBC trailers was there ever a worse case of wrongly positioning the audience? Look at the picture above - it shouts Mad Men and yet...it is not representative of any graphics in the show.

As someone who loves what Mad Men does the last thing I want to watch is a pale imitation. But as a writer I know that the intention behind this series was never to ape its American cousin. The Hour, we are told, attempts to look at the birth of news as we know it on the BBC, set against the Suez crisis and a Hitchcockian subplot - which I fancy will become the main plot. I came away from the first episode thinking - what this really wants to be is a thriller - and I hadn't been expecting that.

The problem is, once you begin the comparisons between the two series its hard to watch The Hour without thinking of Don Draper and the men and women of Sterling Cooper. There are lots of areas where the American series scores home runs whilst the British series gets a golden duck. Particularly in the way the two shows treat race and gender politics. Mad Men shows it as it was, many of the perfectly nice white people are racist, men don't treat women well, everybody smokes. We are left to tut and shake our heads at home. We are better. We have grown up.

In The Hour contemporary race and gender politics are transported backwards to 1956 and bolted on to characters. They constantly tell us that women are powerful enough to run a TV show and that white people shouldn't turn black people away from jobs or boarding houses. They tell us what we should be thinking. They hammer it home with a bloody mallet.

In making the young producer of the BBC's new flagship current affairs a 28 year old woman they've flown in the face of truth. Women just didn't get those jobs then, ask Esther Rantzen who started as a BBC secretary in the late sixties and rose through the ranks to become an Executive Producer and one of the most f. A show like The Hour doesn't need to rewrite history. You can make your points, you can create female characters with inner strength and brains and dynamism without distorting the past famous faces on BBC television. She wouldn't have got a look in in 1956.

The real woman who rose through the ranks and became a legend at the BBC was Grace Wyndham Goldie who pioneered the coverage of politics and current affairs on television, and established programmes such as Panorama, Tonight, That Was The Week That Was and The Money Programme. But she wasn't a producer at 28. Her 'boys' were some of the best known figures in 20th century broadcasting in the UK; Cliff Michelmore, Huw Weldon, Alasdair Milne and Richard Dimbleby.

Dimbleby was a giant broadcasting. He fronted the flagship Panorama show from 1955 - the show I presume The Hour is supposed to be based on. Dimbleby was heavyweight, The Hour's Hector Madden is more like the William Hurt's anchor in Broadcast News, a pretty boy, good with autocue. But like the decision to make the producer a 28 year-old woman, the decision to 'build The Hour' around the personality of Madden rings false. It was the issues not the personality that were important at that time. The cult of celebrity was way in the future. There was no big picture of Richard Dimbleby hanging behind the presenter's desk.

All these niggling details serve to irritate, like the Birds Custard sitting in a cupboard next to the Brillo Pads. I understand now why Matthew Weiner has made it his life's work to go over EVER detail of his show. You might have an authentic box of pan scourers but they live UNDER THE SINK. Mad Men would never make a mistake like that.

The cleverness of Mad Men is how they use the events of an era and show how they change the people at Sterling Cooper and how those changes reflect in their work. The Hour had the potential to chart the way reporting changed in the 1950's against the backdrop of Suez and a society that was changing in the way it thought about immigrants, woman and the working classes. It's making hard work of it.

Goodbye Amy, was it fun while it lasted?

The death of Amy Winehouse was tragic. I feel for those close to her, any parent would rather it was them than their child. Twenty seven years is no time on Earth but some people acheive more than others. Amy's second album 'Back To Black' was glorious. One of those collections of songs that got played over and over again. Those songs, that voice. It was quite brilliant and marked her out as a major talent.

And then nothing.

The difficult third album (in this case) never came. Instead we were treated to headlines that got worse, speculation on her marriage, disapproval and the odd wobbly appearance here and there. She became more famous for her disintergration than for her music. I don't know who was to blame, I don't know the music world beyond bumping into some of its practicioners and survivors, but I've never got close enough to understand the way drugs and rock and roll - or in this case R & B  - affect the mindset of a young performer.

