The Stage

Marchant blames TV execs for ‘lame’ dramas

Published Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 13:15 by Matthew Hemley

Exclusive: Screenwriter Tony Marchant has criticised the majority of UK television dramas as “badly written and unoriginal”, claiming commissioners are restricting the development of imaginative and innovative scripts.

Speaking to The Stage, Marchant complained writers were suffering because executives were dictating content, rather than allowing them the creative freedom to devise bold scripts and challenging storylines.

The creator of the BBC drama series Holding On and of ITV1’s forthcoming series The Whistleblowers said: “TV drama is pretty lame at the moment. Is that because commissioners have created such a risk-averse atmosphere writers don’t feel confident or liberated with their own material?

“Are they holding back, are they giving commissioners what they think they want? Or is it simply that most writers are crap? That is what you would think if you watched television. You would have to say the vast majority of work that is put out there is badly written and unoriginal.”

However, Marchant said there were talented writers who were being censored or were toning down their work in order to get it broadcast.

Marchant, who wrote Channel 4’s controversial Iraq drama The Mark of Cain, accused commissioners of “castrating” writers by telling them what to write. He said: “When it’s top down, when commissioners start telling writers what they want, then writers are being reactive, not proactive. And as soon as writers behave like that, they are cutting themselves in half.

“If you don’t give writers the opportunity and platform, then they start asking commissioners what they want, which is a terrible question for a writer to ask. The commissioners should be asking ‘What do you want to write?’”

He said it was evident that senior executives have been restrictive in their approach, by looking at the ratio of period dramas to contemporary dramas on television.

Marchant is currently working with production company Ruby Films on an adaptation of the David Mitchell book Black Swan Green for Channel 4. The story is told through the eyes of a 13-year-old boy, with each chapter representing a month in his life between January 1982 and January 1983.

Marchant, who wrote several plays in the early stages of his career, said he was also looking to write for theatre again.