��tv Writers Feed

The Sixth Commandment

2023-07-17T09:25:00+00:00

The meeting between an inspirational teacher, Peter Farquhar, and a young student, Ben Field, sets the stage for one of the most complex criminal cases in recent memory. Writer, Sarah Phelps introduces the brand new four-part true crime ��tv One drama.

Watch the trailer for The Sixth Commandment

How did you get involved with The Sixth Commandment?

I was contacted by the ��tv who said they had been brought a really interesting story they would like to talk to me about. So I met with Executive Producers Derek Wax and Brian Woods and they then sent me a huge stack of material - I'm not kidding, it reached from the floor to my ribcage - which were the court transcripts, Peter’s diaries, the Thames Valley police investigation... They also sent me the documentary Catching a Killer: A Diary from the Grave which Brian executive produced. I remembered following the case as it was happening and I could feel it coming to life in my head as a story before I even started going through the research material.

Peter Farquhar (TIMOTHY SPALL) Photo Credit: ��tv/Wild Mercury/Amanda Searle

What was it about this case that you found so interesting?

There were so many elements to it. I started out thinking that this was a really twisted, sad story which had a fairy tale quality to it. It’s about an English village into which walks somebody who is entirely predatory but who quickly becomes absorbed into the life of the village - the university, the church, and he was so good at camouflage that nobody saw the wolf's clothing.

It felt like one of those Hans Christian Andersen or The Brothers Grimm fairy tales which everybody thinks are really cute but they're not - they're terrifying. I felt that there was something quintessentially English in this dark, dark fairytale in the sense that you could live in this ordinary place, where everybody knows you, you’re surrounded by good neighbours, and yet you could slowly die in front of them and nobody would know what was happening or say anything. That seemed to me to be the story, that tension between public respectability and private yearning, a sexual desire that you can't speak about that’s at war with your religious beliefs. All those elements drew me to the project.

(L-R);Peter Farquhar (TIMOTHY SPALL);Ben Field (ÉANNA HARDWICKE) Photo Credit: ��tv/Wild Mercury

So it is as much about the victims as it is about the crimes?

It is - I’ve spent a lot of my career writing about murder, and I think the victim is always the most important element. One thing I didn't want to do was to glamorise the killer. A lot of TV programmes give you the sense that you're falling under the spell of the killer, who’s incredibly intelligent, with some grand plan, but I wanted to understand and honour the victims, to give them life and dignity. They were more than just Ben Field’s victims. That backstory was really important for me. Peter and Ann led full, vibrant, intelligent, educated, lives full of curiosity with families, friends, social lives, their love of poetry and theatre and their devout faiths.

Tell us about Peter’s journals and what they revealed?

It was Peter’s diaries that helped the police to crack the case and to identify Field as a killer. He wrote assiduously every day, right down to the smallest, seemingly ridiculous, most tiny detail. When he began to write about falling ill, he didn't know of course that he was writing about his own murder. This man spent so much of his time writing about how kind Ben was being to him, bringing him cups of tea - and how four hours later he fell down the stairs.

What about Ann’s private life?

Ann had also led an extraordinary life. She'd been a model, a teacher and a headmistress. It was vital to me to go beyond seeing a photo of somebody in the paper which is how you then remember them. But there's all the life they’d led before they died, filled with their kindness, their curiosity, their generosity, their open heartedness, their faith, all of which made them a target in this case. It was really important to convey all of that spirit, rather than let Field have the final word, if that makes sense.

Ann Moore Martin (ANNE REID) Credit: ��tv/Wild Mercury/Amanda Searle

There must be a fine line between writing an entertaining script whilst remaining respectful?

Really good TV does something other than entertain, inform and educate, all of which sounds rather dry. I think it draws you into a really deep, dark story which doesn’t just tell you what happened but also how it happened which is just as important. It's about drawing people in, making them really invest in the story. Of course, there’s a fine line to walk but you can't be sententious - you want to tell a love story, because that's what those people believed they were living. You have to understand them and how they might have fallen prey to this man's lies, you've got to make them come to life so that what happens is really shocking. You need to get right under these people’s skins, think about who they are, who they love and what their life means to them; Peter as he writes his diaries or Ann as she walks her dog and looks forward to her family visiting. It was a new experience for me. I didn't want to be prurient but wanted to imagine the richness of their long lives and what they hoped for next. That felt really important to me as a way of driving the story forward, because they were never going to get there now. We also worked closely with the victims’ families, and they had to trust that I was going to do right by their loved ones.

Ann Moore Martin (ANNE REID);Anne-Marie Blake (ANNABEL SCHOLEY) Photo Credit: ��tv/Wild Mercury/Amanda Searle

What is it about the story that will appeal to audiences?

I think the appeal is that ultimately justice was done. The trial took place in 2019 so it's very recent. We peel back the layers of that case, which very quickly became about how this young man tricked and inveigled his way into the spotlight. It's about understanding the human cost of this story, not just for Peter and Ann, but also for their families. It’s also about watching exemplary people doing their detective work and finally tracking down somebody who had done terrible things.

How would you sum up The Sixth Commandment?

It's a very emotional and frightening story in a kind of ordinary way. It makes you think about how we live in our own little worlds and what we value in life. We need to look more closely at the people we think we know and realise so many are vulnerable and full of hope. And we need to be more vigilant about the people who come into our lives.

Watch The Sixth Commandment on ��tv One and ��tv iPlayer

More interviews with the cast and team behind The Sixth Commandment

Celebrating Silent Witness 25 with Ten Memorable Episodes

2022-05-20T08:20:12+00:00

Silent Witness 25th Anniversary Series

“Why do you think Silent Witness has been so successful?”

Let me tell you, I’ve been asked this question a lot since joining the series in 2019, and even more so in the runup to the show’s 25th Anniversary. Possibly daunted by that extraordinary achievement, my answer keeps changing. After so many years, there are more than 200 episodes and they all seem remarkably – deliberately - different. Is it the perennial appeal of crime drama? Maybe because the forensic landscape from which it draws its stories keeps evolving too? Characters, perhaps? The steely strength of Sam Ryan? The bond deeper than friendship between Nikki and Jack? Clarissa’s wicked sense of humour?

Nothing better illustrates the variety of the storytelling over the last quarter of a century than this list of 10 of Silent Witness’ most Memorable Episodes. The ��tv Writersroom have made the scripts for these ten episodes available in their online script library. Many of the writers involved have written an introduction to their own episode.

Watch a Beginner's Guide to Silent Witness - Let Elis James and John Robins forensically guide you through 25 Years of Silent Witness.

And as Series 25 begins from Monday 23rd May, it’s clear the show is evolving again. To celebrate the silver anniversary, we’re breaking the series’ long-established format to tell one huge story over six hours titled ‘History’. History, obviously, because having run continuously since 1996, the series is on the cusp of being the longest running crime drama, right now, in the world. Also because somehow these episodes mark the first time that Sam Ryan (played by Amanda Burton) and Nikki Alexander (played by Emilia Fox) – two iconic female leads - have shared the screen together. And crucially because the personal histories of each of our lead characters – Nikki, Jack and Simone – are exposed in this series as we’ve never seen before. So that none of them will ever be the same again.

So…why do you think Silent Witness has been so successful? Please tell us if you agree with our choices and share your own memorable episodes in the comments below.

Silent Witness Series 1 Episode 1 "Buried Lies"

Buried Lies

Series 1, Episode 1 (first broadcast 21st February 1996) - by Kevin Hood & Nigel McCrery

“They say a victim dies only once, but a scene can be murdered a thousand times”

From her very first scene as Sam Ryan, Amanda Burton sets out the tone, energy and integrity of the series for the last twenty-five years. Sam Ryan’s character was based on Professor Helen Whitwell, a forensic pathologist, who Nigel McCrery had known while serving as a police officer. The series was originally set in Cambridge. It wasn’t until the end of Series 3 and Sam’s promotion to Professor, that the series settled in London and the newly formed Lyell Centre.

(Nick Lambon)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 1, Episode 1 "Buried Lies - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 1, Episode 2 "Buried Lies - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness - Series 1, Episode 1 "Buried Lies - Part One" by Kevin Hood and Nigel McCrery

Read the script for Silent Witness - Series 1, Episode 2 "Buried Lies - Part Two" by Ashley Pharoah and Nigel McCrery

Silent Witness Series 6, Episode 1 "Fallout"

Fallout

Series 6, Episodes 1 & 2 (first broadcast 28th & 29th September 2002) - by Tony McHale

The premise of this episode is just fantastic; a major traffic accident on a busy road, leaving 11 people dead, would seem to be more than enough to keep Professor Ryan and her team busy. But among the wreckage, a severed arm is discovered which doesn’t belong to any of the victims. By this point, Sam has been joined in the series by Leo Dalton (William Gaminara) and Harry Cunningham (Tom Ward), who would become fan favourites and continue at the Lyell long after Sam’s departure a few years later.

(Nick Lambon)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 6, Episode 1 "Fallout" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 6, Episode 2 "Fallout" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness - Series 6, Episode 1 "Fallout - Part One" by Tony McHale

Read the script for Silent Witness - Series 6, Episode 2 "Fallout - Part Two" by Tony McHale

Silent Witness, Series 8, Episode 8 "Body 21"

Body 21

Series 8, Episodes 7 & 8 (first broadcast 25th & 26th September 2004) - by Michael Crompton

I’d been told by the producer Nick Pitt that they had a bit of extra money to do something special. We’d been talking about my interest in The Kings Cross Fire where a man had been found but had remained unnamed and was known as Body 115 (his morgue number). How do you die in the middle of rush hour London, and no-one know who you are? This mystery intrigued me as did the various survivors groups from a number of crashes and disasters that seemed to dominate the headlines at that time.

Added to these true stories was the introduction of a new character. This was to be Nikki Alexander’s first full episode and it was really exciting to establish not only who she was and how her character would fit in with Leo and Harry. It was also an opportunity to establish how this series was going to work going forwards. Up until now, Sam Ryan led the way but now we had a very different three-way dynamic. A dynamic and format that has endured to the present day.

The opening of the episode is, in my opinion, the best (and possibly most expensive) opening of Silent Witness ever. The brilliant Douglas Mackinnon directed a wonderful cast including Emma Cunniffe, Danny Webb, Amita Dhiri, Shaun Parkes, Stephen Boxer and Eddie Marsan. Of all the fifteen (soon to be sixteen) episodes of Silent Witness I’ve written, this is the one I’m most proud of.

(Michael Crompton)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 8, Episode 7 "Body 21 - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 8, Episode 8 "Body 21 - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 8, Episode 7 "Body 21 - Part One" by Michael Crompton

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 8, Episode 8 "Body 21 - Part Two" by Michael Crompton

Watch a Preview: Silent Witness Series 13, Episode 7 "Shadows"- Part 1

Shadows

Series 13, Episodes 7 & 8 (first broadcast 28th & 29th January 2010) – by Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton

With Shadows we wanted to write a totally immersive film that forced the characters out of their comfort zones. Whilst intricate procedure and tight forensics have their joys, we wanted to see if we could push the show into a seat-of-the-pants real-time thriller in which all the usual systems crashed at first contact with the enemy. Our leads are pushed into using their superpowers to survive, save others and finally bring down the shooters. We watched films like Gus Van Sant’s Elephant and the Cassavetes classic Two Minute Warning for influences. We were also interested in how the police command structures would cope in a school multiple shooting scenario and were fortunate enough to interview the man who ran Gold Command in London on 7/7. One strange accolade we got after the episodes broadcast was that Prime Minister David Cameron listed Shadows as his favourite piece of television of the year. Big thanks goes to our great Exec Producer Phillippa Giles for letting us push the envelope.

(Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 13, Episode 7 "Shadows - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 13, Episode 8 "Shadows - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 13, Episode 7 "Shadows - Part One" by Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 13, Episode 8 "Shadows - Part Two" by Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton

Silent Witness, Series 17, Episode 9 - "Fraternity" - watch a preview

Fraternity

Series 17, Episodes 9 & 10 (first broadcast 30th & 31st January 2014) – by Graham Mitchell

Silent Witness survives and prospers because of its extraordinary ability to reinvent itself. Fraternity was my second story for the show. I’d written my first Silent Witness story (more of a traditional whodunnit) for the same season, but with Fraternity – encouraged by producers Sharon Bloom and Phillippa Giles - I delved more deeply into the personal life of one of the central characters than the show usually did. You mess with the format of a hugely successful series at your peril, but by giving Jack an enormous personal crisis to navigate we got under his skin and ended the season on an emotional, as well as investigative, high. It was an entirely fictional story, though there were personal elements in it for me too that kind of rose up during the development, as they often do - but what I remember most about Fraternity now is not so much the process of writing it but David Caves’ incredible performance.

I loved working on the show – the freedom to invent and experiment and the nothing-is-impossible ethos of the production team. Twenty-five years is a remarkable achievement and I’m incredibly proud to have contributed to that.

(Graham Mitchell)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 17, Episode 9 "Fraternity - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 17, Episode 10 "Fraternity - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 17, Episode 9 "Fraternity - Part One" by Graham Mitchell

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 17, Episode 10 "Fraternity - Part Two" by Graham Mitchell

Silent Witness, Series 18, Episode 1 "Sniper's Nest" - watch a preview

Sniper's Nest

Series 18, Episodes 1 & 2 (first broadcast 6th & 7th January 2015) - by Ed Whitmore

I think it was Dick Wolf - creator of the magnificent and deathless Law & Order franchise - who told his writers he wanted stories 'ripped from the headlines' and I have to say Mr Wolf was onto something. When your clay is a true story you retain the ability to be surprised and disarmed yourself by that raw material and - ideally - to be steered in unforeseen directions.

Since 2003 I have written fifteen episodes of Silent Witness, the vast majority of which were inspired by real cases. Sniper's Nest was no exception and I drew mainly from the extraordinary Washington Sniper case but also some lesser known cases involving lone gunmen and the very particular stripe of "death from above" terror that they evoke.

I love writing Silent Witness for many reasons - the movie-length 120 minute running time, the amazing regular cast, the massive and enduring fanbase who come back year after year - but, selfishly, I love it because if you put your mind to it every story can be told through the prism of pathology and forensics. I knew SNIPER'S NEST was going to open the series and I wanted it to pack a punch in terms of scale and event so I knowingly pushed my luck with some of the set pieces. But to my astonishment the incredible team of producer Sharon Bloom and director David Richards delivered everything that was on the page and more. The reaction from the viewers was incredible and it remains one of my favourite episodes.

(Ed Whitmore)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 18, Episode 1 "Sniper's Nest - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 18, Episode 2 "Sniper's Nest - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 18, Episode 1 "Sniper's Nest - Part One" by Ed Whitmore

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 18, Episode 2 "Sniper's Nest - Part Two" by Ed Whitmore

Silent Witness, Series 20, Episode 9 "Awakening" - watch a preview

Awakening

Series 20, Episodes 9 & 10 (first broadcast 30th & 31st January 2017) by Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton

We often start with what we’d like to see a Pathologist do – In Bloodlines we wanted to see how a Pathologist might fake their own death, in Awakening we wanted to see how they might deal with their own slow approaching death. Deep underground in a coffin. In Awakening Nikki knows just how long she will have to live and the order and process of her own death. Even seeing herself on the mortuary slab.

