Television writer/director/producer-types: maybe it’s time to give up. With your latest offering, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, you have finally proven that depicting politics in any sort of 'bold or engaging' way is beyond you. Why is this? And does it matter?
I don’t think there’s been a decent political TV drama produced by this country since House of Cards(1990), and that had to be drawn from excellent source material. ITV’s 1986 adaptation of First Among Equals (may you all forgive me) wasn’t bad. Our Friends in the North (1996) worked well (but also was not originally written for TV). Crossing the Floor (1996) was good as satire. State of Play (2003) was hugely enjoyable but first and foremost a murder mystery. And there have been good period pieces with strong themes. Stephen Poliakoff’s The Lost Prince (2003) was masterful.
But when it comes to original, contemporary political story-telling, it is embarrassing. 1993’s three-part Love and Reason, starring Phyllis Logan as a mining town feminist struggling as an MP, descended quickly from a challenging take on achieving equality into soap opera storylines and gimmicky real-life cameos. Annie’s Bar (1996) was just odd. Recent years have thrown up two absolutely appalling attempts: The Project (2002) and The Deal (2003).
The makers of the former claimed to have interviewed 120 people at the heart of New Labour in order to bring us an authentic portrayal of “The Project” yet when this tedious two-parter was eventually broadcast, it contained not one “revelation” that was either a massively open secret already or could be found in the press cuttings. It was determined to show how good people and good ideas had been inexorably betrayed by bad people and bad ideas in the New Labour Government. It did this by having the lead actor, Matthew Macfadyen, look permanently on the verge of tears and by having a female MP physically assaulted by a government whip.
Once all the histrionics were stripped down, the following conclusions were apparent: a) the ideals of youth are compromised by the electoral need to seek consensus and the realities of a market economy; and b) politics can be quite tricky and, well, you know, a bit political. Well, knock me down with a copy of Labour’s 1983 manifesto. I understand that the director, Peter Kosminsky, is now planning a sequel based on detailed accounts from dozens of Vatican insiders that the Pope is somewhat taken with the teachings of Roman Catholicism.
The Deal was more of a live-action Steve Bell cartoon than a drama, with Michael Sheen, as Tony Blair, smiling. A lot. And David Morrisey’s Gordon Brown, frowning and pouting. A lot. The plot was driven by the media-conventional wisdom that Blair and his advisors stole the leadership of the Labour Party in 1994 and were now reneging on the deal that made that possible, concerning the eventual handover to Brown. To be fair, the final, cathartic scene of the Granita dinner where we find out what “really” happened was suggestive of complications way beyond the central narrative. However, by that time, the theme of betrayal had been so determinedly thrust before us that all nuance was lost.
In many ways, those responsible for drama are simply reflecting the culture of their colleagues in news and current affairs, where the path of least resistance in representing politics is not so much naturally taken as actively sought with a GPS system and master atlas. Stories over substance. Personalities over issues. Entertainment over information.
At least those in drama are supposed to be about entertainment. And ultimately, as viewers, if we don’t like what’s been commissioned, scripted, optioned, produced and broadcast we can try the buttons marked “stand by” or “channels + / -“. It’s just so frustrating, though, that the most powerful medium in our society seems to only add to the background music of disillusion and cynicism about politics that benefits reactionary ideas rather than radical ones. Of course, it need not be like this.
I could hardly write an article on this subject without mentioning The West Wing (1999-2006). What set it apart from other efforts was, for something so entertaining, an incredible focus on policy. Dozens of episodes were based around the struggle to force through a new law or tweak a current one by committed individuals, negotiating a treacherous sea of party politics, public opinion, media scrutiny and economic reality for some greater benefit. This took masses of research and consultation to get right, a huge pool of knowledge and imagination to make compelling and a great deal of skill to hone into satisfying and inspiring tales of conflict and resolution. Such art requires huge talent and graft but, as Ros Pritchard’s Purple Alliance sloganises, it isn’t rocket science.
Though still too difficult for some, it seems. For with The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, people who have never really had to campaign for anything, persuade anybody of anything or even had an argument of any substance outside their immediate circle of family and friends are asking us to believe how horrible politicians practice horrible politics. In a horrible environment that is just all so damn horrible - to the detriment of the rest of us, overwhelmed as we are by this system. In this world, things are only achieved when people turn away from politics and towards real, decent people. Thus, politicians are set up as a breed apart and politics in general is denigrated as an elitist sectoral interest, uninvolving of and maybe damaging to any given individual.
This is a deeply conservative approach. The points it makes favour those who benefit from low voting turnouts or rely on the portrayal of themselves as somehow apolitical before manoeuvering to implement ideas that fall a long way short of progressive. Round my way, we call them Tories.
Now I’m sure that the people responsible for the programmes discussed above do not intend that. In fact, they probably regard themselves as the very epitome of progress. I bet somewhere in the offices of a production company there is a troika of a writer, director and producer developing the script for a drama about the how the world is saved from global warming, terrorism, starvation and dictatorship by a troika of a writer, director and producer.
Think I’ll wait for DVD. In the meantime, please just give us one British drama that doesn’t feel like a PEB on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, scripted by the leader writers of the Daily Mail.