TV blog Feed

Spiral: Showrunner Anne Landois answers your questions

2015-02-14T15:58:13+00:00

This post is for people who have seen the last episode of series five of Spiral. Watch the double bill finale first to avoid spoilers!

After losing Pierre Clement midway through the series it was hard to imagine where the inscrutable Josephine Karlsson, our tenacious Captain Berthaud and Judge Roban would end up. The gripping double bill finale of series five left us reeling once again but luckily Anne Landois, writer and the showrunner of Spiral, joined us from France to answer your questions afterwards.

Here is a taster of some of your questions and Anne's replies. To read the rest of Anne's replies please see the Editors' Picks below.

MoXYZ (#137) asks: "It seems that as Laure becomes more and more vulnerable, Josephine becomes darker and darker. Do you consciously create this contrast or has it simply grown with each wonderful series?"

Anne replies:

Barbara Murray (#328) asks: "It's a brilliant series, but so sad at the end. No hope of some happiness?"

Anne replies:

Joyce (#36) asks: "I thought the father of the baby had been killed in the bomb explosion. Who's the man Gilout phoned? Is it Laure's ex-boyfriend? Is he the real father? Where's he been all these weeks?"

Anne replies:

Thank you to everyone who joined us. The Q&A with Anne is now over but you can still comment below.

Spiral is on Saturday, 14 February at 9pm on BBC Four and BBC Four HD. The series five double bill finale is available to watch on BBC iPlayer until 9.45pm on Monday, 16 March.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Apprentice: Four cringey lessons in business

2014-10-13T06:59:28+00:00

When Lord Sugar first exercised his dreaded index finger in The Apprentice on 16 February 2005, Daniel Bedingfield was heading into the top 20, Grange Hill was still on TV, London was bidding to host the Olympics and Lord Sugar was plain old Sir Alan.

Lord Sugar, flanked by his aides for the first five series, Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer

Music tastes and news stories may come and go.

But year after year, Britain seems to produce a crop of razor-sharp business minds bursting with more entrepreneurial talent than the last, able to give of themselves hundreds more percent than mathematicians ever thought possible.

Not all of us can be blessed with such ability – but we can all learn lessons from the candidates’ insightful strategies. No doubt you’ve got your own favourite moments – here are four of ours!

1. Don’t take no for an answer

Selling ice cream to Eskimos, yes. Coal to Newcastle, perhaps.

But there’s a reason why 'selling spades and shower heads to Debenhams' hasn’t made it into the business dictionary.

It certainly wasn’t for the want of trying.

As the candidates dragged their bathroom appliances, garden tools and a large container of soil through spotless aisles of beauty products, none of them seemed concerned by the mismatch.

'You could always expand your homeware store...?'

2. Set a competitive price (and then increase it)

You’ve heard of Price Drop TV. This is Price Rise TV. It’s certainly an unusual approach for a TV shopping channel task.

Yasmina Siadatan and James McQuillan are not entirely sure of the prices of the products they’re trying to sell - but their on-screen double act is priceless.

Yasmina and James present on TV, while teammate Debra Barr directs

3. Make your sales pitches memorable

Company director Alex Mills from Cardiff didn’t get to be a project manager until the ninth task - when he was promptly fired.

Asked to come up with a type of ready meal, his team delivered a brand with a horror theme, which got a cool reception from mums in market research ("I as a parent tend not to buy anything with skulls").

But it was Alex’s contribution to a pitch aimed at supermarket buyers that was the real horror story:

Alex was fiercely proud of both his Welsh heritage and his impressively shaped eyebrows

4. Take an aggressive approach

Organising a team-building away day offered our candidates a unique showcase for their skills, and boy did they make the most of it.

Displaying the impeccable judgment that would lead to her being 'hired' by Lord Sugar, Leah Totton dressed up in a kitsch army uniform, and treated the pinstriped staff of a large corporate bank to a display of sumo wrestling.

Leah ordered Neil and Myles not to properly wrestle in the sumo suits, merely to touch each other

A dignified end, there, to our little collection of awkward Apprentice moments.

Over to you. What were your favourite lessons from the last few years? Let us know in the comments!

Ten Years of The Apprentice is on Monday, 13 October at 10.35pm on BBC One and BBC One HD, 11.05pm on BBC One Wales, and 11.15pm on BBC One NI. For further programme times, please see the upcoming broadcasts page.

