I was nicknamed lazy Blaisey, many years ago – entirely unjustly, I might add - what I’m trying to say is that I have been busy: I have just started script reading for a prod co, (am enjoying it and learning a lot), as well as desperately trying to finish my rewrite by end of April (Nichols competition is calling)
But I did manage to finagle my way into another BBC event last Friday, a question and answer with the creator and Exec Producer (Showrunner to your Americans) of the cult BBC series Being Human.
Thought I’d write it up while I had a chance. If you don’t watch this series, I highly recommend it – last week’s episode was on crack!
For some reason I’d thought Toby had appeared from nowhere to create this show. If only. Like most mere mortals he had to work his way up, starting from being a failed actor.
Out of work, he wrote a play which promptly got him TV writing gigs. After a few of those a Prod co gave him the bare outline of the idea for No Angles, a channel 4 series on nurses up north – which was quite good fun. And then Being Human. He admits he’s lucky, but I think he might have a smidgen of talent as well. He did stress the Being Human – becoming a showrunner – happened at the right time. Any earlier and he would have fucked it up. He also stressed that working up as a writer on other people’s shows taught a huge amount, enough to now run this – you can’t do it without this kind of experience – so don’t worry if you’re a little older…
So an old BBC contact approached him about creating a series based on the lives of twenty something housemates who bought a house together. This promptly launched him into development hell, months of trying to get blood from a stone – it’s hardly an inspiring premise. Then, in the last meeting on the possible programme, he flung in a few ideas from a short he was writing about an anal werewolf.
Why not make one of the flatmates – an anal compulsive control freak – a werewolf? And the recovering sex addict could be a vampire? The agoraphobic girl becomes a ghost? Sounds like on of those moments to me when everything clicks into place and you’re staring at genius.
And analysing it (just a little) the key is that the characters came first, and their characteristics – their supernatural elements were only added later, as a veneer to make them..more sexy? Give them a story? But is this working from the specific to the general? – from a real character to an archetype? I thought it was supposed to be the other way round, but just goes to show, rules are made to be broken.
So it worked, and worked brilliantly. Their supernatural elements perfectly complemented their characteristics, creating rounded supernatural characters with depth and a unique story. Go get ‘em!
Other than that, Toby was very interesting on budgets. Prosthetics, settings, number of characters, all kept down due to budget. That, and the limits it places on production brings a concentrated creativity to the piece – if you’ve sent the house bound episode with Herrick in the attic that just proves the point. Should give us all heart.
He was also quite wise on one’s attitude when writing. Starting out on Being Human, he was stuck – couldn’t find his way and wrote uninspiring stuff. Only the realisation that he should write it as though it’ll never get made actually allowed him to spread his imagination (within the budget confines) and explore this world he’d created.
One question came of how he mixed both tragedy and comedy in the series – which it does, mostly to good effect. Toby didn’t actually get the assumption of the question – that there were different genres. He said he just wrote life as he saw it and didn’t classify. I can see his point, but I think - especially if you are writing film – you really do need to be aware of genre. It’s one of the most basic tools when it comes to selling. He might be in a very nice place (the BBC) which can take occasional risks. That said, the tone of the series has varied widely from scene to scene let alone series to series, and that I think is one of its strengths. Genre has always been a marketing invention / demand, and he’s blessed to be free of it.
Then I went home and caught the penultimate episode of series 3 on Sunday. That was some of the best TV I have watched in a good long time – surprise, revelations, reversals, all the characters gong through the shit – it was beautiful TV. Thank you Toby Whitehouse.
Am just off to some networking drinks with general script development people now… so remember, mustn’t drink too much….
All best
Out