We were very taken with a documentary about popular resistance to the cartels in Mexico called Cartel Land. We worked with two academics who help charities in Mexico locate the bodies of missing loved ones disappeared by the cartels and set the story within that world. As we were shooting in Tenerife we were able to scout locations there in order to write for specific sites that could create our Mexican story. That way we felt we could organically connect story and place in a way that felt very exciting. It’s what we love about this show: you get to write and direct a movie that can take you anywhere. As it was the 20th Anniversary special, we all felt we wanted to take the audience somewhere special, physically and emotionally.

(Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 20, Episode 9 "Awakening - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 20, Episode 10 "Awakening - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 20, Episode 9 "Awakening - Part One" by Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 20, Episode 9 "Awakening - Part Two" by Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton

Silent Witness, Series 21, Episode 7 "One Day"

One Day

Series 21, Episodes 7 & 8 (first broadcast 29th & 30th January 2018) – by Tim Prager

Phillippa Giles, the talented Executive Producer of Silent Witness who joined the show about the same time I did in 2008, asked me if I would reimagine and reboot the programme as it went through a transition in 2013. About the same time, she asked me to join her at a panel discussion hosted by Toby Mildon, an indefatigable advocate for disabled people at the ��tv. The panel was about improving the representation of disabled people in drama and increasing on screen opportunities. The following day, “Clarissa Mullery” was born. (fun fact: She’s named “Mullery” after Alan Mullery a famous Fulham FC and England Player… probably even Liz Carr doesn’t know that!!) Casting was not easy. There were a number of talented actresses who auditioned but when I saw Liz Carr read a scene in her audition I was sure she was right for the role. So was Phillippa. I showed her audition to my son, who is disabled. He was hugely in favour because it was an obvious and visual statement that disabled people have value – both in the show and in life. They can play a “lead”.

I had proposed doing an episode about “disabled hate crime” repeatedly, and year after year there was always a reason not to do it. Finally, after a number of years of trying, the premise of “One Day” was agreed and I sketched out the architecture of the film. I wrote it quite quickly and knew, as I wrote, who I thought might be able to play the two guest starring roles. I was delighted when Toby Sams-Friedman was cast as Kevin. I’d known him for many years and seen him grow up. The truth was, I had him in mind as I wrote the film. Rosie Jones was fabulous as Serena. Their rich, moving performances were proof of the reservoir of talent in the disabled acting community.

There are a number of things I am proud of about this film: it was the culmination of a longer journey to increase the representation of disabled people on television and in film. It marked the moment that Silent Witness agreed to honour my pledge to include an actor with a disability in each of my films, irrespective of whether the character, as written, was disabled or not. The point was that disabled actors can play social workers or teachers or scientists; that disability was part of normal life. Scripts can adjust to create the verisimilitude required. That simple undertaking spread to every film in each year’s series. Charlotte Moore, who introduced the film when it was screened at BAFTA, gave an instruction that all ��tv dramas should look to increase and improve the representation of disabled people.

Oh, and one more thing I’m proud of - thanks to director Thaddeus O’Sullivan and producer Kiaran Murry-Smith, the actors, designers and production team…it is a very, very good film!

(Tim Prager)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 21, Episode 7 "One Day - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 21, Episode 8 "One Day - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 21, Episode 7 "One Day - Part One" by Tim Prager

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 21, Episode 8 "One Day - Part Two" by Tim Prager

Silent Witness, Series 23, Episode 7 "Hope" - watch a preview

Hope

Series 23, Episodes 7 & 8 (first broadcast 27th & 28th January 2020) – by Lena Rae

I’ve always loved Silent Witness. I’m a big forensic science geek and grew up on a diet of classic murder mystery shows, so Silent Witness appeals to me on so many levels. I had always wanted to write for the show, tried and failed many times to pitch stories. This time round, I was lucky enough to have my work championed by the wonderful Josie Burke, who was the Senior Script Editor at the time - and happens to have one of the best story brains in the business! Clarissa was my all-time favourite character. Ballsy and smart, with a razor sharp wit. I knew I wanted to write a story that put her front and centre, allowing us a small glimpse into what made her the woman we know and love. So, I told the story of Clarissa caring for her dying mother. At the time, it was unusual to delve so deeply into a main character’s personal life, so I wasn’t sure how it would be received. But the audience really responded to it. Liz’s performance was so real and truthful, it resonated with so many people.

The show had been running for so many years, they’d looked at death from every angle and I was keen to try and find something that felt new. I was researching cryogenics at the time, and was interested in the challenges a ‘frozen’ body would cause the team, so I weaved that into the story. It created a lot of really interesting story quirks, such as allowing a mother to see her lost daughter, decades afterwards, totally preserved in childhood.

Silent Witness is a tough show to write for, a ��tv two hour script is massive. It sounds obvious, but because it’s a pathology led show every major turning point needs to come from the science; the body. That’s a lot trickier than it sounds! It’s very easy to get drawn into allowing the detectives to lead the story, as would happen in a more traditional crime show. You’re constantly fighting against that. But that’s part of the challenge and the joy of Silent Witness. It’s totally unique. I absolutely loved being a part of these episodes, I learned a huge amount and I’ll always be proud of what we achieved.

(Lena Rae)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 23, Episode 7 "Hope - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 23, Episode 8 "Hope - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 23, Episode 7 "Hope - Part One" by Lena Rae

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 23, Episode 8 "Hope - Part Two" by Lena Rae

Silent Witness, Series 24, Episode 3 "Bad Love" - watch a preview

Bad Love

Series 24, Episodes 3 & 4 (first broadcast 13th & 14th September 2021) – by Susan Everett

I've been a fan of Silent Witness since it started, so when given a chance to pitch, I grabbed it. This was followed by writing what felt like endless outlines and treatments of my Bad Love story, with methodical pathology/forensic beats and character stories. I was tasked with bringing Adam into the show, which was initially quite daunting - but when I wrote his first line of dialogue in the script he amused me and set the tone.

I'm rather obsessive about planning, research and getting things right. There's a scene where Jack inspects a toilet, so I took a toilet seat off to check how that would work. The show has advisors for pathology/forensics, so I didn't try to cut up any bodies...

I loved writing the Jack/Cara/Ryan story at the heart of the episodes. It was only at script stage that Cara became a deaf character, communicating through BSL - a brilliant idea from producer Lawrence Till, which brought opportunities for dramatic tension as she and Jack struggle to communicate. Rhiannon Jones makes such a wonderful Cara. I'm thankful to the whole Silent Witness team for believing in me as a writer and bringing Bad Love to life.

(Susan Everett)

Watch Silent Witness, Series 24, Episode 3 "Bad Love - Part One" on ��tv iPlayer

Watch Silent Witness, Series 24, Episode 4 "Bad Love - Part Two" on ��tv iPlayer

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 24, Episode 3 "Bad Love - Part One" by Susan Everett

Read the script for Silent Witness, Series 24, Episode 4 "Bad Love - Part Two" by Susan Everett

Watch as Ed Whitmore discusses his writing process. He talks about writing Silent Witness and basing his ideas on real cases.

Watch Silent Witness Series 25 from Monday 23rd May 2022 at 9pm on ��tv One and ��tv iPlayer

Watch the complete Silent Witness from the beginning on ��tv iPlayer

Lethal White: Adapting the latest Cormoran Strike novel into a new four-part thriller for ��tv One

2020-08-25T11:47:58+00:00

Lethal White, the latest adaptation of the Cormoran Strike novels by JK Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith) comes to ��tv One from Sunday 30th August. Lethal White was adapted for the screen by Tom Edge (The Crown, Lovesick, Judy) who explains how he approaches reducing such a large novel into four hours of screen time and why collaboration with the author, the director and the production team is key.

Cormoran Strike is back. Strike: Lethal White starts Sunday 30th August on ��tv One and ��tv iPlayer. Watch the trailer.

Four books in, we now have a pretty good idea of who Strike is. But how do you approach the continuation of building his character for the screen?

I think we learn more and more about Strike (Tom Burke) with each and every story. In Lethal White, it feels like we really delve into his other relationships, particularly with Charlotte, his ex who he met at university and who has been with him through some incredible traumas, including the loss of his leg. She’s kind of a ghost-like figure, whose presence has been felt throughout a lot of the narrative so far. We’ve seen him try to suppress that in the past and to have relationships with other people.

Now, in an attempt to move on from Charlotte, to convince himself that happiness and stability really can be found within a relationship, we see him make a solid attempt with Lorelei (Natalie Gumede). She’s a great woman and she adores him. She’s good for him in many ways.

One of the things that I found particularly moving about Lethal White is the idea that there is intimacy in vulnerability. That’s not necessarily easy for Strike, or for Robin (Holliday Grainger). I suspect Strike is more prepared to go to bed with a beautiful woman who cooks a mean pad thai than be candid about the challenges he faces. For me, one of the most moving scenes is after Robin is no longer able to hide her panic attacks.

Robin Ellacott (HOLLIDAY GRAINGER), Cormoran Strike (TOM BURKE), Lorelei (NATALIE GUMEDE) in Lethal White (Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

She fears that this will spell the end of her career with Strike, who, quickly and with great empathy, is able to calm her fears by confiding in her how difficult he has found certain things in the aftermath of his own trauma. You really sense a profound shift in their relationship at that moment. So it’s a different kind of intimacy, one more challenging for him. As we see some parts of him stripped back, we learn more and more about him.

At the end of Career Of Evil (watch now on ��tv iPlayer), we saw his struggle between wanting to protect Robin while wanting to allow her to do her job. In a moment of fear, he fired her for being reckless and emotional. Lethal White opens with him realising he’s made a profound mistake, not simply because he mistreated Robin, but because he values her so highly and ultimately needs her back.

Robin goes from being someone who might quietly surprise Strike, to someone he truly respects as an equal, and who, in some ways, is better than him at certain parts of the job. He’s big enough to value that rather than be threatened by it.

Cormoran Strike (TOM BURKE), Robin Ellacott (HOLLIDAY GRAINGER) **BEHIND-THE-SCENES**(Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

We see Robin make a significant journey of personal development - how do you approach her character?

The relationship with Matthew has been a real spine in the series so far, with poor old Kerr Logan having to play this widely hated character!

I think Jo writes that relationship with a great deal of empathy. In Lethal White I think we come to understand not only why her relationship with Matthew has meant so much to Robin, but also why she’s outgrown it.

I think it marks a real moment in Robin’s development, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this goes in tandem with her becoming more professionally successful than ever. She goes undercover not once, but twice in this book. In previous instalments we’ve seen flashes of what she might be capable of, such as her ability with accents and impersonations, but in Lethal White she really gets to stretch her legs.

As her confidence grows in her abilities, I think we also see her outgrowing her need for Matthew. Which isn’t to say that journey is uncomplicated, because Robin is also carrying the trauma of several attacks that have happened to her.

She’s determined to move past these experiences but continues to suffer flashbacks and anxiety attacks, and she worries this will affect her ability to do her job. There’s a reckoning to be made there, and it runs across the course of this series. It echoes the book’s themes of trauma, the past, and how they can both inform the present.

Matthew Cunliffe (KERR LOGAN), Robin Ellacott (HOLLIDAY GRAINGER) in Lethal White (Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

As a writer, how do you reduce a large novel such as this into a few hours of screen time?

I think we were very fortunate this time, because having done the previous adaptations with the ��tv and HBO, their starting point was to say, how many hours do you think it is? That’s a real gift. So we were able to read the book and get a feel for the shape of the adaptation.

The process of breaking it down is not me sitting in a high tower reading and re-reading. There are very gifted people who work on the production who are all involved in the process. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with Jenny (Van der Lande) and Roxanne (Harvey) at Brontë. We spent a long time talking about what we felt was the core of the book, and which aspects needed to be front and centre, both in terms of Robin and Strike’s relationship and also in terms of the driving narrative.

We’re always looking for opportunities to honour the intention of the text. To find a way to make those moments visual and to dramatise them through conflict. That’s always ongoing. Thankfully, the books are really rich and, very often, if we’ve built up a larger sequence on something - for instance with the dogs on the Chiswell estate, or what happens with Robin when she goes undercover at Flick’s party - there are always great cues in the text.

More than anything, we all really love the books and the characters, so the focus of the work is always on how we make these characters sing in a way that the actors will have a good time playing. Also, we make sure that the people who have fallen in love with them [the characters] have something that is a pleasure to return to. We’re very fortunate with our cast.

Izzy Chiswell (CHRISTINA COLE)(Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

Can you tell us about working with the director, Sue Tully?

Sue’s great, and everyone has enjoyed working with her enormously, myself included. She’s incredibly prepared, which is extremely helpful. We spent time going through every scene and every sequence, making sure that the intentions were clear. We absolutely collaborated, particularly on the more kinetic scenes. Sue, for instance, having found her Chiswell House, came back with a ton of photos from the attic space, which we hadn’t known existed. She was full of ideas about how that space could be used to build atmosphere and tension. So I would then go off and rewrite around what that particular space offered, which was invaluable. We quite often worked like that, to make sure the action sequences worked and made the best use of the environment.

She’s great all-round. Great on the script, wonderful with the actors, and a pleasure to work with.

Cormoran Strike (TOM BURKE), Jimmy Knight (NICK BLOOD), Flick Purdue (SAFFRON COOMBER)(Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

Did you have to do any extra research into the worlds of Lethal White, beyond the script and the book itself?

I think everyone who works on Strike finds that Jo’s books are so detailed and so well researched that it’s incredibly rare to feel like there’s something missing, or that you need to draw in finer detail. Most directors who’ve worked on it have described how uncanny it is to go to somewhere like Pratt’s, for example, which is written about in the book, and to realise that they needn’t have bothered with the recce, as everything has been described with such fidelity and precision that no photos are required.

I suppose there are a few key areas where we looked into things; for instance, there is a staging of a suicide at one point, and the production takes compliance issues and its duty of care to its audience pretty seriously. So, in that instance, they were liaising with the Samaritans and other organisations to make sure that the version of events that landed on screen was suitable, while at the same time honouring Jo’s dramatic intentions. There can be tensions between those two things. If you have a character that has ostensibly done something in a textbook manner, the textbook factor may be good for the plot, but it might also be problematic, so consulting the Samaritans was very important.

Cormoran Strike (TOM BURKE), Jasper Chiswell (ROBERT GLENISTER)(Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

How much are you transposing Robert Galbraith’s words to the screen, and how much are the voices your own?

I think it can be really different scene by scene. Sometimes, in the staging of a scene, in order to achieve what we needed to within the constraints of time and medium, there is no way to simply sew together existing pieces of dialogue from the page. I think it’s fair to say we never feel duty-bound to adhere to that. There are some scenes that are necessarily invented. Where a 650-page book can find four or five elegant loops to take us somewhere, we might need to find a way to get there with one loop, which forces us to create something new. It’s always governed by the voice of the book and the voice of the characters.