Series 10 of The Apprentice begins at 9pm on Tuesday, 14 October, and continues on Wednesday, 15 October on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

More on The Apprentice
BBC One: The Apprentice: Meet the Candidates
BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat: Six memorable moments of The Apprentice as it turns 10

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Bad Education: I'm not leaving Mitchell behind

2014-09-23T19:15:09+00:00

Having played many young reprobates I can safely say that Mitchell is the most exciting and shocking.

His constant abuse means I get to insult Jack Whitehall and the other cast members on a daily basis!

Alfie Wickers (Jack Whitehall) attempts to control his class with Game of Thrones

Jack and I work very hard coming up with original schoolboy insults between takes, such as "Topshop Peter Sutcliffe" so the day never gets boring.

However the insults get more immature and near the mark as the shoot goes on (which is Bad Education all over to be honest).

I think each series got funnier and funnier as they went on and I think this is because Jack and co-writer Freddy Syborn attempted to see how far they could push the jokes, situations and characters.

I most certainly heightened Mitchell and made him even more outrageous and disturbed as the series progressed and all the other actors found character traits that they could play on more and more.

I remember one Saturday on set, standing on a roof top holding a dead pig, throwing it down at Jack and shouting "Eat pig -----!"

Just after this I turned to Kae Alexander (who plays Jing) and said ”What a strange way to spend our weekend.”

It then dawned on us that this is actually our career and we get paid to throw hog roasts at people.

Working on Bad Education, you get to do things that you wouldn't get to do on any other job!

It’s not all fun and games though... one day on series two I had to stare at a naked Jack Whitehall.

'Chlorine is my kryptonite' - Alfie Wickers (Jack Whitehall)

He had a revolting wig on with horrendous prosthetics and only a swimming float to cover his modesty.

This went on for a good hour after lunch I nearly brought up my chilli con carne. Wasn't the nicest day.

However afterwards I got to get intimate with a CPR lifeguard training dummy so it wasn't all bad news. I really do have a strange job.

I will miss the cast, the crew and obviously playing Mitchell. I don't think I will ever get to work on a show like Bad Education again.

From the second I stepped on set to the second I wrapped I don't ever remember not laughing.

Mitchell says his emotional farewell to the class

Whether I was laughing about the script or the gags or whether I was just laughing at a member of the cast or crew pratting about, I didn’t stop chuckling from start to finish (most of the time it was during a take).

I’ve also never worked on a show where I've had so much input with lines and ideas.

I'm going to miss working on a job where we start on a scene and it is completely different by the end of it, where we have just tweaked and changed so much in the script to make it even more mental and outrageous.

I'll miss Bad Education however I’ll always be as rude and immature as Mitchell so I don't have to leave him behind!

Charlie Wernham plays Mitchell in Bad Education.

Bad Education continues on Tuesday, 30 October at 10pm on BBC Three and BBC Three HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on Bad Education
BBC Three: Read Mitchell's report card
BBC TV blog: Bad Education: Giving Alfie our worst characteristics
BBC Three: Bad Education: Meet the characters

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Great British Bake Off: The rocky road to the quarter-finals

2014-09-17T17:56:09+00:00

Attention: This post contains spoilers and is intended for viewers who have already seen episode seven, Pastry, of The Great British Bake Off.

The final five bakers are gearing up for Advanced Dough week and while we’ve seen some outstanding original creations, it hasn’t been easy baking the whole way.

With 21 challenges behind them it’s not hard to lose track of all the signatures, technicals and showstoppers, so we decided to take a look at the bakes that have earned Chetna, Luis, Martha, Nancy and Richard a place in the quarter-finals:

Chetna

Dubbed the Flavour Queen by Paul Hollywood, Chetna has consistently delivered tasty bakes from the start, including tiered Victoria sponges (which Paul thought were too tall) and a cardamom, pistachio and coffee Swiss roll:

Her flavourful bakes also include aromatic fenugreek and carom crackers, crispy lentil kachoris with a “staggering” amount of spices according to Paul, lemon meringue eclairs and chocolate eclairs with mango and praline.

The only bake Chetna seems to have missed on the flavours was during Pies and Tarts week with her rice custard tart with mangoes and raspberries:

Even when her onion and pine nut rolls came out flat Paul thought they were “absolutely delicious” and when her baked Alaska melted, Mary Berry assured her that “the fact that it looks a bit messy, I forget about that. It just is stunning when you eat it.”