My daughter brought me the news. Was I shocked? Barely. It's aterrible thing to say but I'm betting so many of us had the same reaction. It was expected that she'd die young. I dare say she'll now become a poster girl for an anti-drugs anti-drink campaign and I hope her death makes some mark on those youngsters who choose to drown themselves in chemicals rather than live for the day and have a love of life.

What we're left with is one amazing collection of songs and the promise that there is enough material for a postumous album. I hope that material measures up to her best, I fear it won't. If there was enough material surely it would already have been released.

Books will flood the shops, posters will appear - who knows, that beehive may become the Che Guevara poster image for a generation.

So, goodbye Amy, the truly terrible thing about your tragedy is that no-one is surprised.

A Full Confession

I would like to put it on record that I have never had any dealings with Rebekah Wade/Brooks - or anyone else called Rebekah whether they spell their name with a K or not. Though I was once briefly acquainted with someone called Beccy who I suspect might have been a Rebbeca but that was never confirmed. She only brought the deserts to our table we never really got to know each other much beyond that. And anyway, I heard a chap call her Trixie so I suspect she was wearing someone elses badge.

I digress.


I have never met or associated with any member of the Murdoch family, no close relatives, no friends or hangers-on.

I have never been arrested by a member of the Metropolitan Police, whether squeaky-clean or bent as a corkscrew. I have never asked a policeman for directions or enquired as to the time. If I had, how could I have been sure that the answer was truthful? Had I been told it was 16.38 could I be certain? Could I place my faith in this information or should I seek another source? And should that source be another member of the constabulary or would I be better off with a bus driver or a dog warden? 

I have never knowingly hacked anyone's phone. I wouldn't know how, I can barely use my ageing Nokia E60 and the home phone is rubbish. We get a lot of wrong numbers where people speak on a crossed line in foreign accents and no matter how loud I shout no-one seems able to hear me.

I have never knowingly attended a party/spa/social gathering organised by a former editor/assistant editor/journalist/policeman or private eye, working on behalf of the Murdoch family, their friends relatives or known associates. Or their pets.

I once bought The Sun.

It was Thursday March 13th 1986. It was raining, I used it as a hat - though I confess I sneaked a look at the headline - it was something about a comedian eating a rodent. 

However, given the weight of evidence stacking up against us all it can only be a matter of time before events catch up with me. I, like everyone else in this country, will soon fall foul of the domino-effect sweeping the nation toppling all before it. And not just here but America, Australia and other parts of Rupert' World.

It is for that reason that I intend to jump before Ed Milliband calls for my head. I hereby tender my resignation with immediate effect.

I shall in future be spending more time with my family. None of whom own phones.

What Happened To Torchwood?

When it comes to science fiction I can take it or leave it. The best is glorious the worst involves mentions of Stonehenge/Mars/undiscovered underground civilisations and techno-babble that doesn't make any juice in my body flow.

As a kid I read lots. All the Dune books, becoming less interested as the series went on. I watched Dr Who and really enjoyed what they now call 'classic' Star Trek but never a Trekker/Trekkie. One of my favourite shows as a kid was Timeslip - two kids slipping backwards - and then forwards in time. The latter worked on an emotional level,  not just something that tried to bamboozle you by adopting geek-o-tron pseudo science. I've always been more engaged by the dilemma people find themselves in rather than the technology around them. I never missed an early X-Files, even though the reset button meant Scully never learned anything.

If there is a human story at the heat of the piece it draws me in.

When Torchwood first appeared it had that effect. Here was an X-Files type show set in Wales. Wales was not cool, people spoke with strange accents, why would some strange rift be centred on, of all places, Cardiff ? These were the questions the critics asked - and yet it worked. I bought into it because Russel T Davies had done with Torchwood what he'd done with Dr Who - found an emotional, human core.