There are some scenes where we’ve absolutely gone back to the text. An example would be Strike and Charlotte, when they sit down for lunch together. Jo is a very generous adaptee, if that’s the right term, and is such a pleasure to work with. She knows her long game incredibly well, and she knows Strike and Charlotte down to their marrow. She knows exactly what that relationship was, the pathology of them as individuals, and how those pathologies meet. The scene, as written in the book, is incredibly precise, and I think my first draft tried to move a few things around for the sake of plotting, and it didn’t quite work.

Robin Ellacott (HOLLIDAY GRAINGER), Cormoran Strike (TOM BURKE)(Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

That stuff is right there on the page, and those scenes are the ones where you’ve got a big ring around them saying - this is essential and really important.

It’s possible to get lost in the plotting because it’s so intricate and clever, but we’re always mindful of those scenes like the lunch with Charlotte, which felt totally essential. It wouldn’t be possible to understand Strike and Robin - the way they work together and the way their relationship evolves - without those scenes. We always look for that balance.

Charlotte Campbell (NATASHA O'KEEFE)(Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

In terms of Strike’s significant relationships with women in Lethal White, what do these show us about where Strike is emotionally in this series?

The end of Career Of Evil and the opening of Lethal White are essentially the same sequence - the beginning of Robin’s wedding - and we see an absolutely shattered Strike realise that he’s made a profound mistake, and he needs and wants to tell Robin that. The scenes that emerge between them at the wedding take us to the point that, certainly as a reader, I’d been waiting for, for a long time.

We begin with the question of what happened in that moment to derail them, and whether that derailment is a positive thing, or if they can find their way back from it. It’s a really painful journey, and Robin finds herself not only grappling with what Matthew has done, cheating on her again, but also the harder thing of facing up to what he [Strike] has truly meant to her, and her own part in sustaining that relationship well beyond what was healthy for either of them.

Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill

There’s the fire and intensity and dysfunction of Charlotte, which he did for more than a decade, and which he knows isn’t good for him. With Lorelei, there is a very comfortable world of a beautiful, interesting woman who isn’t pestering him to talk about his feelings all the time, makes a mean bowl of noodles, and probably embodies all the things he might jot down on paper as the makings of a comfortable life, alongside a pint of his beloved Doom Bar.

Yet, when push comes to shove, and her own feelings are laid out for him, he knows that he can’t meet them and that he doesn’t truly feel the same way about her. Amidst those pivot points, there is his relationship with Robin.

As their relationship develops, we see him inch towards those moments where there’s a desire to maybe make something of it. The more they work together, the more he realises that he needs her. He’s very aware of his capacity to enact damage. He’s lived through some difficult times, and he has very little faith that, if he swept Robin into his arms, he could reliably land in the happy ever after for both of them.

It’s a very complicated dance that they play. But there are some really beautiful moments that unfold here. The series has always been dotted with them. Time and again, they tell each other in small ways that they see each other, that they understand each other, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not complicated.

Cormoran Strike (TOM BURKE), Jimmy Knight (NICK BLOOD)(Image Credit: ��tv/Bronte Films/Steffan Hill)

What is it about Strike that has fans gripped and keeps them coming back for more?

Strike is really appealing as a decent man. That’s not to say that he isn’t complicated and doesn’t struggle, but his fundamental desire is to see justice enacted in the world. He’s also suffered. He sits in an odd realm between his experience of privilege, but also of loss and trauma. He’s someone who went to Oxford, who served as an army officer, and who was in a long relationship with one of society’s great beauties - Charlotte Campbell.

Strike knows that world and has moved within it, he’s been part of it, but he’s also the son of a woman who raised him in squats, a mother who had some terrible boyfriends, one of whom may have killed her. His friendships, although he might hesitate to call them that, include people like Shanker. The unreliable, the borderline dangerous. He understands them as well. He understands people who have suffered that way and who carry that damage, and he’s on their side.

Screenwriter Tom Edge, who adapted Lethal White for ��tv One from the novel by Robert Galbraith

When Billy shows up in his office in Lethal White, he doesn’t respond to him as someone who is unlikely to be able to pay his bills, but as somebody who is very ill, who has seen something terrible that has haunted him his whole life and who is seeking justice, possibly at a cost to himself. Strike wants him to be helped, and he knows that he can do some of that by trying to find an answer for him.

I think Robin is a fellow traveller there, she has a kind of instinct to never let a good question go, which he recognises in her. Justice matters to her as well, and whilst sometimes being reckless in pursuit of it, we’re glad that they pursue it because they get to the heart of the rot of those big systems that Jo writes a lot about. Whether it be politics or other industries, she has an eye on the hypocrisy and the way those institutions wear masks that allow people to get away with immoral things.

Strike and Robin stand there as our heroes in that sense. They’re going to pry behind the mask to find out what is real and what is true, even if it’s at a cost to them. We love them for that.

Lethal White begins on ��tv One on Sunday 30th August 2020 at 9pm and on ��tv iPlayer and continues on Monday 31st August

Watch all series of Strike on ��tv iPlayer

Writing Vienna Blood - Hear from the Novelist and the Screenwriter

2019-11-18T14:56:45+00:00

Vienna Blood is written by acclaimed screenwriter Steve Thompson (Sherlock, Deep State). Based on the best-selling Liebermann novels by Frank Tallis, the series begins on ��tv Two and ��tv iPlayer on Monday 18th November 2019. Hear from both writers about the process of adapting the books for the screen.

Watch the trailer for Vienna Blood

What is Vienna Blood about?

Steve Thompson (screenwriter): The show is about a birth of a science. It’s about the birth of psychiatry, neurology and the understanding of the human brain and it’s essentially a crime thriller but the main relationship in the series is between two men; a policeman who is trying to solve a murder and a young psychiatrist from the hospital who he consults to help him build up an understanding of the killer.

We’ve seen lots of dramas, lots of police dramas about that relationship where psychological profiling is done in order to understand a killer, but this is the birth of the process, this is 1906 and it had never been done before - so what we’re witnessing in this show is the beginning of that process. The police just beginning to understand that psychology and psychiatry can actually help them solve a murder.

Tell us a little about what inspired you to write the Liebermann books?

Frank Tallis (novelist): I have three passions in life: Psychoanalysis, music and cake. So, the idea of writing Viennese thrillers in which a doctor-detective attends musical events and visits coffee houses was always very appealing. Needless to say, I took my research very seriously, visiting the coffee houses of Vienna with great frequency and now I really know my Punschkrapfen from my Kaiserschmarren.

Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (JUERGEN MAURER), Max Liebermann (MATTHEW BEARD)(Image Credit: ��tv/MR Film/Endor)

Vienna Blood is set in Vienna, Austria at the turn of the century - what made you choose Vienna as the setting for the story?

Frank Tallis: Vienna - around 1900 - was an extremely exciting place. Revolutionary ideas were emerging in all areas of human endeavour: Art, literature, philosophy, science, and most notably, psychiatry. One could also argue that Vienna in 1900 was the birthplace of modernism. Psychoanalytic thinking was an essential ingredient of this ‘modern’ outlook. It has shaped how we understand ourselves and our relationships. You may not consider yourself a Freudian, but you certainly think like one. You probably accept that parts of your mind function unconsciously, acknowledge Freudian ‘slips’ and use words like ‘defensive’. W.H Auden recognized this extraordinary depth of cultural penetration when he wrote, after Freud’s death in 1939, that he - Freud - is "no more a person now, but a whole climate of opinion.”

The Liebermann novels have been translated into fourteen languages. Why do you think the Liebermann books hold such international appeal to readers?

Frank Tallis: Crime writing has always been popular. But when I’ve gone on book tours and talked to readers in countries like France or Germany, many of them seem to really like the psychoanalysis. On reflection, this isn’t very surprising. Psychoanalysis and crime investigation have much in common. Clues are like symptoms, and the detective is like a psychoanalyst, attempting to make connections in order to find an ultimate cause. A perpetrator is as elusive as a repressed, unconscious memory. Freud was very aware that psychoanalysis and police detection are close cousins. In fact, he pointed this out in one of his lectures. It is also interesting that Freud was a great fan of detective fiction. One of his patients (known as The Wolfman) wrote a memoir and in it he reveals that Freud - who we usually think of as a reader of Sophocles and Dostoevsky - was a great fan of Sherlock Holmes!

Max Liebermann (MATTHEW BEARD), Amelia Lydgate (JESSICA DE GOUW)(Image Credit: ��tv/MR Film/Endor)

Can you describe the screenwriting process?

Steve Thompson: Always when you’re developing a screenplay it can be quite a long journey. Of course, this is an adaptation of the books so there’s Frank's vision originally and then you go through various drafts of the script before you finally see it being filmed. The key thing is that’s a very collaborative process; Frank is one voice then there is my voice when I turn it into a screenplay then there are the voices of the directors; we’ve had two really great directors Robert Dornhelm and Umut Dag who have directed these three episodes between them. And quite a lot of the development is a conversation between the director and the writer and also the producers. So there’s many voices in the room and that’s what makes the script more robust and richer one would hope as a result.”

How do you feel about having your novel turned into cinematic TV?

Frank Tallis: It’s curious seeing your work translated from one medium into another. For me, the experience was a little like hearing a favourite piano piece arranged for full orchestra. It’s the same piece - but it sounds very, very different. I once heard the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson talking about his preference for themes that gave him scope to improvise. Naturally, some melodies contain more possibilities than others. I think the same principle applies to characters and stories and I was delighted to discover that Max Liebermann and Oskar Rheinhardt could be reinterpreted and given a new lease of life; that they could still surprise even me.

Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (JUERGEN MAURER), Else Rheinhardt (KRISTINA BANGERT) (Image Credit: ��tv/MR Film/Endor)

What is your favourite scene?

Steve Thompson: There have been so many scenes to watch being filmed. I suppose one of the key things about it is that the entire show is filmed on location in Vienna. And Vienna is a key character and consequently every scene we got to a different place, a different ballroom, a different salon, a different part of this incredible city. Part of the fun of filming it has been me gradually having an understanding of Vienna and getting to know Vienna. We’ve seen some amazing places, so today we’re filming in the opera which is where one of the climaxes of one of the episodes takes place. So we’ve had two days in the opera house with the opera singers performing and that’s been quite extraordinary.

Amelia Lydgate (JESSICA DE GOUW)(Image Credit: ��tv/MR Film/Endor)

What do you hope viewers’ reactions will be to the show?

Frank Tallis: I’m hoping that viewers will reflect on some of the social and political content and recognize its contemporary relevance. Freud’s Vienna shaped much of 20th century history and it continues to exert an influence well into the 21st century. It was where a young Adolf Hitler served his dictator’s apprenticeship and learned a great deal by observing Vienna’s ‘populist’ mayor. The outcome was a global catastrophe. It was also in Freud’s Vienna that Theodor Herzl developed Zionism - which ultimately led to the foundation of Israel; the ramifications of which still animate debate.

Ideas have profound consequences and Freud’s Vienna was a powerhouse of ideas. Yet, we rarely make the connection between Freud’s Vienna and what’s happening in our lives or on the news. Back in Freud’s day, there was a lot being discussed in those coffee houses over Punschkrapfen and Kaiserschmarren. We might not realize it but we’re still having the same conversations.

Watch Vienna Blood on ��tv Two and ��tv iPlayer beginning on Monday 18th November 2019 at 9pm

Giri/Haji

2019-10-16T13:42:47+00:00

Giri/Haji is ��tv Two's new thriller set in Tokyo and London, exploring the butterfly effect of a single murder across two cities. A dark, witty and daring examination of morality and redemption. We spoke to the writer, Joe Barton about creating the drama.

Watch the trailer for Giri/Haji

We last spoke to you about Our World War which examined the experiences of British soldiers in World War One and looking at your career to date you’ve written comedy, drama, sci-fi and now a detective thriller. Do you have a favourite genre or one that feels more comfortable?

I’m not attracted to any one particular genre as much as I am to interesting characters and stories - whether they end up being in a rom-com or a horror movie is secondary, I think. I watch a wide variety of things so I’m always looking to try something different than what I’ve done before. Like when Kylie Minogue pivoted from pop music and did that really moody song about getting murdered with Nick Cave. You know? Like that.

You've described spending 3 years being rejected by every agent? What was the turning point and how did you keep your motivation and self-belief?

The turning point was finally getting one of them to meet me! My agent, Jago, is a lovely man and the only person I wrote to who ever let me in his office. It was a bit hard to keep motivated at times. I once had a rejection letter from an agent who corrected my grammar in the email I’d sent him. I also queued for 45 minutes in the snow one Christmas to pick up a missed package which turned out to be one of my scripts that was being returned to me unread. I think I kept at it because I really wanted to do this and also, and I can’t emphasise this enough, I’m sh*t at everything else.

How important was it to get your agent? Do you have any advice to offer about that?

Check your grammar. Also (once you have a couple of good scripts) find an agent who represents writers you like as they’re more likely to respond to your work.

What brought you to the story of Giri/Haji?

About seven years ago my girlfriend had just started a crime science course. She was telling me about one of the other students on her course who was this middle aged detective who’d been sent over from Tokyo. He just sounded cool to be honest. I tried to imagine what must be going through his head being stuck in a room full of British people in their mid 20s. What did he think of everyone? Where was he staying? Did he know anyone here? Where was he going for dinner? Was he lonely? Did he miss his family? Was his brother who he previously thought dead actually alive and caught up in the suspected murder of a Yakuza boss’s nephew that had subsequently caused a gang war that was threatening to tear Tokyo apart? That last one was particularly helpful to be honest.

Giri/Haji Rodney (WILL SHARPE), Taki (AOI OKUYAMA), Kenzo Mori (TAKEHIRO HIRA), Sarah Weitzmann (KELLY MACDONALD), Yuto (YOSUKE KUBOZUKA) L-R (Image Credit: ��tv / Sister Pictures Photographer: Luke Varley)

Is Giri/Haji the first time you’ve written a whole original authored series? What was different about that? How was the pitching and development process?

Yeah. It’s the first time I’ve done a whole show that was my idea. The pitching process was actually quite easy. Jane Featherstone, who is the exec producer, had just set up a new company (Sister Pictures). We’d worked together on HUMANS for Channel 4 so she invited me to come and talk about other things we could do together. I had a little page of ideas and I think one of them was just ‘Japanese detective. Comes to London. Maybe has to find his brother??’ Anyway she liked that one so we developed it into something a little more substantial. Channel 4 commissioned a script but didn’t go for it in the end, luckily the ��tv and Netflix really liked it so we made it with them.

I think the difference with doing an authored series is that you get to stay involved over the whole process and people actually listen to you. I've done films and sometimes there if you try and make suggestions about the edit everyone looks at you, genuinely surprised and often quite put-out that you're a) still in the room and b) trying to give an opinion.

What research did you have to do on the specific world of organised crime and the Yakuza, the Albanian mafia and other groups? Did you speak to specialists in the field?