Chetna finally won star baker for European Cakes week when she came second place in Mary's Swedish prinsesstarta technical challenge, and decorated an impressive caramel-covered almond liqueur dobos torte with spheres made from dipping grapes in caramel. These left quite an impression on Mary who seems sure that “everybody will be copying that!”

Luis

A graphic designer by trade, all of Luis’ bakes have demonstrated meticulous military precision, from his George versus the Dragon biscuits that married flavour with theme so well that Paul “ran out of superlatives”:

To his apple and cinnamon kugelhopf:

Although Luis' presentation is consistently praised by Paul and Mary as spectacular, stunning and amazing, sometimes the flavours don’t quite come together.

For the European Cakes week, his beautiful monumental caramel work ultimately left Mary feeling it was “far too sweet” and Paul adding that “it’s quite washy with the flavour”:

While Mary and Paul disagreed on whether the flavours worked in Luis' roscon de reyes, a beautifully decorated showstopper centrepiece loaf, he still won star baker in Bread week:

And he’s back on track, with Paul declaring Luis had “nailed it on all counts” with the clean lines and different flavours in his stars and stripes eclairs:

Martha

At 17 Martha is the youngest baker to be in the tent and the only quarter-finalist not to have won star baker yet, but she has won the technical challenges for mini pear pies and tiramisu.

She has produced innovative bakes including adding paprika to her pie pastry and a goat’s cheese-filled twist on a classic sandwich biscuit:

And made snow from marshmallows for her charming 3D ski village scene:

She also baked a stuffed sunflower loaf with cheese that Mel Giedroyc could hear bubbling away:

But challenging recipes also can make for some less successful outcomes. Paul and Mary weren’t fans of the look or the flavour of Martha’s maple syrup and bacon eclairs:

Nancy

Even though she forgot Paul’s name and called him “the male judge” Nancy has been one to watch out for since the beginning, winning both star baker and the technical challenge in the first week for an “absolutely perfect” cherry cake and her Jaffa orange cakes that looked identical:

Nancy also produced a stunning baked Alaska for her showstopper:

And earned extra brownie points for her hand-raised trio of apple pies:

Not every bake has been flawless though. Her signature rum punch savarin with coconut cream and tropical fruits was overproved, leaving a crease:

But Paul and Mary still thought the flavours were fantastic and since then Nancy's baked a showstopper dobbos torte, the first savoury eclairs we’ve ever seen, as well as a technically perfect Swedish prinsesstarta:

Richard

Richard has won star baker a record-breaking three times, coming first in the technical challenges for two of those weeks with his pencil behind his ear at every bake.

His florentines with the perfect zigzag and biscuit showstopper Pirates! gingerbread boat and peanut butter island won over the judges in Biscuits week:

The previously unknown Breton kouign amann technical challenge that baffled all the bakers, along with his eclair stairs and these signature minted lamb pasties earned Richard star baker for Pastry week:

He also won during Desserts week, being the only baker to deliver a truly saucy signature pudding that both judges enjoyed without quibble, and which Paul proclaimed as “complicated but exceptionally baked”:

But even Richard has a few wobbles now and again, often having a tougher time in the week after being star baker. The curse of the star baker might explain why he came last on this pear-shaped challenge...

What were some of your favourite bakes from the quarter-finalists?

More on The Great British Bake Off
BBC One: The Great British Bake Off: Meet the judges and presenters
BBC Two: The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice

Discover more bakes with BBC Food
Episode One: Cake recipes
Episode Two: Biscuits recipes
Episode Three: Bread recipes
Episode Four: Desserts recipes
Episode Five: Pies and Tarts recipes
Episode Six: European Cakes recipes

The Great British Bake Off continues on Wednesday, 24 September at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

21 Up New Generation: It's like my extended family

2014-08-28T12:11:12+00:00

I am the series producer of 21 Up New Generation, the third instalment of the new series of the famous documentary series Seven Up!, which began in 1964, and has filmed with the same group of contributors every seven years since.

At the turn of the millennium, the BBC asked us to make 7Up 2000 to follow in Seven Up’s footsteps, with a new generation of children, all turning seven in the year 2000.

The director Julian Farino and I met thousands of children from different social, ethnic and economic backgrounds living all over the UK and chose a group of them to film with.

Melanie Archer with contributor Asif and director Julian Farino

The idea was to revisit them with the same production team, to take a snapshot of their lives every seven years.

