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Davies said that BBC costume drama had gone ‘downmarket’ as bosses refused to show anything but well-worn classics. He blamed a new breed of BBC executive intent on ‘slate-wiping and territory-marking’ rather than supporting 19th-century drama other than the most obvious old chestnuts.
‘I think, in terms of doing the classics, their position is somewhere near where ITV’s was ten years ago,’ he said at the time. ‘Which is, “Yes, we’ll do them, but only if they’re big, popular warhorses.”’
The veteran film director Ken Loach has laid into TV bosses, too. ‘Television has become the enemy of creativity,’ he has said. ‘Television kills creativity. It is produced by a pyramid of producers, executive producers, commissioning editors, heads of department, assistant heads of department and so on, who sit on the people doing the work and stifle the life out of them. Can you believe the lunacy that goes on in these places?’
In their defence, programme controllers could argue that commissioning huge costume dramas is more complicated than it might seem. For example, some classic novels are more suited for film adaptation than others: as a character perhaps Dombey is less charismatic than Copperfield, and maybe the reason why Jane Eyre, for instance, has so often been revived is that Eyre is such a powerful, complex, individualistic and passionate character.
However, the influence of American co-sponsors, who almost always come on board with this kind of project nowadays, may play a significant part in what is produced. One suspects that the typical TV exec in America may not be au fait with many lesser-known British literary classics, and will think that most potential viewers certainly won’t be.
This narrow thinking and dearth of originality increasingly pervades all the arts and we, the viewing public, are as much to blame as the arts providers. We continue to lap up without complaint yet another three or four versions of, for example, The Nutcracker each Christmas; we are happy to listen to radio stations with playlists consisting of about three songs; and we eagerly snap up theatre tickets for seemingly endless Ayckbourn and Agatha Christie revivals.
Endlessly revisiting the overfamiliar in the arts is likely to get worse: deviating from the norm spells risk and with less money around we can expect fewer inspired programming choices. The mainstream arts risk becoming like the UK’s high streets: identikit, bland and supremely unimaginative.
It’s a great pity as we are enriched when introduced to something new: when the BBC broadcast the relatively little-known Bleak House in half-hour segments after EastEnders a few years ago, it was the talk of playgrounds as well as the usual fans of costume drama. There really is no need for timidity by producers. Just look at the incredible success of Downton Abbey.
True, millions of pounds have recently been invested in the BBC’s The Paradise and ITV’s Mr Selfridge, both centred around early department stores, but there is so much more to explore. What about a drama focusing on the rich life of Enlightenment writer and wit Voltaire? Or perhaps Queen Anne: her troubled life, including 17 pregnancies yet no surviving children against a backdrop of political turmoil, could certainly make a gripping new costume drama.
And, of course, there is still a huge wealth of outstanding classic literature that remains unfilmed: projects that would make enlightening discoveries for so many viewers.
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