We had researchers who checked the scripts to make sure that we were getting all the elements of Japanese culture right and weren’t, you know, being incredibly offensively wrong about everything, but we didn’t do masses of specific Yakuza research. We did a bit of reading on their eccentricities - they get involved in legitimate business as well as crime. Some of them even have websites. Stuff like that. Research is really important but also sometimes you just have to make stuff up.

Watch a clip from episode 1 of Giri/Haji

You’ve talked about how Giri/Haji is also a tragic romance. What do you mean by that and how is this reflected in the story and characters?

The longer the show goes on the less it becomes about crime and cops and gangsters and the more it becomes about all of these messed up people who’ve found themselves in this unlikely situation. It sort of centres on these two weird quasi-families that find themselves thrown together in London and Tokyo. At the centre of that are Kenzo and Sarah (Takehiro Hira and Kelly Macdonald) who are these two broken, lonely, people. So there is a romantic element but it’s also very tragic, probably because my love life was a bit of a mess when I was writing it and if I can’t be happy I don’t see why my fictional characters should be either…

Giri/Haji goes out on ��tv Two in the UK and Netflix internationally. Did you find it creatively freeing to know it would have an international reach? Do you think audiences today are more familiar with and accepting of multi lingual drama and subtitles?

Yeah it’s always nice to know that it’s going to have a chance to be seen by an international audience. I think audiences are more accepting of subtitles these days. There are shows like Narcos and Money Heist and I just don’t know if it has the sort of ‘art house stigma’ it used to have. Or maybe it does and no one will watch this. Well we’ll find out anyway.

The Legend of Giri/Haji - Hisateru introduces you to the world of Giri/Haji, and those who occupy it.

What’s the significance of The Legend of Giri/Haji poem?

The marketing department asked me to write it. No, I’m joking, it’s very deep. I don’t know. I think a big challenge with this has been that there aren’t too many other shows we can point at and be like ‘if you liked that you might like this!’ Except that one episode of Hamish Macbeth where he goes to Kyoto. Anyway, its uniqueness is what drew us all to it but also we want to get across kind of what it’s about so people watch it. If we could just say “it’s Peaky Blinders meets Lost in Translation” or something, that’d be easier. Actually that’s not bad, we should have done that.

Giri/Haji (Jiro (YOSHIKI MINATO), Fukuhara (MASAHIRO MOTOKI), Takashi (JOZEF AOKI) L-R) (Image Credit: ��tv / Sister Pictures Photographer: Ludovic Robert)

From your experience what would be your top tips to other budding screenwriters? What do you know now that you wish you could share with your younger self?

Just write loads. I think it’s the only way to get better. Everyone always says you should read lots of scripts but personally I’d rather read almost anything than a screenplay, they’re a f***ing nightmare. But I think reading good writing, in whatever form, makes you a better writer. You can learn more about language from reading Barney Ronay writing about football in the Guardian than probably 90% of the TV scripts out there (including mine). But, I mean, do what you want really. I would say learn the very basic outline of what a three act structure is but don’t spend loads of money on screenwriting books or any of that sh*t. Screenwriting courses that cost lots of money should be avoided too, I think. Again, unless you fancy it.

The one thing I do think has been the biggest revelation to me is to write the stories that you’re interested in, rather than trying to work out what might be more likely to get made. Just working on something you love improves your writing more than any of those articles with titles like ‘Learn these 5 screenwriting secrets!’ ever could.

What’s coming up for you next?

I’m going to have a small existential crisis when the show comes out and then I’ll see what the next thing will be. Got some films and TV shows that I’m developing but I'm waiting to see if anyone will give me billions and billions of dollars to make them.

Giri/Haji begins on ��tv Two and ��tv iPlayer on Thursday 17th October from 9pm

Dublin Murders

2019-10-14T14:27:11+00:00

��tv One's new psychological crime thriller Dublin Murders is adapted from Dublin’s leading crime novelist Tana French by Sarah Phelps, who is well known for her adaptations of Agatha Christie's works, including And Then There Were None. Sarah introduces the main characters, describes how she became involved and explains her own connection to Ireland and how important the sense of place is to the story.

Watch the trailer for Dublin Murders

How did you come to be involved in Dublin Murders?

Kate Harwood and Noemi Spanos of Euston Films spoke to me and said they were working on acquiring Tana French’s books. They gave me the first two to read, with a view for me to be involved should everything go ahead. I loved every sentence. I was very compelled and drawn into the world of each individual character. I also liked what she was writing about, which was about a country trying to come to terms with a modern identity but through the prism and the bell jar of the past. It felt like a really interesting place to be. What I wanted to do in my adaptation was to write about modernity but also about fairy tales, myths and folklore.

What connection do you have with Ireland?

I've got Irish ancestry as my grandfather was born in Dublin, but his family was from Down. That borderland was something that was very interesting to me. My God, has there ever been a time since the Good Friday Agreement where the notion of the border, the abstract meaning of the border and its reality has ever been more in focus, more in the news and more in our minds?

Ireland is a country that has been through an unimaginable history. It had that huge wave with the Celtic Tiger, and then this appalling recession and then it comes back again. I'm writing that story through these characters, because we begin in 2006. If we get to go forward with the other books, which I sincerely hope we do, those stories will chart that modern history of Ireland from the boom to the absolute bust and on to the recovery.

Rob (KILLIAN SCOTT), Cassie (SARAH GREENE) in Dublin Murders (Image Credit: ��tv/Euston Films/Starz/Steffan Hill)

Can you introduce us to the two lead detectives in Dublin Murders?

The lead characters are Rob Reilly and Cassie Maddox. When you look at them, you see that they're on the front foot, they're ambitious, they're super smart and they're really good at their jobs. They work together with a very particular intimacy and they understand each other very well. They're also friends and it’s not a sexual thing - they trust each other and they're professional.

This case will unpeel the thing that they have in common and share, the pact they have made with each other. I can't say too much about it because there's a huge spoiler, but there is something deep and dark about them that they share. It is something tragic and highly personal that has dogged them all of their adult lives. This story is about how they are going to be able to get on with the serious, difficult dirty business of just living with it.

Rob (KILLIAN SCOTT), Cassie (SARAH GREENE) in Dublin Murders (Image Credit: ��tv/Euston Films/Starz/Steffan Hill)

The series has a very strong sense of place, would you say so?

I’m glad you have said that because we worked incredibly hard on creating that absolutely specific world. One of the first things I kept thinking about when I got into this was how the title of the book, In The Woods, uses the word ‘wood’ - which is a very old word for madness. There are still some little pockets of regional England where you can hear people say, "Oh, yes, they went woody," meaning they went mad. It's in Chaucer as well. It’s the idea that when you go into the wood, you go mad and when you come out, you're changed. That was the thing that fired me up a lot when I was writing.

In the books a different detective becomes the focal point with each novel. Does that mean you’ve been preparing supporting characters for their roles in potential future series?

I know where everybody is going to be at the end. All the time, you're planting tiny little bombs for what could happen in the future. I find that really exciting, but maybe that comes from being on EastEnders for so long. There all the time you're putting down pots of gold, planting little story bombs so that at any given point you can just pick one up and go.

Cassie (SARAH GREENE), Rob (KILLIAN SCOTT) Behind the scenes on Dublin Murders (Image Credit: ��tv/Euston Films/Starz/Steffan Hill)

Dublin Murders is a co-production with Starz in the US. Do you think about who and where your audience is when you’re writing?

I honestly don't think you can write like that. Most of the time I think if you're trying to satisfy one group of people, you're never going to satisfy them. This is because you don't know what questions they're asking. I think if you try to be universal, you're never going to be universal ever. You have to be utterly specific. Utterly specific to these people, utterly specific to this place and utterly specific to their story. Then you get to universality.

What Dublin clichés were you looking to avoid?

All of them. Unless a character is specifically an English person, we've got an all-Irish cast. When we're talking about accents and just about the right way to be, they know how to do that best. If you go to Ireland people don't suddenly burst out of their house with bright red hair and the shamrock in their teeth. They're just people getting on with their lives. Trying to live a good life. Trying to not get swallowed up by the thing that consumes them.

Margaret Devlin (KATHY MONAHAN), Rosalind Devlin (LEAH McNAMARA) in Dublin Murders (Image Credit: ��tv/Euston Films/Starz/Steffan Hill)

You’ve adapted Agatha Christie and now this. What is it that draws you to crime writing?

When it comes down to the Christies, I'm less interested in the murders than the lies people tell around them. That’s the thing, that is about human nature, motives, character, desires and all the things that make people behave in an unconscionable way. I'm less interested in the blows to the back of the head than I am in the path there. Then, once that body is on the floor, you've got to honour it because that person has a story as well. I’m interested in the questions like, why do we do this? What lies have we told? Who are we? Who have we become now we’ve done this deed?

Watch Dublin Murders on ��tv One from Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th October 2019 and on ��tv iPlayer

Find out more about Sarah Phelps

Download and listen to an in-depth podcast interview with Sarah Phelps, part of our Inside the Writersroom series

Keeping Faith - Series Two

2019-07-22T12:05:43+00:00

What’s in store for audiences during Series Two of Keeping Faith?

We pick up with Faith and her family 18 months after the end of the first series. Many things are left to be resolved and Faith faces huge new challenges. Like series one, the series is intimate, emotionally wrenching and tests Faith to her limits.

When you were planning out and writing Series One of Keeping Faith did you ever imagine it would get to a second series, going straight to ��tv One network (UK-wide)?

I was simply focused on writing the best show I could. I have been writing long enough to know that if scripts are good enough and that if as a writer you have a strong and clear enough vision that isn’t too worn away by the editing process that you stand a chance of getting a decent audience. I wrote TV for twelve years before leaving the medium in 2007 to write novels after creating and writing a series that got substantially altered in the editorial and production process. The original vision wasn’t respected and it went the wrong way. I was determined that would never happen again, so I was writing Keeping Faith from a fairly uncompromising position. I feel that if you want to succeed in reaching an audience you have to be entirely truthful as a writer, which means paying no attention to your ambitions for the show as you write. Just write a script you can back whole-heartedly – that’s all you can do.

Watch the trailer for Series Two of Keeping Faith

How do you approach a second series, when the first series was so successful? Does the expectation add to the pressure?

I had planned the second series and done much of the writing before the first series lifted off on iPlayer, so there wasn’t a great pressure of expectation at the most important stage of the process, which is planning the story.

Life also threw a curve ball in the form of my wife having (thankfully successful) treatment for breast cancer throughout last year. That put everything in perspective and also, inevitably, influenced the writing. Keeping Faith is above all an intimate show that deals with the struggles and pains of everyday people in everyday life. I kept focused on that.

Did you do anything differently during this series?

The writing for series one took place over three years. Series two was written in less than a year. The process had to be accelerated. There was also the fact that series two was destined for ��tv One and this means more people having opinions on the script. Perhaps the biggest challenge you face as a writer for television is which notes to adopt, which to resist and which to negotiate. There is no easy path through all that, you just do your best.

Faith Howells (EVE MYLES), Di Breeze (RHASHAN STONE) (Image Credit: ��tv/Vox Pictures Ltd/KF Series 2 Prod Ltd)

What do you think were the magic ingredients of the success of Series One which made it the most popular non-network show ever on ��tv iPlayer?

I always wanted to write a very intimate series that dealt in minute nuances of emotion and which was emotionally complex and layered as well as having a driving thriller. My director/producer Pip Broughton shared this vision completely and so did lead actress, Eve Myles. The result was that the intimacy in the scripts was enhanced in performance and production and managed to touch the audience.

My way of writing is to ensure that there is a narrative with plenty of twists and turns and then to write dialogue as sparsely as I can in order to give actors and the director maximum freedom to explore the emotion of the scene. This hopefully results in subtle performances and lots of emotional gear changes. Without Pip and Eve completely embracing this vision the show would not have worked as it did.

Watch an introduction to Series 2 of Keeping Faith

What did the show gain from its move to ��tv One across the UK?

��tv One has given the show great exposure and backing. This is in turn raises its profile internationally. So it adds rocket-fuel which is terrific for the production as a whole.

It’s also been great for Welsh drama. We intended to make a show set in a small Welsh village with universal themes (Fargo was one of my great inspirations). ��tv One’s backing means that vision and ambition has been respected and it’s help cast off any sense that drama made in Wales (or Scotland or Norther Ireland) is aimed principally at a local audience.

PC Susan Williams (EIRY THOMAS), Faith Howells (EVE MYLES) in Keeping Faith Series 2 (Image Credit: ��tv/Vox Pictures Ltd/KF Series 2 Prod Ltd)

Do you think we’ll get a Series Three?

I very much hope so …

Has Keeping Faith’s success opened up more opportunities for you? What else are you working on?

Yes, TV is like that. When you have one success there is a window of opportunity to develop other projects. I am working on a few new series developments and trying to finish the last re-writes on a novel which comes out next year.

Could you ever see yourself moving towards more of a ‘showrunner’ position? Do you think that works in the British system?

I feel that I am principally a novelist who also writes television. I am by temperament a loner and like to work by myself talking occasionally to producers and script editors. Working with a team of writers is not for me but it suits other writers brilliantly. I think some shows are better suited to the team writing model than others but for those I admire the most, they have an incredibly powerful authorial voice at the centre. I like television that has something brand new to say about the world. If you can get a team of writers to agree on a vision that’s terrific, but hard to do.

Tom Howells (ANEIRIN HUGHES), Madlen (AIMEE-FFION EDWARDS), PC Susan Williams (EIRY THOMAS), Di Breeze (RHASHAN STONE) in Keeping Faith series 2 (Image Credit: ��tv/Vox Pictures Ltd/KF Series 2 Prod Ltd)

What do you think of the state of the TV drama industry in general right now? Do you think it’s a good time to be a writer compared to when you started out?

TV drama is finally becoming what I hoped it would be when I started out in the late 90s. When broadband came along in 2000 I hoped that within 5 years TV drama would be made for a global audience and broadcast over the internet. It’s taken nearly 20 years but we are now in the wonderful position of being able to make shows which work on a more heightened level – closer to novels or movies – for an international audience. The growth of streaming services has turbo-charged the industry and raised standards across the board. It’s a thrilling time to be a writer and I feel hugely privileged to be involved at this time.

Watch Keeping Faith on ��tv One on Tuesday nights from 23rd July and on ��tv iPlayer

Read the full scripts for Series 1 of Keeping Faith in English or Welsh

Watch an interview with Matthew Hall from our TV Writers' Festival

Writing and Script-Editing Keeping Faith

Baptiste

2019-02-15T12:28:13+00:00

Writers and Executive Producers Harry and Jack Williams explain the inspiration behind ��tv One's new crime thriller Baptiste, which brings back The Missing's Julien Baptiste (played by Tchéky Karyo) in a new story set in Amsterdam.

Watch the trailer for Baptiste

What is Baptiste about?

Jack: Baptiste follows a case involving an Englishman - Edward Stratton, played by Tom Hollander - whose niece has gone missing in Amsterdam. Retired French detective Julien Baptiste is asked to help by the Amsterdam Chief of Police, a former girlfriend. What starts as a favour ends up putting the life of Baptiste and his family in danger...

Talk us through the journey of Julien Baptiste from The Missing through to Baptiste?

