Friday 23rd August 2013

Last night, went to an event called The Space in Brighton. This is a semi-regular event in which various industry types (usually two per evening) have an informal chat in what's usually quite intimate surroundings. It's always a good night, even if (sometimes, especially if) you haven't heard of one of the guests. I try to get along to it whenever I can (and fancy myself as a possible interviewer - not quite as overbearing as James Lipton of Inside The Actors Studio). At previous events, guests have included Mark Gatiss, Frank Skinner and Barry Norman, as well as many more. 

Last night, the first guest was Dennis Kelly, writer of Utopia, Pulling (along with Sharon Horgan) and the musical of Roald Dahl's Matilda (with Tim Minchin). Somehow, I've managed not to see any of his work, despite all things being on my to-see list for quite some time. Because I've never followed him as a writer, it was somewhat startling to see these apparently diverse things being created by the same person. I'm sure there are probably connecting themes if you look hard enough for them (good people can be dicks, for instance), but I imagine that there's not a stand-out text that you could point to and say that's a Dennis Kelly story. This was spoken about in a roundabout way as part of the interview when he spoke about not 'having a voice'. Many writers, at the start of their career, are advised to 'find their voice'. It makes some kind of sense. If nobody knows who you are, then if you want to get your next gig, then there's a certain logic in being easily identifiable to whoever it is that might give you your next pay cheque - 'oh, let's get the guy who does the Richard Curtis style rom coms .. who is that? Oh, it's Richard Curtis,' Kelly rails against that, and quite aggressively so. I can get on board with that idea. A 'voice', surely, runs the risk of being restrictive, of suggesting that you can 'only' write a certain type of story. Stephen King speaks of the warning that his agent delivered to him when he offered up Salems Lot for publication (the second book after Carrie) - the very real danger that with two bloody books in a row, he was going to be forever pigeon-holed as a horror writer. He decided that he was OK with that (and his success has meant that he's managed to smuggle a decent amount of very good books in under the radar that can truly be described as 'horror', even if they are still a bit bloody). I wondered if that's somewhat the case with Kelly. Although what he's written has been very successful (even if hardly anyone actually saw Pulling, it's highly regarded by those that did), his name isn't really on the public's radar yet, which means that he's allowed to follow the story, whatever story interests him, even if it bears no relation to what he's produced before. A certain amount of anonymity can be a blessing. I remember the creators of The Blair Witch Project being asked what their next film was going to be (this at the height of Blair Witch's success). They replied, in all seriousness, a romantic comedy. As far as I'm aware, that film never surfaced. 

The second guest of The Space was Phillip Hinchcliffe, who has had a wide and varied career, bringing many interesting and sometimes even risky projects to the screen ... but will always be remembered as a producer for Doctor Who. It helps that the era that he oversaw was just about the most successful in the show's history. Russell T Davies credits the Hinchcliffe era with igniting his passion for wanting to revive the show, even going so far as to say that the only reason he started writing for television in the first place was so that he could revive Doctor Who- and, in turn, the only reason he wanted to was because of his memory of the stories that were produced by Hinchcliffe. It's true that there's a very impressive wealth of stories under his tenure that are genuine classics that more than stand up today, and would be good gateway drugs for anyone who hasn't yet seen an episode of the original series, among them Genisis Of The Daleks, Terror Of The Zygons, Planet Of Evil, Pyramids Of Mars, Brain Of Morbius, Seeds Of Doom, and The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. 

Hinchcliffe comes across as a gracious and generous person, very often deflecting praise to others, (particularly Robert Holmes, who does indeed deserve much praise), but I get the impression that as a producer he didn't suffer fools gladly, and that he was straight-arrowed and focused. That certainly comes across in the stories of his era. While he didn't write or direct them, and is quick to bestow the praise for the 'Gothic' shades of those years back to Holmes, there's a focus there that is absent in the latter Pertwee years, and wobbles a great deal in the Tom Baker era after Hinchcliffe leaves. Indeed, most of the 'pantomime' criticism that is delivered at classic Doctor Who really begins as soon as he's left. We spoke about this, about the idea that a producer of a show can have 'authorship' on a programme, even more so than the director or even, ironically, the author. In many ways, it's directly opposite to the avoiding 'finding a voice' that Dennis Kelly was speaking about earlier in the evening. 

It's quite clear that, for better or worse, Doctor Who was essentially 'just another job' to Hinchcliffe. That's understandable: with genre TV or film, the story on screen is almost always going to be a helluva lot more important to the viewers than those who made it - they've already made the next three jobs, after all - but it always makes me curious and even uneasy at events like this. I imagine fan conventions are even worse. Exactly how many times can you answer the same question about bubblewrap monsters? Can you really relate to men in their forties who probably have an unhealthy fixation with Sophie Aldred, and are dismayed when you acknowledge that you don't actually know who Sophie Aldred is? Plus, you get people like me who are fans, but try to act casual about it, and absolutely refuse to ask questions about bubble wrap - which, I suspect, is equally annoying. 

Both men were inspiring, full of energy, intelligence and verve (and Kelly said 'fuck' an impressive amount). As a writer, though, it's always worth keeping in mind what other (successful) writers speak about when they are talking about what works, and what doesn't. It's always in slightly different words, it's sometimes eloquent, it's sometimes basic, but it's essentially the same message, a thousand times over. The only way to write is to get your arse on that chair - and write.