I liked the idea that Captain Jack had been around a long long time. Here was a complex character with the kind of sexuality not normally seen in a leading role on TV - and certainly not in a sci-fi series. Delving into the history of the Torchwood Institute was as much fun as the monster of the week story.

But as the series progressed we began to lose core cast members. Too many core cast members. I don't know whether this was because actors wanted to move on or whether RTD got fed up with the constraints of the format he'd created and decided that the way forward was to dismantle and rebuild. It just seemed odd to me that an enjoyable romp was being wound down.

And then came Torchwood: Children of Earth. It was given huge prominence in the BBC One schedule and was generally hailed as the best series yet. But again core cast were sacrificed to story. By the end of this excellent run the Torchwood home had been blown up and there was just Captain Jack and Eve left. Torchwood was no more.

Huh? The best series ever and...they killed off everyone and blew it all up?

I asked myself would I have gone that far?

What began as one thing had become another - but in that process had become better. Or had it. I liked Torchwood's subteranean home. I liked the gizmos and the bigger cast. I liked the monster of the week format. It always seemed streets ahead of Fringe but made on a much tighter budget. And I liked the way the characters home stories entwined with the alien hunting activities in Torchwood. As I said before sci-fi works best for me when something approaching a three diemensional character walks across my screen.

And now we have yet another incarnation of the series, Torchwood: Miracle Day. This time produced by the American Starz network. Bigger budgets, bigger explosions, bigger stars - "Wow, isn't that the guy who used to be in ER - and hey, there's that girl who was in Six Feet Under".

It centres on the idea that one day everyone on planet Earth just stops dying. Burn them to a crisp, chop off their heads, doesn't matter, they just keep going. Terrific. Great twist on the zombie idea. (I'm not a fan of Zombies, The Walking Dead was just that, a show full of dead people going nowhere slowly).

But here's the thing; the first episode was awful. Really, really bad. It clunked, it groaned. Frankly if most of us had written that and handed it in we'd have been laughed out of the door. Attempting to set parts in the US and parts in Wales was always going to be tough. American accents next to Welsh accents? English accents next to Welsh never jarred, we hear them all the time, it's part of our national fabric but once you put Cardiff next to Washington D.C. it didn't feel right. The story's most interesting character, peadophile killer, Oswald Danes wasn't given much time to do anything more than leer. Okay, I accept you can't build the full force of darkness in one show but with everything that was happening around it the Bill Pullman leer was looking a bit pantomime villain.

Accents aside, there were many more things to ponder in this series opener. Like how come Captain Jack would suddenly appear as if by magic? A CIA agent goes searching in a government library for documentation about Torchwood and suddenly Captain Jack is there.

One minute Eve Myles is living in the most remote location in Wales and the next moment she's being buzzed by helicopters and Captain Jack appears! Hurrah! Let's not try to escape the helicopters via the roads but drive across the open sandy beach. Some very dodgy CGI didn't help.

By the end it just felt like, well, a mess. Instead of being pulled in we're now being force fed. Plot that took an age to get anywhere, hammy acting.

We watched it as a family, one of my teenage kids got up and walked off after falling asleep the other said,  "I'll give it one more episode..."


But let me just remind you - I was a fan. I really liked the show. So, what's gone wrong?

I think what had made Torchwood such an interesting format has all gone.But like my son, I'll give it one more episode.

News of the World - The Movie

I was on a train when I heard the news. The woman behind me was skipping across the Internet on her phone. "They're closing the News of the World", she said to her friend. She said it like it they were closing a village shop in the Hebrides. No big deal.
I had my head in a book - One Day by David Nicholls, buy, enjoy - but my ears pricked up. I couldn't help but turn around and ask her to repeat what she'd just said. She read from her screen, this Sunday's edition would be the last.