Harry: When we wrote the first The Missing, the series was born out of the character of Julien Baptiste. The Missing was about loss, tragedy and missing children exclusively, so doing Baptiste was us going back to what we wanted to write about in the first place - which was this character. We wanted to write about a case that went beyond the world of The Missing and that didn’t necessarily have the dual time frame device, which can be prohibitive.

Jack: Writing The Missing was brilliant and we love the show, but this has a different energy and way of telling the story, although it has a lot in common tonally and the world sometimes feels similar. And of course we have the wonderful Baptiste in the middle of it, who is an oasis of calm and integrity in a sea of vice. We loved working with him on both series of The Missing and always wanted to write a show that foregrounds him.

Julien Baptiste (TCHEKY KARYO) (Image Credit: ��tv/Two Brothers Pictures Photographer: Toons Aerts)

What does Tchéky bring to the character of Baptiste?

Harry: There’s a brilliant way that Tchéky works when he’s being Julien, as they’re actually very different people. There’s a way that he talks, an assuredness and a calmness to him. You can have the darkest, weirdest, strangest things going on around him and he is such a reassuring presence. He’s a brilliant, compelling and still performer that we just love writing for, it’s an absolute joy.

Jack: We’ve been working with Tchéky for so long now that it’s started to shape the character. The character has evolved with the actor. It makes our jobs easier as you write the lines knowing how he’s going to inhabit it and bring it to life.

What was the inspiration behind Baptiste?

Jack: We were trying to find a case worthy of Julien Baptiste, that was knotty and complicated but still had an emotional centre that made it interesting and compelling nonetheless. We decided to set it in Amsterdam, as we knew that the location would perfectly reflect what the series is about: which is the question of what’s behind the curtain, what’s under the surface. How something looks is deceiving. What’s great about the show is that the way the case begins is nothing like where we end up.

Harry: The narrative is full of twists, turns and surprises, much like Amsterdam itself. It’s an intriguing setting for the series to take place - it’s unusual, complex and layered.

Edward (TOM HOLLANDER) (Image Credit: ��tv/Two Brothers Pictures Photographer: Toons Aerts)

Could you tell us about the character of Edward and how Tom Hollander brings him to life?

Harry: Tom Hollander is a fantastic actor, his performance is mind blowing. It’s a tricky role on paper as you’re trying to figure out who he is. He’s not sure of himself, he’s not an alpha male, he’s a beta male, and he’s lost in this place that loses people easily and he’s trying to find himself. Trying to get all that into one performance is a really tricky thing but he’s nailed it, which is a joy to watch.

Could you talk about Baptiste’s relationship with Edward?

Jack: Baptiste meets Edward early on in the show. Julien is given the case by an old girlfriend, Martha, who is now the Chief of Police in Amsterdam. From the off Julien is trying to work Edward out. Edward is a man who is at the very limit with what he can deal with emotionally - he’s at the end of his tether. He’s desperate and needs someone and Julien is there for him.

It’s not an easy relationship though, Edward wants to be involved in this case every step of the way. There’s a great deal of tension and falling out and getting to know each other. The two of them are such a contrast, Julien being the still, calm, thoughtful character and Edward the opposite, the kind of person who doesn’t have time to stop and think - he needs to get out and get things done. That conflict is exciting to watch throughout the series.

Genevieve (JESSICA RAINE)(Image Credit: ��tv/Two Brothers Pictures Photographer: Toons Aerts)

Who is Genevieve and what does Jessica Raine bring to her character?

Harry: Jessica Raine appears in episode three in an important role going forward for Baptiste. She is as we’ve never seen her before, with a very different look and gives an amazing performance as a complicated Europol officer. You’re trying to lean in and figure out what’s going on with her, and what in her backstory might explain her behavior.

Jack: Genevieve is a very tough and brittle character, and those are difficult to play as they can push people away. You need someone who can show you what’s going on underneath and where this determination and brittleness is coming from, and Jessica does it brilliantly.

What is Genevieve’s relationship like with Baptiste?

Harry: Baptiste and Genevieve don’t have the easiest relationship - she’s a much harder, colder person than he is. Or so it seems at first. She questions Julien’s presence and what he’s doing there as he doesn’t work for the Dutch police. He’s an obstruction to her getting what she wants. They’re both good at what they do but they do things differently.

Julien Baptiste (TCHEKY KARYO)(Image Credit: ��tv/Two Brothers Pictures Photographer: Toons Aerts)

Talk us through the locations.

Jack: The series is set in Amsterdam. We shot quite a large amount in northern Belgium which has a lot in common with the Netherlands and parts of it look very similar. There’s also a small amount shot in the UK. In terms of what’s on screen, the whole thing plays out in Amsterdam or just around it, it’s very contained.

Amsterdam is a complicated city and is known for the red light distract. It seems very benign and there’s a pretence that everything is fine, but you peel back the layers and not everything is as simple as it seems, which is very important for the show - you need to watch behind the surface of every character and location. In that respect, Amsterdam is the perfect metaphor for the show.

What three words would you use to describe Baptiste?

Both: Tense, Intriguing, Surprising.

Why should people tune in to watch Baptiste?

Jack: People should watch Baptiste because although it has all the elements of a detective show, it goes beyond that very quickly. It’s a twisting surprising thriller with a big emotional centre that isn’t afraid to tackle big themes, and in the centre of it all we have Julien Baptiste up against the biggest challenge of his storied career. The relationship between Tcheky and Tom is phenomenal and the acting across the board is a joy to watch.

Baptiste begins on ��tv One on Sunday 17th February 2019 at 9pm and on ��tv iPlayer

Meet the characters in Baptiste

Watch an interview with Harry and Jack Williams

The ABC Murders

2018-12-20T11:58:28+00:00

The ABC Murders is Sarah Phelps' fourth Agatha Christie adaptation following And Then There Were None, Witness for the Prosecution and Ordeal by Innocence. She explains why this story appealed to her, her version of Poirot, the 1933 setting and why she chose this particular Poirot as her first "sleuth story". The ABC Murders begins on Boxing Day at 9pm on ��tv One and on ��tv iPlayer.

Watch a clip from Episode 1 of The ABC Murders, starring John Malkovich as Hercule Poirot

This is your fourth Agatha Christie adaptation. What was it about The ABC Murders that was so appealing to you?

What was appealing about The ABC Murders for me is that it had a serial killer at its heart. A killer who is an anonymous, faceless, deranged murderer roaming the length and breadth of Britain, communicating with Poirot via letters. He sends taunting missives saying things like ‘you’re making a mess of this, you’re screwing this up’. I just thought that’s very tempting to make, I don’t know why, it just appealed to some dark thread within me. Also because I’ve never really wanted to write a sleuth before and never really wanted to do a Miss Marple or a Poirot; I like it when there is no one there to answer the questions. I like it when nobody comes and explains things to you and nobody looks at the madness and the lunacy and the depravity and says ‘don’t worry you’re safe now’, but this obviously was a big Poirot case. I thought if I’m going to do this then the biggest mystery in the book is not only unmasking and finding the killer but it’s with Hercule Poirot.

Hercule Poirot (JOHN MALKOVICH) in The ABC Murders (Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/Agatha Christie Ltd) Photographer: Ben Blackall

This feels unlike any Poirot we have seen before and what is heart-breaking is to see this aging man being treated so badly and not having a single other soul to care about him. The only person paying any attention to him is one person he is chasing - how does that make him feel?

That one person is picking away at him all the time and one of the first lines I wrote was: “I stood so close behind you Hercule”. I wanted him to be so unfamiliar, throughout the script that I never call him Poirot. People might address him as Poirot but who is he? Who is this man who is hidden behind the cartoon? Take that cartoon quality, that has come from decades and decades of being entirely habituated, and almost comforted by this familiar, rotund, irritating figure who is going to come in and be waspish and wax his moustache and have all the answers to the questions. I want to know who is hiding behind that mask and why he hides there.

This is the first time you have written an Agatha Christie sleuth. Do you have to approach it differently? Did it feel different to adapt?

No, I treated Hercule Poirot in the same way that I treated the characters in Ordeal By Innocence or in The Witness for the Prosecution or in And Then There Were None, which is simply to ask who are they? What do they want? What wakes them up at night? What is the pure flame of their life? What would they do to keep that burning? What would they do if their secrets were known? It’s exactly the same questions that you would ask of any character and I asked them of him.

Can you tell us about your decision to lose the character of Hastings for this version?

The point of Hastings in the book is to explain Poirot to us but I don’t want someone else there, I want Poirot alone. I want him vulnerable and ageing because then you see the measure of the man. If Hercule wants us to know anything then he’ll tell us.

The ABC Murders (Hercule Poirot (JOHN MALKOVICH), Mrs Rose Marbury (SHIRLEY HENDERSON), Franklin Clarke (ANDREW BUCHAN), Thora (FREYA MAVOR), Inspector Crome (RUPERT GRINT), Lady Hermione Clarke (TARA FITZGERALD), Cust (EAMON FARREN) Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/Agatha Christie Ltd Photographer: Charlie Gray and Ben Blackall

What was it like to get John Malkovich to play Hercule?

John Malkovich for goodness sake! I mean Con Air is one of the finest movies that has ever been made and I’ve only just managed to stop myself from asking him to autograph my DVD. I thought that might be pushing my luck a bit. It’s not just that he is an iconic movie actor, it’s not just that he is a brilliant actor and a highly intelligent and hugely cultured man with interests in opera and theatre: it’s John bloody Malkovich! Every now and again I go ‘oh my word ‘it’s John Malkovich’ and then I have to slightly pull myself together. There have been so many famous people playing Hercule Poirot; you’ve had Peter Ustinov, Albert Finney and then famously David Suchet who is the most glorious actor, and most recently Kenneth Branagh. I just think John is astonishing because, although he is this huge, famous cinematic icon, there is something so enigmatic about him.

Filming The ABC Murders (Lady Hermione Clarke (TARA FITZGERALD), Hercule Poirot (JOHN MALKOVICH) Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/Agatha Christie Ltd)

The director Alex Gabassi said that reading the script was almost like reading a novel. What is your process when writing a screen adaptation?

I do write really lengthy stage directions but I write like that, not to tell the director what I want them to get, but to say to them that absolutely everything you see is part of the story. Dialogue doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it happens in a very particular environment. Is the ceiling low or high? Who owns the house in which the corpse is lying? Where does the light come from? Are the windows small or are they big? Is the fire that’s burning in the grate burning cheap coal so that there is that acrid taste in the back of your mouth or is it beautiful wood that someone else has stacked and gathered and brought in for you? That is texture but it’s also context, character and story. There is nothing in the stage directions that shouldn’t be there.

A lot of the time I am writing for my own pleasure so I can get a sense of the character. For example the first time we see Cust I describe him as a drawing that has been rubbed out so that he’s sort of colourless and flavourless, and that’s really to give a sense of a person moving through the world who doesn’t own himself. I want to know how the air smells in the room does it smell stale? Does it smell of old cabbage or are their drains nearby and are they blocked? Because all of that contributes to how a person experiences their environment, how they speak, how they breathe, how they dress. Is it cold? Do their clothes never quite dry out? All of that is important.

Cust (EAMON FARREN) Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/Agatha Christie Ltd Photographer: Ben Blackall

How do you begin to bring these characters out in your adaptations?

I don’t care about ‘whodunnit’ and I don’t think that’s the point - it’s the ‘why’ for me. What would push you to do that thing? I would really like to think about the whole idea that these murders are terrible, terrible events. Lives have been annihilated by violence. That’s the thing that I have always found fascinating. A lot of people grow up familiar with Christie but because I never had exposure to Christie I never got used to that. When I read And Then There Were None I thought it was really brutal and remorseless. Nobody is going to get out of this alive; a terrible reckoning is coming. That struck me as being so merciless and I really felt that it had the rhythms of a Greek tragedy.

Mrs Rose Marbury (SHIRLEY HENDERSON) Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/Agatha Christie Ltd

Why did you decide to set this adaptation in 1933?

I chose 1933 really specifically because we are in a period in Britain where the British Union of Fascists (BUF) had started to gain a lot of traction, especially within other mainstream political parties who sensed this groundswell and began to adopt some of the language for themselves. 1930s Britain was also a period of savage recession and a lot of people were looking for someone to blame. The other aspect of the BUF that interested me was the railway: there were lots of people using the railway to travel to these rallies. Characters like Hercule’s neighbour; this lovely posh woman dressed in her furs with a little BUF pin tucked into her mink and Rose Marbury both attend the rallies. There is a sense that the BUF crosses class divides and unites its followers with hate and the hate of the stranger. I became very interested in the railway posters of the time because they are seen as being beautifully innocent but use this deep nativist language that bears a striking similarity to the language of the BUF. I find the period fascinating and it’s the perfect backdrop for Hercule in this story.

Inspector Crome (RUPERT GRINT), Hercule Poirot (JOHN MALKOVICH) Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/Agatha Christie Ltd Photographer: Ben Blackall

Alex (Gabassi) the director has talked about the significance of the two machines, the train and the typewriter, in the story. What are your thoughts on those?

The whole point of the typewriter is that the letters are not written by hand. You can feel the human behind a written hand and there is an identity to it; you can see character in the way someone writes his or her name. Whereas a typewriter is like being hate tweeted because it’s just text and there could be anybody behind it. The only thing is that this typewriter does have a tiny ghost in a setting which gives it its own character but even that is sinister. So as the railway has its own pulsating life, I wanted to feel that the typewriter has its own pulsating life. There’s almost this symbiosis between technology and our killer. I like that sense of anonymity but a sense of profound identity as well; the typewriter is just an object but then suddenly it’s infused with malice. Like the train is innocent, you get on it to go to the seaside or to get to work and you know every inch of it and then suddenly it’s a terrifying thing.

Father Anselm (CYRIL NRI) Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/Agatha Christie Ltd Photographer: Matt Squire

Have you changed the ending?

A lot of the audience responded well to the ending change in Ordeal By Innocence! It was a way of digging down deep and honoring the story and the characters. Some people didn’t like it, there are always people who want to offer up their opinions and that’s alright with me, people are allowed to have opinions. I’d rather that people had opinions rather than to think they didn’t engage with it and it didn’t touch them.

Is there a word that you could use which would summarise this story for you?

Insidious. And that’s the voice in Hercule’s ear. Or actually, the word is outsider. They’re all outsiders, all of them. Sex, money, love, disease, grief; they’re all exiles from peace.

The ABC Murders begins on ��tv One and ��tv iPlayer on Boxing Day at 9pm and continues on 27th & 28th December

Read interviews with the cast, the producer and director and find out more on the ��tv's Media Centre website

Download and listen to an in-depth podcast interview with Sarah Phelps

Watch interviews with Sarah Phelps on the ��tv Writersroom website

Killing Eve - from Book to Screen

2018-11-21T15:37:32+00:00

Luke Jennings is an author and journalist, including being the dance critic for the Observer newspaper. His Villanelle novellas were the inspiration for this year's hit drama Killing Eve. We spoke to him about seeing his characters come to life on the screen, working with screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge and to get a few hints about Series Two.

