BBC to overhaul ‘state of nation’ dramas after ITV’s Post Office and Covid hits
The BBC has promised to reinvent “state of the nation” TV drama after ITV stole a march on its rival with powerful series depicting the real-life effect of the Post Office scandal and the pandemic.
Lindsay Salt, BBC director of drama, said the broadcaster’s new raft of commissions would dispense with earnest political messages and instead “tell stories about who we are as a society and who we are as people”.
A former Netflix executive, Ms Salt unveiled a new slate of dramas, which includes a television adaptation of Dear England, the hit West End play starring Joseph Fiennes as England men’s football manager Gareth Southgate.
The BBC’s drama output has been overshadowed this year by the impact of ITV’s Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which prompted Government action over the plight of sub-postmasters caught up in the Horizon software scandal.
The most-watched programme on any channel in 2024 with 15m views, the series was followed this week by Breathtaking, a harrowing account of the effect of the Covid crisis on frontline health workers, starring Joanne Froggatt as an NHS consultant.
The BBC, which pioneered “state of the nation” TV drama with Ken Loach’s 1966 homelessness play Cathy Come Home, vowed to seize back the mantle.
The Way, a new dystopian drama imagining civil unrest in Wales after Port Talbot’s steel works are closed, was criticised by business secretary Kemi Badenoch who said the Government was pouring money in to save steel jobs there.
Ms Salt said: “Over the next few years, I want the BBC to redefine ‘state of the nation’ drama. I want us to use our appetite and ability to take risks to shake up what ‘state of the nation’ really means, and repurpose it for new audiences.”
“It’s a phrase that – in my opinion – has become a little dusty and old-fashioned. Sometimes associated with shows that are earnest or overloaded with messages. Static when it should be dynamic and vibrant and necessary.”
“It should mean stories that are honest and emotional, revealing and messy… It should reflect something different to different age groups and communities.”
She cited series such as State of Play, Three Girls, which dramatised the Rochdale child sex ring, and Our Friends in the North as state of the nation dramas, along with Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You and medical saga This is Going to Hurt.
Those dramas shared “an urgency, an immediacy. They all provoke reflection – about who we are as a society and who we are as people”.
Ms Salt, who worked on The Crown at Netflix, added: “I think the industry has tipped too far towards flashy concepts over true characterisation in recent years.”
She wants writers to create more “recognisable, truthful, knotty characters…and find the next Catherine Cawoods (Happy Valley), Luthers, Villanelles (Killing Eve), Tommy Shelbys, (Peaky Blinders) Sherlocks, Doctor Fosters and Sister Juliennes (Call The Midwife).”
The BBC’s drama ambitions are constrained by a licence fee freeze and soaring inflation, while deep-pocketed streaming rivals pay high salaries to attract casts and crew.
Ms Salt said the industry was entering “peak caution” with fewer creative risks being taken.
“Inflation, content and platform saturation, streamer retrenchment, the writers’ strike, it’s all fed a serious slowdown,” she warned. “Five years ago, everyone was willing to make brave choices…But today there’s much more short termism.”
Margate and Southgate lead new BBC dramas
The new BBC series unveiled by the drama boss include The Dream Lands, based on the novel by Rosa Rankin-Gee, which is a coming of age story set 15 years ahead in a “near-future Margate”, against a backdrop of “soaring inequality” and rising sea levels.
Lions, a Glasgow-set drama following the intertwined lives of two men across the decades from the 80s to the present day, echoes the structure of landmark 90s series Our Friends In The North.
This City Is Ours, made by Left Bank Pictures, producers of The Crown, and set in Liverpool, tells the story of the violent struggle for control when a cocaine-dealing gangland family is riven by a feud.
Dear England, written by James Graham, telling how Southgate employed the power of empathy to revitalise a demoralised England team will be adapated as a four-part drama, with Fiennes reprising his stage role.