My jaw hit the folding plastic table in front of me. My mind reeled. Two things immediately sprang to mind, the first, bizarrely, was the news of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, June 5th 1968. I was on a bus with my mother, it was raining outside and crowded inside. Someone got on with an evening newspaper - I can remember seeing the front page photograph - it had been touched up, badly, presumably to aid definition. Speculation that it was a fake was rife amongst the passengers.

Was this news of the NOTW also a fake? Hadn't someone hacked Fox News just days before claiming that President Obama was dead? What can you believe in this world here we know everything as it happens - in some cases before ("In his speech this afternoon the PM will say...)

The next thing I thought about was a scene for "NOTW the Movie - The Screws Screwed". And there will be a NOTW The Movie or TV mini series. You wait and see.

What struck me was a moment.

Movies - stories - are about moments.

After several days of ever more unbelievable revelations about phone hacking, police corruption,  who knew what and when, who was about to be arrested, and which vulnerable section of society would next feature in the Screws endeavours to scoop a story, things have come to a head.

Int. Boardroom. News Corp - Day

Rupert Murdoch, craggy in that Australian way, walks into the room. Before him a legion of lawyers, executives and Editors all answer phones, all talk over each other and argue. But through the cacophony of sounds we hear snippets:

 "...Shred it"

"...Take a sledgehammer to the hard drive"

"...Burnt the fucking lot"

Murdoch's eyes narrow, he takes a bite from his Kangaroo testicles sandwich. Suddenly the assembled executives realise he's there in person. One nudges another and on it goes. Conversations end, silence falls.

Their hearts beat faster.

He looks at each and every one of them. Into their very souls.
He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.


MURDOCH: "Close it".

He turns and exits.

No-one can believe what they just heard - they look at each other in stunned silence - and then the noise explodes again.

Cut to.....

With Rebekah Brooks telling the NOTW staff that she knows that there is much worse to come (dear God how can it get any worse?) this is heading toward a scandal of Watergate proportions. What is more The New York Times reports on how the  phone hacking crisis has become a make or break test of James Murdoch's role in his father's media empire. The paper says he could emerge from the scandal "as the company's decisive new leader, or as the tainted son who mismanaged one of the greatest crises the family business has faced".

BBC Writer's Festival

"We were all made to sit in front of the TV and if we were very bad Mother threatened to turn it on".

This last week I packed my bag and headed to the frozen North, which turned out not to be frozen at all. Leeds was bathed in sunshine and a very different place than the city I used to visit when I was writing series for the old Yorkshire Television.

The BBC Writersroom Writer's Festival was a bit like Glastonbury with more ink. Star scribes took to stages and platforms whilst mere mortals gathered close to hear gobbets of wisdom and experience. Shedding light on 'how to' and often 'how not to'.

The great thing about this festival is that it's 'for writers and by writers'. The guys at the BBC Writersroom had worked hard on gathering the right people to make the sessions relevant. And there was a lot to choose from.

Danny Brocklehurst (Shameless, Exile) talked about his working relationship with his producer Nicola Shindler. Hugo Blick talked about The Shadowline, Tony Marchant about getting into hot water - there was even a session on compliance (didn't go, don't know how many did but it was there if you fancied it).

If you want to start your own series there was a session on that, if you wanted to learn about what writers could learn there was a session on that as well as team writing US style and being political and writing thrillers and whether writing gurus had anything to offer that was original or were they all saying the same thing? Turns out they all same the same thing and we should be looking to write in a five act structure. Thanks John Yorke, a very entertaining and illuminating hour. Looks like Shakespeare and my English teacher were right.

The highlight, for me, was an hour listening to Jimmy McGovern as he spewed passion and rage in equal measure. I particularly enjoyed his contention that contemporary playwrights are all shit. Discuss.

He'd received a lost of flak and criticism over his his drama about Bloody Sunday but when last year's Saville report was published he felt vindicated, he'd got it all right but he knew that because he'd spent so much time in Northern Ireland talking to all sections of society before he wrote the thing. Do your research.