You've published novels for many years (including the Booker prize-nominated Atlantic). What was different about the origins and publication of the Villanelle novellas?

The previous books I'd written (for Hutchinson, Atlantic and Puffin) were all published in the conventional, hard-copy manner. In 2014 I was approached, as were a number of more or less established writers, by an editor at Amazon, who were about to launch their Kindle Singles programme. The appeal of this idea to me as an author was that work would go online, and be available for sale as soon as it was completed.

I wrote four Villanelle stories on this basis, each around 15,000 words. I thought, right from the start, that the stories would make a good TV series, and deliberately shaped the stories as 'episodes'. It was in this form that the stories and characters were optioned by a London-based production company (Sid Gentle Films). It was felt that the working title of the project should be based on Eve rather than Villanelle, and I came up with "Killing Eve", which would become the actual series title.

When ��tv America commissioned the first series, several publishers wanted to collect the four Villanelle titles in a single volume, and publish them in hard copy. There was an auction, won by John Murray, and in spring 2018 the first volume of a projected Killing Eve trilogy was published under the title Codename Villanelle.

Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri in Killing Eve

Would you describe your fiction writing as your ‘passion’ writing alongside ‘work’ writing? How do you divide your time between them or know which to prioritise?

I have always moved backwards and forwards between books and journalism. Each medium imposes its own constraints and disciplines. I've never prioritised one over the other.

Did you write the Villanelle stories with the idea of adaptation for television or film in the back of your mind?

I've always written that way, and I think there's a degree to which contemporary literary sensibilities have been shaped by TV and film structure.

Jodie Comer as Villanelle in Killing Eve

How did you decide on Phoebe Waller-Bridge to be the lead writer for the adaptations? What was it about her voice that made her the right person?

She was one of several writers suggested to me by Sally Woodward-Gentle, who runs Sid Gentle Films. When I saw Fleabag, then a stage play rather than the series it later became, I liked Phoebe's fearlessness and her oblique take on life. Her writing completely avoided any recognisable and hackneyed conventions which I really didn’t want to see applied to my characters and my work.

Have you ever written scripts yourself or would you consider this now?

I would consider it if it was absolutely the right project, but right now I have at least two novels to write!

Kim Bodnia and Jodie Comer in Killing Eve

Is it unusual for the writer of the original source book to be so involved in the scripting of the adaptation and if so why do you think it worked for Killing Eve?

Writing the Villanelle stories involved a lot of research, plotting, and background knowledge. I spent a long time thinking about, and creating, Eve and Villanelle, and the details of their lives and their backstories. I've reported from Russia, for example, and I've written about the security services and have a working knowledge of that world and know some of those people. This is not stuff Phoebe knew about, and we talked about all of it at length - firstly just the two of us and then, in a more structured way, with the production team. The idea was never that Phoebe should reproduce the novellas as TV scripts - TV closely tracking fiction rarely works, the two forms are just too different in their natures and requirements - but that she should make Eve and Villanelle and their universe her own, and put her own unmistakeable imprint on them.

You must be delighted with the end result, with the actors who are involved and the reaction?

Of course, and the brilliant casting is a huge part of the success of the series.

Watch a clip from Killing Eve - Eve and her team discuss the latest in Villanelle's string of murders, but this time there is a twist.

What can you tell us about Series Two which we know is in progress? Is that an original story or based on your new novel which has just come out? Are you still so directly involved or is there a point in the process where the novel writer has to step away?

Series Two is completing filming now. We are into the last episodes. The series has been scripted by Emerald Fennell, and it's terrific. It's from an original story. My second novel Killing Eve: No Tomorrow has just come out, so Emerald and I were writing, in a way, in parallel. Same Eve and Villanelle, same universe, different adventures. It's not so much a question of my stepping away, as the author. I continue in my role as the person who created those characters, and Emerald and the producers continue in theirs as the people who take my idea and run with it, taking it to new places. It's a developing process. You'll be hearing more from all of us.

Watch the complete first series of Killing Eve on ��tv iPlayer

Keeping Faith - Writing and Script Editing the hit Drama

2018-07-10T13:07:35+00:00

Keeping Faith was first broadcast on ��tv One Wales (in English) and S4C (in Welsh) in spring 2018 and went on to achieve record viewing figures for a non-network drama on ��tv iPlayer via word-of-mouth. Now as it comes to the whole UK on ��tv One, beginning at 9pm on Thursday 12th July, we spoke to the drama's writer and script editor about its creation.

Eve Myles as Faith Howells

What was the origin of the drama Keeping Faith? How did the commission come about?

Matthew Hall (writer): Co-founder of Vox Pictures, Pip Broughton and I have known each other for 15 years. It was a weird and fated coincidence. I was writing an episode of the ITV series, Blue Murder and Pip was appointed director of my episode. We had both moved to Monmouth in the summer of 2003 and found that we were neighbours as well as colleagues.

When in 2013 Pip set up Vox Pictures, she asked me to come up with a few ideas to pitch to television. I had been writing novels for a few years and so turned my mind back to small screen ideas. I wrote the pitch document for Keeping Faith very quickly - in a day or two. A character sprang into my mind. She was a very warm, very maternal, very emotional woman who was a friend and mother to all but who had somehow failed to realise her true potential. This was Faith. The principal elements of Faith’s character and the basic spine of the story were all there in that document.

Pip took it to a number of broadcasters and it was the Welsh language station, S4C, who showed interested and commissioned all eight scripts at once. Then began what would become three years of writing, which I threaded between books. It was also a tough time for my family. My son was very ill for a long period, I was running out of money, we had to sell the house for a smaller one but the house took nearly three years to sell …. Persisting with Keeping Faith became a metaphor for our lives over that period. It seemed for a while that everything might collapse and I got to a point where I was quite prepared for that. Many writers will tell you a similar story of events in their lives. It sometimes seems that you have to go to the brink of disaster before dawn breaks.

Dawn did break in early 2016 when firstly Eve Myles agreed on the fourth time of asking to accept the role and French distributors showed interest and wanted to invest in the project. ��tv Wales got on board and more finance came from the Welsh Assembly. A project that had almost sunk and taken us with it suddenly sprang to life. I wasn’t going to be starting a painting and decorating business, which was my brilliant plan B.

Introducing Keeping Faith

How did you find the story and your characters? In particular the character of Faith.

Matthew Hall: The best characters sort of descend on you unprompted, which is what happened with Faith. Her voice – the unselfconscious ability to express what’s going on inside in expletive-laden speech – is something of an amalgam of various women I know. Not all of them Welsh, but several of them are. The people I warm to most are those who take themselves least seriously, that’s perhaps Faith’s chief quality.

There was also a very serious aspect to Faith’s character, which is that like so many women I have known since I was young, she has not fulfilled her potential in the world but is a brilliant mother. It is so common among women - they start out on high-flying careers then veer off in their 30s and have to juggle children, elderly relatives and all sorts of things as well as what they can salvage of their careers. This happened to my wife. It wasn’t so much a choice as a fait accompli. She was a barrister, had two young kids and her health collapsed under the strain of trying to keep it all together. More significantly I could see that she was being forced to a choice - be the nurturing mother she desperately wanted to be or be a successful high-earning lawyer who doesn’t see much of her kids. There was really no middle way. It’s a painful thing to watch and I guess this experience fed into Faith.

It was important that Faith’s commendable choice to put her children first and stay home for an extended period was the catalyst for the disaster that ensued. This fact dramatises the sheer impossibility of the dilemmas so many women face in their lives - they cannot please everyone no matter what they do. I wanted her husband to be supportive of her choices but at the same time to be suffering the consequences. Faith’s absences pushes him to the brink of financial disaster and leads him into a secret criminal life.

Watch a clip: People don't just go missing

Did you have a specific brief for a Wales-based drama? How important was the location in the generation of the story?

Matthew Hall: I live in Wales, was raised more or less bang on the border and have wanted to write a series in Wales for years. There was no thought to commissioners’ requirements when I wrote the proposal. Faith was Welsh, she lived in a small Welsh town. I wanted a story set in a very specific, identifiable and real place as I knew that would lend greater authenticity to the emotional stories. Most of my family is Welsh, all through my childhood I was surrounded by Welsh relations and especially in South Wales there is something very emotional about the way people behave. They’re like Italians – warm but volatile, clannish but generous. This makes for a lot of colour in speech and behaviour and makes Welsh characters huge fun to write.

The landscape was always going to be a silent character in the drama. Welsh landscape is wild and untamed in places so there is always a sense of the elemental - a reminder of the deep rhythms of life and death - in the background. Against this backdrop human beings are thrown into starker relief than they are in an urban landscape; somehow they become more sharply defined.

I was also very keen to subvert the usual TV portrayal of the British countryside as a rather idyllic and uneventful place. My many decades of living in the country has shown me that everything that can happen anywhere else can happen here, and often does!

The Keeping Faith locations

How does the scriptwriting process work? Do you write a treatment first before any drafts of the scripts? If so then how detailed does this have to be and do you get notes on it which you have to respond to?

Matthew Hall: As a writer I have been lucky in this process in having very few note givers. I worked closely with Pip the producer/director and Joe (Williams, the Script Editor) later joined the process. Pip took notes from the various commissioners and executives and filtered them before handing me the good ones! As with nearly all TV, the process began with a series proposal which set out principal characters, backstory and the broad narrative arc and themes of the series. Next I moved to a detailed treatment of each episode in one large document which ran to about 20,000 words. Stage three is a scene breakdown of each episode. Stage four is drafting scripts.

Notes come at every stage of the process. The ability to negotiate notes is perhaps a skill every bit as important as being able to write. The writer has created the soul of the series and must never lose it. Some notes are very good and spot on, but often notes have diagnosed a problem or possibility for improvement but haven’t necessarily produced the right answer. So you have to respect notes, consider them, question them and act on them in a way which preserves the essence of what you are striving for.

At what point did Joe come on-board as Script Editor?

Joe Williams: Aside from script editing ‘Keeping Faith’ I also work at Vox Pictures, so it’s a project that I’d had some involvement with for quite some time before the series received the greenlight. I’ve known and worked for Pip Broughton for many years, so my attachment to the project came fairly organically. Script editors are usually brought on once the series has been greenlit. By that point, the writers and producers have a good sense of who the characters are and where the story is going. There may be a few plot specifics that need to be ironed out but by the greenlight stage you typically know where you are going. But because I was at Vox I was able to watch the series taking shape from when it was in a more embryonic stage.

How does a Script Editor work with a writer? Do you meet in person? Over the phone? How often and what sorts of notes do you give?

JW: It really varies depending on the project, the writer, and the producer. Pip has a long-standing creative partnership and friendship with Matthew, so my work on the series was very much carried out through her. Typically, Pip and Matthew would work on the gestation of the series together and I would join slightly later in the process. Due to our time being spent between London and Wales, there were a combination of face-to-face, Skype, and telephone calls. From Vox’s point of view, Pip is very much the creative drive on the series but both she and Matthew are very open to thoughts and suggestions. You don’t simply have to just sort out the admin side of script editing and there is a spirit of collaboration that I know isn’t always there in the development process.

The notes we would give on the series could focus both on individual episodes as well as macro notes for the entire series. Some of the notes are of a more practical level, such as looking into the procedural qualities of the story or double checking that the chronology of the scenes work. Sometimes there would be traditional development questions, such as examining how intriguing the central mystery is and if there’s room to tease the audience further in terms of finding out what has happened. We had a number of discussions regarding the finale for the series. We always knew what the final scene would be but the critical few steps that get Faith there were discussed a few times. Ultimately, it came down to dissecting who Faith really was as a character and how ‘Faith the Lawyer’ and ‘Faith the Mother’ come into conflict and ultimately resolve themselves. Once viewed through that prism the series gradually fell into place. We would also spend a lot of time talking about TV programmes we love; Matthew knows the medium of TV writing so well and I’ve had lots of engaging conversations with him dissecting the appeal of programmes and their characters.

What other functions does the Script Editor perform? Are you the point of contact between the Producers and the writer? Do you have to look out for the writer’s best interests in the development process?

JW: The job of Script Editing is an interesting mix of both inspiring creativity and occasionally mind-numbing administration! Again, it depends on the nature of the job - some Script Editors are hired simply to carry out the admin side and to collate notes, while others have much more creative engagement with the series and the writer. In this case, there was a good mix of both. Creatively, you tend to ask traditional ‘large’ development questions - what are the stakes of this episode; does this storyline make sense; is the mystery intriguing enough - alongside narrower points - plot specifics; whether a line of dialogue works; or whether a character is acting in a credible way. The important thing to remember, though, is that you’re not the writer. Your job is to enable the series to be the best it can based on the writer’s creation.

The admin side of Keeping Faith was particularly intricate, as we had to deliver both English and Welsh versions. This involved keeping on top of all the current drafts, ensuring the latest versions were properly signed off and distributed when they needed to be. There are also more simplified tasks, such as proof-reading and standardising the formatting to ensure continuity between drafts. Your work on the series also extends beyond the scripts themselves, as you find yourself writing summaries for the series and drafting straplines used for the show’s promotion. Then, you have to be on hand to answer production-based questions: how much of a certain character is in an episode; how much night there is; how many scenes are in a certain location etc.

Script Editors are traditionally the middle-men between the writers and the producers, though in my case it was different, as I already worked for the production company. It’s a tricky question, as the producers are ultimately the ones who pay your salary! That said, I think your loyalty should try to be towards the series itself and helping it along to be the best that it can be. This can mean fighting in the corner of the writer, the producer, or even for your own thoughts in relation to the script.

Did you ever strongly disagree and how do you resolve any disagreements?

JW: Personally, I don’t think I had any bust-ups with Matthew on the making of Keeping Faith! Much of my work was carried out via Pip Broughton but I personally found him to be open and very perceptive to thoughts from the team. He’s certainly not a pushover though and will fight for elements in the series that he truly believes in, as all writers should.

Ultimately, unless you’re talking about story practicalities and ironing out procedural details, much of the work put into script development is inherently subjective. So, of course, most of what you say is an opinion but it’s an opinion that you have to back up, otherwise why should anybody take it on board? I once saw Tony Grisoni do a brilliant talk when he said, “the best note I can be given is a question”, which I think is excellent advice. It means you are not being prescriptive and are framing your thoughts as something of a puzzle to engage with.

MH: I second Joe’s comments here and am glad that I’m not a pushover! I think the point is that if you care deeply about what you are writing you will firstly defend what you have written but secondly also want it to be as dramatically effective as possible. The process of dramatising is a hugely complex one involving thousands of decisions in a single script. It takes several sets of perceptive eyes to get things sufficiently polished. Writers have to be strong and also humble and receptive and eager for constructive criticism. Too much ego as a screenwriter will soon derail you!

I must also add that Joe is an excellent note giver. He’s forensic and thoughtful and takes any potential emotional heat out of the situation. You always have a calm and productive discussion with Joe, which is exactly what you need.

Watch an interview with the writer of Keeping Faith, Matthew Hall

Who else gives notes during the scripting process?

