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The nomenclature of showrunning

Over the last few years there’s been a growing call in the UK drama industry for a move to a US-style system, where the person in charge of a TV programme is also a writer. In this country I’m only aware of two shows that do this: Doctor Who and Holby City.

Unfortunately, this system is often incorrectly called the showrunner system.

Every show has a showrunner.

The showrunner is the person who makes the final decisions, creative and otherwise.

Sure, networks and studios give notes, and they can cancel the show or fire the showrunner if they don’t get implemented, but the person who who gets to make the final decision on what happens and what doesn’t – that’s the showrunner.

The UK has showrunners too. They’re mostly producers without a writing background, who came up through script editing and script development – the same as the US system used to be up until the 70s.

(It’s still possible in both the UK and US systems to have someone who’s in charge of all the writing of a show, without being in charge of the production. In this case, they’re usually referred to as the Lead Writer, but the person in overall charge of the production is the showrunner.)

Most showrunners in the US, however, were hired as writers first, and learned their producing trade over the years. There’s a career path in the US writers room system, from Staff Writer all the way up to showrunner, and the amount of producing duties involved grow as you work up the ladder.

I personally believe that having a writer-producer in charge is the way forward for television series. Now you can call that the writer-showrunner system, or the US system, but let’s not call that the showrunner system.

Because we already have showrunners.

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Writers’ Social

Sara Baroni and myself have taken it into our heads once more to organise a writers’ social.

So if you’d like to come down the pub and chat about writing for stage and screen and radio and perhaps even game-controller, who knows?, we shall be at the Knights Templar in Chancery Lane on the evening of Thursday 18th March 2010.

7pm till closing; all welcome.

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Nancy, BTW, is not a prostitute.

At least, not in the way that we understand the word.

During my research for Oliver Twist, I came across something that gave me pause. To wit, that Nancy is often referred to in reviews and literary criticism as being a prostitute.

Thing is, though, I read the book several times. And I was buggered if I could find any actual evidence pointing that way. The passage in the book that usually gets quoted as proving this runs so:

“They wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings. They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and healthy. Being remarkably free and easy with their manners, Oliver thought them to be very nice girls indeed. Which there is no doubt they were.”

Come on. Really? That single passage is the only evidence in the entire book? That, my friends, is a stretch.

In fact, there’s plenty of evidence against. Nancy says to Fagin “I thieved for you when I was a child not half as old as this! I have been in the same trade, and in the same service, for twelve years since.”

So she states quite clearly that her profession is thief. Not prostitute.

And yet everyone thinks she is. Why?

I managed to chase it down, in the end, to the introduction to the 1841 edition. Dickens himself says it. “That the boys are pickpockets, and the girl is a prostitute.”

So Dickens says that she’s a prostitute – and then puts no evidence for it in the book. The boys are shown picking pockets, Fagin being a fence, Sikes being a murderer, and yet Nancy’s purported profession is never shown or stated within the book.

Seems more than a little odd, doesn’t it?

The answer finally came from The London Underworld in the Victorian Period – a selection of contemporary writings on crime in Victorian times. And there it is on page 83, at the end of the section on prostitutes.

“The last head in our classification is ‘Cohabitant prostitutes’.”

The book then goes on to define a cohabitant prostitute. It’s someone who moves in with a man without being married to them. Someone who has sex before marriage – and continues to do so. A kept woman, as the old phrase has it.

As Nancy is.

Proof? Fagin visits her in Bill Sikes’ apartment. Where she lives.

A thief, yes. But not a prostitute in the way we would use the word. Nancy is just a woman who lives with her boyfriend, and is supported by him.

And is deeply, tragically, fatally in love.

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Resolute

A lot of people are using the start of the new year to set goals for themselves. Many are publishing these goals on their blogs.

This is fine and good. Stating a goal publicly gives you a real incentive to finish.

But there’s a worrying trend I’ve noticed in a lot of these goals. I’ll throw a couple of common examples at you.

Goal for 2010: Get an agent.
Goal for 2010: Get a radio commission.

The problem with these goals is this: They are not under your control.

You could be a bloody brilliant writer, with a fantastic script: but if the agent’s books are full that year, or if Radio 4 has already commissioned a play on the same subject matter, you’re going to be shit out of luck. And you’ll spend the year striving and striving, and next year you’ll be sad when you haven’t achieved a goal the success or failure of which had not a damn thing to do with you.

Instead, if you’re setting goals for yourself, choose something that is in your power to make happen or not. F’rexample…

Goal for 2010: Write three scripts this year.
Goal for 2010: Direct a short film.
Goal for 2010: Go on a writing course.
Goal for 2010: Trade notes with other writers to get better.