Here we are already 14 years later. Things have changed so much since we started.

When we made 7Up 2000, I was 26 years old, and had no idea about children, let alone how to interview them.

When one boy, Talan, explained to me how we’re all connected in the great circle of life, I thought he was incredibly profound.

Fourteen years and three kids later, I realise he was just quoting from The Lion King.

Talan: 'Anyone who has seen any of the previous programmes knows I was a slightly quirky child.'

I was a researcher on the original series when the people involved reached the age of 42, so at least I had a bit of a clue what to expect.

I’d seen for myself the unique and intense relationship that had built up over many years between the producer, director, contributors and crew.

But one of the things that struck me was that maybe things change less dramatically in the middle period of our lives, and the contributors were sometimes worried about not having that much to report for their last seven years.

One contributor remarked to me that in the week before filming she had thought, "Maybe I should do a sky dive or something, just so that I'd have something more interesting to say."

Life just goes on. With our contributors, the differences between 7, 14 and 21 are huge obviously, but those will slow as they settle into jobs, marriage, and parenthood.

We first met Ryan, now a sports studies student, at his friend Gemma's birthday party in Bolton

The contributors to the original series were arguably the first famous 'ordinary' people.

Well before anyone had even dreamt up the concept of reality TV, they were recognised in the street, and had their lives commented on by the newspapers.

It came as a shock to them.

The New Generation contributors are in the main naturally much more comfortable with the idea of sharing their image and their lives.

Some blog themselves, and all regularly use social media.

But it is different choosing to be a part of our series, having to answer our questions, and being asked to analyse and contextualise their lives.

They are opening themselves up to comment and judgement by millions, and they do so because of their trust in and relationship with us as filmmakers.

Although it sounds cheesy, this is the thing I am most proud of in my career.

Courtney was fascinated by foreign lands in 2000, and now speaks several languages

We do keep in touch, but it’s not a reality show, and we don’t hang around for ages, or invade with cameras in between the seven year gaps.

Of course that means we miss loads of really interesting stuff, but the idea is that they’ll talk to us about what’s happened to them when we do come round again.

Basically it’s up to us to try to honestly and intimately capture the essence of their lives - even though we only get to film for a couple of days with each person, once every seven years.

Not a small deal.

It’s a strange experience being involved in such a long-term project.

When we were filming this time round, we went to a nightclub with Sanchez where he introduced me to one of his best mates as his "second mum".

Sanchez: 'My family are my rock. They're there for me and I can't wait to repay the favour'

I didn’t know whether to be flattered or appalled because of course I like to think I’m still the same age as when I started.

But he’s really close to his mum, and she’s pretty much the same age as me, so I’m genuinely touched that he feels that way.

I think it explains a lot about what it’s like to be the producer of this series because of course I am getting older at the same rate as the contributors and growing closer to them with every instalment, so each time it matters even more that we do it right.

It is like having an extended family, except I actually chose this one.

Melanie Archer is the series producer of 21 Up New Generation.
21 Up New Generation is on Monday, 1 September at 10.35pm on BBC One and BBC One HD, and 11.35pm on BBC One NI. For further programmes times please see the episode guide.

More on 21 Up New Generation
BBC One: Up New Generation: Director Julian Farino on making a portrait of Britain today
BBC One: Up New Generation: Gallery of the participants aged 14
BBC One: Up New Generation: Read profiles of the participants as 21 year olds
BBC Media Centre: 21 Up New Generation: Latest instalment of documentary series

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Talk To The Animals: Witnessing a chimp apology

2014-07-15T07:15:12+00:00

Presenter and zoologist Lucy Cooke meets a few engaging animal conversationalists while filming BBC One's Talk To The Animals.

Lucy Cooke tries to understand the banded mongoose squeaks that scientists have decoded

In addition to being hugely chatty creatures, scent also plays a key role in mongoose life. It actually allows them to identify each other.

They live in tight gangs - extended family units with distinct boundaries between rival territories.

One of the experiments that didn’t make it into the show tested the importance of scent in maintaining these boundaries and involved me standing in a mongoose latrine in the fierce midday sun collecting a bucket of fresh poop.

After a few minutes the mongooses themselves turned up en masse catching me red handed with a scoop of their poop in my hand.

They all stood up and looked at me as if I was nuts. Which was fair enough, I felt decidedly awkward being busted for such a peculiar theft.