JW: In the early stages, it will be the producer and their development team with the circle gradually widening to include the commissioners. When the production process begins, members of the team will also give their thoughts - whether it is the actors on their characters or the script supervisors critiquing logistics. As the script editor, it’s also your role to help balance these things and collate them together.

What’s the final point of your work together? Is it the creation of the shooting scripts ready for production or does the work continue through the actual shoot? Are either of you on-set?

JW: Keeping Faith was unusual in the sense that we had the eight scripts written at the start of the filming process, so my job was not quite as intense as it tends to be with other series at that point. That said, there is still a fair amount of work to do, though largely more on an admin scale. Often it’s things like changing character names, place names, or locations, usually because we can’t clear the original ones.

You also need to be responsible for overseeing any revisions and issuing changes to the cast and crew. At the start of a shoot, you ‘lock’ the scene and page numbers before issuing a shooting script to the cast and crew. If there are any revisions during the filming process, these are then re-issued as ‘pink pages’ - named because the pages are printed in pink paper and inserted into the script traditionally to prevent you from printing out the whole thing again. If there are further changes, they are issued on blue paper, and a colour sequences carries on after that. You also need to write a list of amendments in a separate document for the team’s benefit.

Casting can also play a role in the revision process. The unhinged dentist, Dr Meral Alpay, played brilliantly by Pinar Ogun was not originally written as being Turkish, so the character was slightly re-calibrated when she came on board (I believe the character was ultimately named after Pinar’s mother). A few other characters even changed in regards to gender. We also made minor amendments to the script based on how it sounded in the read through and how the first block (episodes 1-4) was coming along. Nothing enormous, mainly revolving around dialogue, pacing, and plot clarification. As a script editor, I’m not particularly needed on set, though it is necessary for me to be in close contact with the production team.

Are you surprised by the reaction to Series 1 of Keeping Faith? Why do you think audiences responded so positively?

JW: Personally, I knew the series was going to be good and hopefully connect with those who saw it, based on the quality of the scripts, as well as the terrific team that was assembled behind and in front of the camera. Even so, it was still a non-network regional programme, so it felt like there was more of a hill to climb in terms of actually reaching nationwide audiences in comparison to other drama programmes. So, yes, the reaction across the country has been surprising, though more because of the series’ platform, as opposed to its artistic qualities, which I always had faith in. If the series came out five years ago, maybe even less, I’m not sure it would have taken off in the same way, simply because of how much viewing culture has changed in the post-Netflix landscape. It’s also unusual for elements beyond the show’s story and characters to have taken off the way they have done, from Faith’s yellow coat (with its own Twitter account) to Amy Wadge’s songs. I think its success particularly came home for me when my wife was recently considering buying one of the coats, which would have been a bit strange!

I think probably at the heart of why audiences responded positively towards the series is the character of Faith - her relatability, her enjoyment of life, and her dedication as a mother. So many people have Tweeted saying it’s one of the best and most accurate depictions of parenting they’ve seen. The triple whammy of Matthew’s writing, Pip’s directing and, of course, Eve’s powerhouse performance all perfectly came together to bring Faith to life.

MH: Pip and I are both parents of young adults and have gone through the cycle of parenting from start to finish. From the first proposal I was very keen to have three young children - a real overwhelming handful so that the audience could never forget for a moment that Faith is first and foremost a mother. Most shows try not to have kids on screen for too long, especially babies - the hassle! - but we were determined for them to be a huge presence. We simply haven’t had that level of family intimacy with young children depicted in quite that way before. Our female audience, in particular, really seemed to appreciate that. It was their lived experience on the screen.

‘Intimacy’ was a watchword Pip and I shared throughout the development process. My favourite shows - usually American, but also the French Spiral - are incredibly intimate. You are intensely close to the characters, you hear them breathe, you smell them. That’s what we wanted to achieve, so that every turn of the story was an intimate emotional and physical moment. This meant lots of layering at the script stage. We made sure the story was always told through Faith’s eyes so that the audience were feeling things at precisely the moment Faith was. We included moments that involved us with Faith in as many sensory and emotional ways as possible - eating, drinking, showering, crying, laughing - so that you ended up feeling that you could almost touch her.

I tried to write the scripts in as naturalistic a way as possible and Pip took that further in the directing process, encouraging a hyper-real and very spontaneous style of performance. I think we were hugely helped by the fact that many of the cast knew each other well, understood each other culturally and intimately understood the nature and foibles of the kind of small Welsh community we were depicting. This led to little spontaneous moments that kept adding to the whole. For example, there was a wonderful moment when Alex Harries (playing the petty criminal Arthur) pats Matthew Gravelle, playing Terry the local constable, on the head at the police station and asks after his wife. This came from the actors on set and brought in another layer of intimacy showing that all these characters knew each other inside out.

Somehow the cumulative effect was to break down the distance between the drama and the viewer. Keeping Faith can’t be watched at arms’ length. You either switch over to the snooker or allow yourself to become completely immersed. There is no middle way.

Watch Keeping Faith on ��tv One from Thursday 12th July 2018 at 9pm and on ��tv iPlayer

Download and read the Keeping Faith / Un Bore Mercher scripts in English or Welsh from our script library

Ordeal by Innocence

2018-03-27T16:12:11+00:00

This is your third Agatha Christie adaptation. What is it about Ordeal By Innocence that makes it right for TV adaptation?

Ordeal By Innocence is ripe for TV adaptation because it has all the qualities of a show that is really going to draw people in. There is a family which is absolutely layered with some terrible, dark secrets. There is not one person in this family who doesn’t have a skeleton in their cupboard; who doesn’t have anything they don’t want someone else to know. Whether it’s a tiny secret, or a huge one that could topple an entire family. It’s a great premise.

Watch the trailer for Ordeal by Innocence

Do you think the fact you hadn’t read any of Agatha Christie was helpful to adapting her work?

Rather unusually, until I read And Then There Were None, I’d never read any Agatha Christie. Although I was aware of the adaptations, I’d never watched any of them on TV. I did know that it was waspish and bitchy and glamorous and you knew that Marple and Poirot were sleuths and it was terribly English.

When I came to read And Then There Were None I was startled and shocked to find that they were in fact brutal. There was a cold and witty mind behind them. It struck me that instead of these being the parlour games of murder mysteries that I thought they were, that there was actually something else going on. Also because I’d never read any of the books before I didn’t have any of the sentimental attachment that you sometimes have for something you’ve read again and again. I think because And Then There Were None was a profoundly disturbing book that was the attitude I took and ran with it. To make sure that I’m confronted by their newness, not confronted by their sameness.

Arthur Calgary (LUKE TREADAWAY), Rachel Argyll (ANNA CHANCELLOR), Leo Argyll (BILL NIGHY), Kirsten Lindstrom (MORVEN CHRISTIE), Tina Argyll (CRYSTAL CLARKE), Hester Argyll (ELLA PURNELL), Mickey Argyll (CHRISTIAN COOKE), Mary Durrant (ELEANOR TOMLINSON), Jack Argyll (ANTHONY BOYLE), Gwenda Vaughan (ALICE EVE), Philip Durrant (MATTHEW GOODE) (l-r)

Where did you begin with the actual process of adaptation?

I always start with an image in my head. When I began to think about Ordeal By Innocence I had this image of Magritte and a man in a homburg, wearing a dark overcoat. He looks like a normal man going off to work and yet he’s stepping out into infinity, which is genuinely disturbing. I had this image of what could be seen as the English version of that which was somebody in a tweed coat, wearing a nice brown hat and carrying a suitcase stepping out into a choked and dangerous Eden. I was thinking so much about the 1950s and what it was like to live in this world where barely a decade ago we had the atomic bomb. We tend to think of the 1950s as being rather a dull time that is rather sunlit and innocent. Under the veneer of this you start to think about what is really happening at that time. You start to think about the rise in the number of people being prescribed sedatives at home; you start to think about the new advances in the way people are treated in psychiatric hospitals. You think about the way the government behaved; you think about the fact we had a young new Queen with a family and the whole idea of motherhood and femininity has been weaponised.

The idea that we all lived in peace following the Second World War is nonsense. I set the main portion of the drama in the summer of 1956 very deliberately because this is the summer before Suez; this is the summer before Hungary. So while we’re enjoying this rather red tooth and claw idyll of British life you remember that the world is changing incredibly rapidly.

Arthur Calgary (LUKE TREADAWAY)(Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/ACL/James Fisher Photographer: James Fisher)

Can you tell us about the character of Arthur and how he helps us, the viewer, enter into this dysfunctional family?

I’ve kept the premise from the book where Dr Arthur Calgary arrives at Sunny Point to bring the news that Jack was innocent. Arthur was Jack’s alibi and therefore someone else in the house must have murdered Rachel. In the book this character drops a bombshell, thinks to himself that everyone looks a little disturbed, wonders what’s going on but then leaves the house and goes to London.

When you’re writing an adaptation for television, you’re writing a drama, something has to happen which has drive. I wanted Arthur to have a story of his own which drives him forward, where there is a need for him to be able to deliver this piece of news that nobody wants to question. It is really important that he is able to do something and to make things right. I wanted to ask where has he been, why wouldn’t he be believed, what has he been doing, and how does that propel his story and make him trust people he shouldn’t trust and not trust people he should. I liked the idea that he is a kind of prophet walking in from the wilderness to tell a truth that nobody wants to hear.

Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/ACL/Victoria Brooks Photographer: Victoria Brooks

How does Sunny Point help you create that world and that feeling?

The house is always useful as a setting for the murder mystery, or what I like to think of as an enquiry on how we live in our particular ages via the genre of murder mystery. You have a pressure cooker and with a family house like this, every inch of it is filled with memory and meaning.

In Sunny Point they are still dominated by the absence of Rachel and the dynamic that informs their whole family and all the secrets they are trying to keep. It really does help because there isn’t anywhere where they can go. I always found that whatever you’re doing, if you can keep people in that pressure cooker, and deprive them of sleep they will do quite interesting things. Sunny Point is the name of a house you give when you want everyone to be happy and the thing is, you can’t click your fingers and make people be happy. That’s what was intriguing to me about writing Rachel, was how badly she wanted people to be happy. It was really interesting to write about those pressures on people to be perfect. And in terms of structure, what was most important about Sunny Point was that there was this sense that the staircase was where everything happened, that it had this atrium feeling, where a scream could travel up a staircase and be heard by everybody. It was also the idea that Kirsten occupied both ends, so she was the alpha and omega of the entire sentence to the Argyll’s family life.

Rachel Argyll (ANNA CHANCELLOR)(Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/ACL/James Fisher Photographer: James Fisher)

Can you describe the complexities of the character of Rachel?

At our script read-through someone said that they realised Rachel wasn’t a monster. I was genuinely shocked because I had never thought of her as a monster, I thought of her as a woman who had been betrayed and lied to; a woman who paints herself into this corner of brittle perfection.

When I first started working on the show I kept thinking, ‘What kills Rachel?’ Not who, but what kills, and what kills Rachel is the need to be perfect. I wanted to write this woman who appears to be impossible; who appears to be a real handful and who you’d have to put a gun to her head before she would admit what was wrong. Finding out that ticking time bomb of a secret is what explodes the whole drama.

Leo Argyll (BILL NIGHY)(Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/ACL/James Fisher)

With all of this pressure, it appears Leo is breezing through life. Why is that?

In life, and with two parent families, there is always a parent who lays down the law. They are the ones that say ‘you can’t do this, and you’re not doing that’. Then there’s always a parent who comes in, who’s the favourite, who doesn’t have to make any of the rules and who doesn’t have to bear any of the consequences. Most of the time, the person who has to make all the rules is mum. I wanted that division of emotional labour, so Rachel is the one who says the way it’s going to be; everything is going to be perfect and we’re going to strive to be the very best so the world can see I’ve done the best any woman could ever do. Whereas all Leo had to do was be charming. I made the decision that Rachel wouldn’t be mummy, she would be mother but that Leo wouldn’t be father and he would be daddy. The person the children gravitated towards for fun, affection and jokes was Daddy and the person who said you will do your piano practice and you will sit up straight was Mother.

Kirsten Lindstrom (MORVEN CHRISTIE)(Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/ACL/James Fisher)

Many of the characters get to play out their frustrations but with Kirsten so much of it is hidden. How did Morven perform in that role?

In one sense Kirsten is another one of Rachel’s adopted children. Kirsten is from a Scottish Foundling ��tv who has come to the house to help with Mary, the first adopted child. What comes out of that is a relationship between the matriarch and the servant. Kirsten really is the keeper of an incredibly violent secret. What you need is an actress who is able to walk the line between these layers of ambiguity. As I was writing this I kept thinking, Morven would be perfect because she is just an incredibly truthful and honest actress. I have never seen her play a false note in her life. She’s also incredibly intelligent at masking what the character is feeling because her character is not allowed to speak because of her status. That is what we needed, someone who drew the eye, who you knew was keeping something back. This is the person that conducts the music of the house and you’re never quite sure of her, ever.

Philip Durrant (MATTHEW GOODE), Mary Durrant (ELEANOR TOMLINSON)(Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/ACL/James Fisher)

How has the director Sandra Goldbacher brought this script to life?

Whenever I write a script, it is really important to me to know exactly what the atmosphere of the place is like. I want to know what the vantage points are, where the light falls, where the hiding places are, where the family congregate. So even if you’re not going to be able to replicate that exactly on screen there is still a strong sense of that.

It was so important to me that Sandra was absolutely tuned into that sense of family and that sense of the brooding sarcophagus of a house, which was beautiful but also claustrophobic. What Sandra brought to it was this really finely tuned ear for the shifts in pitch and tone in a conversation, the music of the dialogue, the music of what isn’t being said. I could say things to her about the way a character carries a suitcase and she would absolutely understand what I meant. Or I could write a stage description about the way railway tracks curve around a corner into the pinewoods of the forest and she understood exactly what I was talking about, without having to discuss the significance. She was so attuned to the tiny nuances of what was going on between characters that I trusted her and trusted her choices. That was brilliant for me because I could sit back and relax while I knew that she was taking everything forward and thinking hard about every little tiny thing even down to the mood changes half way through a line of dialogue.

(l-r) Young Mary ( CATRIONA MACNICOLL), Young Tina ( ABIGAIL CONTEH), Rachel Argyll ( ANNA CHANCELLOR), Young Hester ( HAYDEN ROBERTSON), Young Mickey ( RHYS LAMBERT), Young Jack ( LUKE MURRAY)(Image Credit: ��tv/Mammoth Screen/ACL/James Fisher)

How have you tried to move Agatha Christie on? Was it a discussion before the adaptations started?

I made a strong case when I went to pitch my ideas for And Then There Were None about what I wanted to do. I didn’t have a pre-existing relationship with Agatha Christie, because I don’t see it as my job to serve her hagiography. What I want to know is what happens with these characters. I don’t care whodunit; I want to know why they did it. Why is this person dead?

The more familiar we get with something the less we find them shocking. I want people to be shocked because they’re about the times that we live in. At the forefront of my mind was that one could write these stories about the 20’s, the 30’s, the 40’s, the 50’s and it might help us see, and understand, some quality about the blood soaked tumultuous 20th century, which might make us understand why we’re in such a damn mess in the 21st. I wanted to adapt Christie’s stories in a way I see right; how I react to them, not what anybody else has seen before.