God bless Jimmy, he has so much enthusiasm, so much rage and refuses to suffer fools gladly or any other way. It turns out that what he likes to do these days is just a spit away from what they do in the US. He heartily approves of the writing room where stories get thrashed out before somebody puts their ass on a chair and 'writes' it.

I wrote about this before - don't confuse typing with writing. The rush to get something down on paper, (to use an old and now pretty much defunct phrase though I still know people who pen their first draft longhand ) is the curse of storytelling. I was certainly guilty of it as I groped my way from sketches to something approaching longer narratives. Dismiss your first thought - it'll probably be the cliched one anyway - dismiss your second, your third thought...go for a walk, soak in the bath, come up with some way of doing your scene that hasn't been done before - or at least you haven't seen done.

And when he comes to write it down Jimmy's method is two drafts - one from the heart, full of rage and fury and then one from the head. 

A tall guy from ITV commissioning told us all the things they want from writers  - turns out that's everything - apart from Detetctives, they have eleven of those already. Don't fret ITV, the BBC has more chefs. But of course they don't actually want any direct contact with writers, take your wares to a trusted production company, one of those providing the eleven different detectiives will do nicely.

But the thing that came through from everyone from BBC Head honchos Ben Stephenson and John Yorke to Jimmy McGovern and Toby Whithouse, Paula Milne, Hugo Blick, Danny Brocklehurst and just about everyone who shared their experiences was this:

                                                                       Passion.

Believe in your script, believe in your characters, your world and your view and write it with all the passion you can muster

Then, I suggest, like Jimmy, rewrite it.

Dumb Dumber Dumbest

Just got back from the Garden Centre where Mrs Lewis looks at all those plants and flowers and shrubs like I eye the displays of Fountain Pens in department stores.

As we were pushing our trolley around the local Heart Radio station was playing. After a particularly inane track we we were treated to this fabulous link, get ready for this, here it comes:

"You're listening to Heart where the Summer is better, it's just after exactly two o'clock".

Just - after - exactly - two o'clock. Mrs Lewis could have spent whatever she liked after that one, I was smiling for minutes.

Having done the job myself I still don't know how some of these guys think the stuff up that they say. It's so...meaningless. I hate presenting radio shows where it's just me and records. I have no feel for it, not unless I've chosen the music (and then it's going to be some eclectic mix that doesn't fit with the playlist of any radio station anymore). That was...this is radio is, as my daughter says "sooooooooo last century" .

My son was listening to BBC Radio One on his bus home from college - he had no choice it was playing on the speakers. When he got in he couldn't wait to tell me that the DJ had just asked his listeners to text him with their favourite FAT JOKES. What?

Reminds me of the female DJ who, not that long ago, asked her listeners to send her 'PADDY JOKES'.

A) Hell-o, we moved on 30 years ago.

B) Don't TELL JOKES ON THE RADIO - it doesn't work.

There are exceptions but generally DJ's are not funny. Not only are they not funny but they don't really GET funny. I hear Jocks retelling other people's stories and gags (badly), I hear them laughing at their lame attempts at humour, I hear them TRYING for humour but tripping and falling down very deep dark wells.

That's why those who ARE genuinely funny stand out in the way they do.

And yet in amongst the "more music" mixes and the "seven in a row" up pops a young man or a young woman who is convinced he/she's the funniest thing born. To be fair, it's mostly the guys who are guilty of the wannabe funny but aren't gene. But the women Jocks have to accept their fair share of criticism too. 

Here's my all time favourite dumb link. When the female Jock spouted this I nearly crashed my car.

Female Jock: "I've just been in the kitchen making myself a coffee and I always stir my drinks clockswise, so I thought what would happen if I stirred it anticlockwise. So, I tried it and d'you know, I couldn't tell the difference".

They should reintroduce capital punishment for links like that.