Or for the two goals we started with, rephrase them so that the thing you promise to do in 2010 is in your control, not someone else’s.

Goal for 2010: Send every script I finish this year to at least ten agents.
Goal for 2010: Pitch potential radio plays to at least ten producers before each offers round.

Because those actions are exactly what you’d need to do in order to get an agent or get a commission anyway.

The difference is this: You’re in control of whether or not you achieve them.

There’s no-one to blame or praise but yourself. And there’s no way, at the end of the year, that your sense of achievement will be dependent on whether or not someone else has a bad day.

And maybe you will get that commission, or that agent. That’d be a nice bonus. But that’s what it is: a bonus.

If you’re setting goals, make them something that you have control over.

Don’t put your happiness in the hands of someone you don’t know.

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Selling the Sizzle

The above is the sizzle reel for a new SF show called Slingers produced by sleepydog. Looks interesting, no? Lovely sexy Rat Pack vibe, a nice look-and-feel, enough obvious pros to feel comfortable with the people behind it, and enough meat on the bones for me to think it has legs.

OK, going a bit biological on the metaphor at the end there.

I’ve not heard the term sizzle reel before, but it’s a great phrase. Something to make you salivate, to look forward to the main event.

Problems with a sizzle reel? If it’s released too early market anticipation (ie us wanting to watch it) might drop off. In which case when it does come out then it’ll be “Slingers? Old news. Didn’t we see that last year?”

So there needs to be a careful drip-feed of information after one of these comes out. Not too little, so that we still know it’s a go project. Not too much, so that we feel like we’ve seen it all already. Look to Doctor Who over the last few years to see how good management of information can really help a show.

You can find more detail about Slingers on writer Mike Sizemore’s blog, including some yummy-looking concept art, and promises of more goodies to come. So it looks like that’s been thought of too.

They’re looking to shoot the full pilot (90 minutes) in 2010.

And I’m already hungry.

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Buy now, while stocks last!

So I’ve adapted Dickens again.

This year’s Christmas show at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town is Oliver Twist.

Already, more tickets have been sold before opening night than for any other show since Giant Olive moved in a year ago. And there’s still a fortnight before the show goes up.

There’s a great cast, including Eddie Kingham (who starred as Scrooge in last year’s production of A Christmas Carol) as Fagin, and I can tell you now that man is doing sterling work. Watch him before he gets famous. And Ray Shell is again working wonders with the directing.

Also? Wipe the memory of the musical from your heads. This is going back to the raw source material, and it can be a dark and nasty place.

Previews start on Monday 30th November at eight of your earth pounds, going up to twelve quid a couple of days later, and tickets are on sale now.

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Girl Number 9

I didn’t want to blog about these episodes until I’d seen them and could truthfully say “Yes, I recommend this.”

Yes, I recommend this.

Girl Number 9 is an original drama made for the web by Television’s James Moran and Dan Turner of Splendid infamy.

Each of the six episodes is about five minutes long (not exactly, though, and not all the same length – we don’t have to worry about hitting timeslots on the web), and shot using professional kit and crew with strong, well-known talent in the three lead roles.

(That would be Tracy-Ann Oberman, Joe Absolom, and Gareth David-Lloyd then.)

Over the last week, they’ve been releasing an episode a day onto the Internets, and you can watch all six episodes – at least until the end of November – online. After that, in order to view them we’re talking a nice shiny DVD with oodles of bonus material. And there may also be pay-to-watch online or sponsored viewings.

Shall we call it the Horrible Model? It has a certain ring to it, and this way of monetising new drama may well be something that we see more of over the next few years.

So, most importantly, what’s the series like?

Dark. Darker than you expect. And then a bit darker than that, too.

And also, very very good.

Watch all six episodes for free while you can at at www.canyousaveher.com.

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Enter. Enter. Zero. Stop.

Hoorah!

I’m happy to be able (at last) to officially say that I’m one of the writers on 0110: Twisted Tales & Glorious.

It’s a new series that’s inspired by and touching the disturbing, the odd, and the strange. And it has a unique, fractal production, with individual short tales twisted together in many different ways.

The writing starts in the next few weeks, and the pilot will be filmed in early 2010. We’ll be keeping you informed of the process over on the 0110 website and, of course, on this here blog.

A new writer is being revealed each day this week, and announced so far have been Laurence Timms, Helen Smith, and Michelle Lipton.

I’d tell you who the others were, but then I’d have to kill me. You can find out the names of the other two writers tomorrow and Saturday as they’re revealed on producer Lara Greenway’s blog and the 0110 website.

There are some seriously talented people on board this project.

It’s going to be a blast.