Also Agatha Christie Limited, and James Prichard have been so on my side and completely get where I am coming from. I think they can see that it’s really going somewhere and that I’m not just kicking the table over for the sake of it. It is about re-examining the imagination of somebody who is a British icon.

Ordeal by Innocence (3 episodes) begins on ��tv One on Easter Sunday, 1st April 2018 at 9pm and on ��tv iPlayer

Meet the characters and the cast

This interview was first published on the ��tv's Media Centre.

Find out more and read more interviews with the cast and crew

Inside the Writer's Room: Download and listen to an in-depth podcast interview with writer Sarah Phelps

A Quick Chat With Tom Rob Smith, the screenwriter of The Assassination of Gianni Versace - American Crime Story

2018-03-21T17:20:00+00:00

How did you get involved with The Assassination of Gianni Versace - American Crime Story?

It was never called that at the beginning. The producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson sent me the book which the series is based on by Vanity Fair journalist Maureen Orth, called Vulgar Favors. They said they were thinking about doing a mini-series based on it. Both Brad and Nina knew my writing from my novel CHILD 44, and the scripts for LONDON SPY. And that was how it began.

What was it about the project that attracted you?

The material was challenging, the main character - Andrew Cunanan - is intriguing and human in his early years, but gradually descends into addiction and murderous madness, so the challenge was how to structure the story because once Cunanan starts killing he can't be the centre of the episodes.

Watch the trailer for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

Was the fashion world one you were already familiar with?

I knew a little, I guess. I read everything that had ever been written on Versace. I was surprised by how little attention and scrutiny he'd been given, considering he was such an amazing man.

How did you carry out research?

Maureen Orth is the journalist, so she provided the bulk of the research, I also read through all the FBI files, and as I said, everything that been written about Versace. I also travelled to San Diego and went to all the most important places in Andrew Cunanan's life, just to get a feel for them.

Watch a clip from The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

During the writing of the drama did you warm to the principal characters, as you found out more about them? Did your preconceptions change?

The most unusual aspect of this show is that the victims are the central characters, they are the heart and soul of the piece. I have to admit, before I read the book all I knew of the case was that Versace had been shot on the steps of his Miami mansion, it's remarkable to me that the entire story was in shadow. Those other victims were extraordinary people, their stories deserved to be told.

"You're trying to impress me" - watch a clip from Episode 3

How different did it feel writing your first true crime story? How much did you have to fill in the gaps of existing material or ‘dramatise’ events?

There are gaps, but any dramatisation was only ever done to support the larger truths. We all knew that David Madson had nothing to do with the murder of Jeff Trail, we all felt that very strongly, so we needed to figure out how to convey that innocence to the audience, to show why David left with Andrew.

"They won't believe you" - a clip from Episode 4 - Andrew tries to convince a panicked David that in the eyes of intolerant lawmen, he is equally guilty of a murder he has just witnessed being committed.

Do you think the title of the show represents what it is really about?

I actually didn't choose the title so I can't address that question but I don't think the title of the non fiction source material would have been right.

We understand the Versace family are not happy with the show. Has this been very disappointing and how have you dealt with this?

Their position is the same as they had with the source material - their statement is very similar. In the end, this is a celebration of an amazing man, it was a tragedy that Versace was taken from the world, both from his family, and from a creative perspective. We set out to contrast why one man was so great, and one man became so despicable.

Do you think your background as a novelist helps or hinders screenwriting?

Both! There are advantages and disadvantages, but mostly advantages I think. This series plays a long game, the lie that Andrew tells Versace in Episode One, seems like a piece of nonsense, but we reveal how much truth there is in it, how much sadness, in Episode Eight.

Is it very different working as a screenwriter in the USA from the UK? Are there key differences?

At the moment writers are considered more central to the process in the US than in the UK, but the UK model is in the process of changing.

What have you got coming up next?

A new show for ��tv Two, called MotherFatherSon, an eight part original show.

Watch The Assassination of Gianni Versace - American Crime Story on ��tv Two on Wednesdays at 9pm and on ��tv iPlayer

Read an interview with Tom Rob Smith about his writing career and the drama London Spy

Read the script for Episode 1 of London Spy

Listen to an interview with Tom Rob Smith on Radio 4's Front Row

Listen to a Radio Documentary about the murder of Gianni Versace

Collateral - an introduction by writer David Hare

2018-02-09T10:34:58+00:00

Collateral is a gripping, high-octane thriller set in present day London, written by the pre-eminent playwright David Hare and starring Academy-Award nominee Carey Mulligan. It is David Hare's first original series for television.

Kip Glaspie (CAREY MULLIGAN) in Collateral (Image Credit: ��tv/The Forge, Photographer: Fabio Affuso)

There has been a fair amount of film and television drama about the two formative events of the early century - the invasion of Iraq and the 2008 financial crisis. But of the third great challenge - the waves of migration prompted by war, poverty and fresh persecution - we have seen much less.

The 21st century looks as if it will be a time of mass movements, and corresponding mass resentment of mobility. It looks to me as if privileged societies are urgently looking for ways of protecting their wealth, and of keeping the poor outside their boundaries. For all our talk of encouraging initiative and enterprise, foreign entrepreneurs who travel the Mediterranean by boat seem especially unwelcome. Donald Trump’s proposal for a wall with Mexico and the UK’s vote for Brexit are both evidence of attitudes hardening in the West towards aspirational newcomers.

Watch the trailer for Collateral

As a viewer, I have always loved drama like Cathy Come ��tv, The Boys From The Blackstuff and A Very British Coup, which succeeded in moving television fiction into new areas. At its start, Collateral may seem to be familiar. After all, it does involve a police investigation. But I hope you will notice the absence of any of the usual apparatus of police procedurals. I can promise you there are no shots of computers or white boards. After an illegal immigrant is shot in the opening moments, I am much more interested in exploring how the death of one individual, who has lived out of the sight of respectable society, resonates and reaches into various interconnecting lives.

Kip Glaspie (CAREY MULLIGAN), DS Nathan Bilk (NATHANIEL MARTELLO-WHITE)(Image Credit: ��tv/The Forge Photographer: Liam Daniel)

One of the common paradoxes of our time is that even as we lose faith in public institutions, so our belief in private virtue holds steady. Collateral takes us through various British institutions - the police, the Church, politics, the army, and, most especially, through our weird and shaky detention system - and asks why so many organisations seem deliberately structured in a way which prevents individuals being allowed to exercise their own judgements and standards. Why are we feeling disempowered?

David Mars (JOHN SIMM)(Image Credit: ��tv/The Forge Photographer: Robert Viglasky)

I have come late in life to writing my first episodic television, but I was guided by two expert producers, George Faber and Mark Pybus. When SJ Clarkson joined to direct, then we began to observe a strange phenomenon. Not a single actor turned us down. We got our first available choice for every role. This seemed to us evidence that if you seek to annexe new subject matter on television everyone will want to join you in the endeavour. By the time Netflix allied with the ��tv, and Carey Mulligan, Billie Piper, Nicola Walker, John Simm and Nathaniel Martello-White were foreground in SJ’s gritty, fleetingly beautiful urban landscapes, I was pretty much in TV heaven.

I hope you enjoy Collateral too.

David Hare

Collateral begins on ��tv Two on Monday 12th February 2018 at 9pm and on ��tv iPlayer

Read interviews with the Director and cast of Collateral on the ��tv's Media Centre website

Silent Witness - writing 'One Day'

2018-01-26T12:24:53+00:00

The Silent Witness two-parter One Day is broadcast on ��tv One on Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th January at 9pm. The episodes revolve around unexplained deaths of patients at a care home but explore issues around disability and the treatment of disabled people in society. We caught up with the writer Tim Prager following a preview screening to find out what lies behind the story.

Why was writing these episodes of Silent Witness (One Day) so important to you? Do you have a personal connection to the issues that are raised?

I have a son with cerebral palsy and I’ve seen him encounter questions and issues around his capabilities and worth. Those questions started at a very young age and have continued throughout most of his life. There were varying reactions to his disability. For some people it was ‘Why are you hoping that your son will go to a mainstream school?’ and latterly it was ‘You need to manage his expectations’ and then it was ‘Is he able to work?'. Essentially they were all basic utilitarian questions. I should add that once he got into a mainstream secondary school he went on to Oxford University and is now a political advisor and researcher.

My son was astonishingly well supported at his secondary school, by individuals who recognised his worth and potential; teachers who helped him access what he needed. But in the end that’s no different from any other student, it’s just that his support might be more complicated and obvious, physical support as well as intellectual.

The perception of someone with a disability is that they have less ability to contribute to society, and that is false. The result of that is that people construe or construct expectations of usefulness. Those things bothered me.

Kevin (TOBY SAMS-FRIEDMAN), Serena (ROSIE JONES) in Silent Witness 'One Day'. (Image Credit: ��tv/Sally Mais)

The US Private Equity Firm Blackstone’s behaviour over the Southern Cross care homes, which became a “property play” quite possibly at the expense of the vulnerable and elderly, troubled me. The Panorama report, which showed people in care homes being badly treated, troubled me. Now, we hear of a report like that every few months; so called “carers” who abuse the people that depend upon them. The common thread here is that the well being of those in need is disregarded – they are “less”.

I was troubled that discussion around dementia has thrown up a whole new issue around utility, the cost of care and longevity. The death of a loved one with dementia who is costing £3000 to £4000 a week to look after, can be described as a ‘euthanasia bonus’. Someone who has no ability to understand, remember, or recognise becomes for some, less than human, an emotional and financial burden and it appears that they have become targets for abuse by some unprofessional carers who lack compassion. We have seen numerous examples of this as well as of family members who no longer view them as the same person – their memory is gone and their humanity is lost. I don’t know the answer, but the prospect of society trying to apply utilitarian notions to the problem means we are certain to come up short – the rise of the arguments for assisted suicide and the well meaning arguments around that issue are confounding our ability to know what to do. What is best? What is human? It is a moral problem that Pope John-Paul II solved by declaring that suffering made him closer to God. A shift in dogma that rejected the idea that one’s disability or impairment was connected to sin and God was punishing a transgressor. Sadly, this is a relationship some people still subscribe to.

Sergeant Mark Button (TOM HANSON), Flannery (CHARLIE CREED-MILES), Serena (ROSIE JONES)(Image Credit: ��tv/Gary Moyes)

Did anyone in particular inspire you to write these characters?

When my son was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy I walked through a door into a world I did not know, indeed did not really know existed. In the twenty odd years since, I have met lots of people with disabilities and have acquired lots of potential models for these characters. I’d known the actor who plays Kevin (Toby Sams-Friedman) since he was a boy, but I never expected him to play the part. I was delighted when he auditioned and of course thrilled when (Director) Thaddeus and (Producer) Kiaran called me and expressed confidence in him. It wouldn’t be fair to say the characters were modelled on anyone specific. There were lots of different influences.

Kevin (TOBY SAMS-FRIEDMAN)(Image Credit: ��tv/Gary Moyes)

Why was Silent Witness the right programme to tell this story?

I’ve written Silent Witness for some time, rebooted the characters six ago, creating Thomas, (Richard Lintern), Jack, (David Caves) and Clarissa (Liz Carr) and have been given the latitude to tell stories about many different subjects. The show has a robust format that allows so many subjects to be described and investigated but it is also the trust and creativity of the Executive Producer (Richard Stokes) and Producer (Kiaran Murray-Smith) that creates the circumstances that enable my ambition and the ambition of the other excellent writers who write films for the series. It’s seen by almost nine million people, so if you want to discuss something that you think has societal import then it’s not a bad platform! In a way it’s the ultimate Trojan Horse – a show that has commercial bones that allows you discuss subjects that people might not normally gravitate towards.

The reality is that actually audiences want to watch stories that are about something. Silent Witness has a contract with the audience that makes it feel that it is about life today – and the audience that comes to it has an appetite for subjects that are thought provoking.

And of course it was key that Liz Carr was already in the show. I created the character of Clarissa six years ago and I believe she has always been a great asset to the show. I had always wanted to make her role more significant and write for her in a way that allowed her to shine. Knowing that I’ve got a character like Clarissa gives me a story portal that I can walk through; that allows me to go into these subjects in a way that feels organic to the series.

Clarissa Mullery [LIZ CARR](Image Credit: ��tv/Joel Anderson)

What was the process of getting One Day commissioned? Did you have to fight for it?

Actually, it was straightforward. “Timing” may really be “everything”…but the Producer and Executive Producer were available and interested in this subject so the process was easy. They said they wanted to do it and that was it. If you encounter problems telling particular stories it is usually down to the preconceived ideas of the individuals involved – or the fact that they are tone deaf to a good story or indeed to how a story can be realised.

What do you want people to take away from the story of One Day?

Hopefully one of the outcomes is to change perception. Accept difference and consider how the quantification of everything in our modern life might be at odds with our humanity.

Jack Hodgson [DAVID CAVES](Image Credit: ��tv/Sally Mais)

What needs to change to ensure that disabled people are properly represented on TV?

I don’t know what ‘properly represented’ means. From my perspective we should have a disabled character in every episode of Silent Witness, just as part of the world. They could be behind a counter or teaching in a school. We just need to normalise disability and make it a regular part of our world, not hidden away. That’s a really powerful way to make people both aware but also not afraid of disability. If you think back through the history of TV there are certain seminal shows that moved us forward because the representation of the world is changed by them. Television is a very powerful tool. This can be something that we worry about – for example with too much violence – but let’s use that power for some good.

There are some practicalities that you just have to accommodate for people with mobility problems or extra requirements, and there are going to be times when you need a little more rehearsal or support. Richard and Kiaran always looked for solutions to enable people both practically and creatively. They built one extra day into the shooting schedule so it wasn’t so pressurised. The entire crew went out of their way to make sure that every actor, disabled or not, was enabled to do their best work. That was a tremendous tribute by the crew to what they were seeing on the set.

Filming Silent Witness 'One Day' (Image Credit: ��tv/Sally Mais)

Does this mean the ��tv has ‘done’ disability for the next couple of years?

Not from my perspective – I can guarantee you – and not from the perspective of Charlotte Moore (Director of Content) or Hilary Salmon (Head of Drama London, ��tv Studios). Hilary, by the way has always been an advocate for diversity and the reflection of the whole human experience in ��tv Drama. Charlotte and Hilary are part of a group of people that really want to see the ��tv represent everyone in society. They are absolutely committed to ensuring issues around disability (and many other subjects) are discussed and normalised.

There are a lot of disabled people in this country, over 11 million. 6% of children, 16% of working age adults. We’ve got to try and get these issues not to be ghettoised – so we’re not ‘doing disability’ – it’s not a sub-category. It’s part of my life and lots of people’s lives every day.

Watch Silent Witness 'One Day' on ��tv One on Monday 29th January and Tuesday 30th January 2018 at 9pm and on ��tv iPlayer

����tv Writers Feed