I took the mongoose poo and dumped it in the middle of their neighbours’ territory.

The result was a frenzy of sniffing and chattering that suggested that scent is clearly very important for communicating an enemy invasion.

I discovered that the clans have a distinct scent which allows them to work out who is in their gang and who isn’t.

A chimp dictionary: Lucy discovers saying sorry isn't so different in chimp

Ever since I was a kid and watched David Attenborough roll around with gorillas in Life On Earth I have longed to interact with wild apes.

So when I heard we would be visiting wild chimpanzees I was thrilled at the chance to connect with our closest animal relative.

But Dr Cat Hobaiter’s approach is different to past research into chimp communication in that she has a strict observational policy with no interaction allowed.

She wants to document their pure behaviour, uninfluenced by humans.

In the presence of the chimps we had to be careful not to catch their eye and if we did we had to quickly look away and feign interest in a leaf.

We also had to be careful not to point at the chimps or wave our hands while communicating with the crew.

Our gestures are too similar and could mean something to them. I thought this would be difficult. And I was right, it was.

I also thought I would be disappointed not to communicate with the chimps directly. But I was very wrong.

The privilege of observing their intimate conversations right in front of us, as if we weren’t there, was more profound and moving than I could ever have imagined.

Lucy finds chatting up fireflies takes serious commitment

We filmed fireflies on a steamy, stormy summer night in a field in Massachusetts where the Americans allegedly began their battle for independence.

It was the eve of the Fourth of July and our British crew were also under attack, from American mosquitoes, which were the most vicious I have ever known.

I had to hide in the van with a net on my head between shots and the poor sound man was so savaged he looked like he had chicken pox.

But we battled on with the filming. And much to my delight I managed to chat up a firefly.

Lucy Cooke presents Talk To The Animals.

Talk To The Animals is on at 8pm on Wednesday, 16 July and Thursday, 17 July on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme time please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Honourable Woman: Dramatic blood-soaked scenes

2014-07-14T10:45:32+00:00

ATTENTION: This post contains spoilers and is intended for viewers who have already seen episode two of The Honourable Woman.

The Honourable Woman is an epic eight-part BBC Two drama starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as powerful businesswoman and philanthropist Nessa Stein, daughter of the late Israeli arms procurer Eli Stein. Newly enobled into the House of Lords, she is rocked by the mysterious death of a business contact and a kidnapping.

My role for The Honourable Woman was as special effects supervisor.

I work as a supervisor for live action special effects, this means that we provide all the special effects that are actually shot at the time the scenes are acted out and filmed with the camera, as opposed to generating and compositing stunts and effects with a computer.

The benefit of live action special effects for the actors and the director is that they have something to interact with when playing out scenes.

One of the effects I was asked to provide was for the scene where Ephra Stein (Andrew Buchan) and his wife Rachel Stein (Katherine Parkinson) are at a gala function and a protestor smashes a bag on the table covering them in fake blood.

The requirements were for a vessel containing a good amount of theatrical blood that was strong enough to carry the liquid yet would break easily in every direction to the splatter the blood on to the bystanders.

A protester enters the gala dinner, holding the wax vessel containing fake blood

It was decided that we would make vessels the size of a flattened grapefruit out of wax and fill them with blood.

The properties of wax enable the vessel to hold the liquid yet break and shatter easily while creating no hazard to the actors.

The wax itself was coloured a blood colour. After filling, the vessel was sealed with wax.

Rachel Stein (Katherine Parkinson) and Ephra Stein (Andrew Buchan) are ambushed

Tests were carried out on special effects technicians who are used to being guinea pigs for all sorts of tests that might include bullet hits, throat cutting rigs, hanging rigs, immersion in fake oil, or having a lit light bulb smashed in the face.

The tests help us make any adjustments that are needed to enhance the effect, or make it more actor friendly (if they are using the prop), or to make the effect safer should it be a higher risk effect.

Rachel Stein returns home after a traumatic luncheon

We provided six wax vessels for this scene. However with this type of effect, the production would hope to get the shot first time as there is a lot of clearing up to do and costume changes involved for a second take.

Occasionally the crew may have to go again if there is a camera or lighting problem, or if the lines were not quite right.

Luckily we shot this effect in one take I believe.

Ed Smith is the live action special effects supervisor of Colin Gorry Effects, the company which produced the special effects on The Honourable Woman.

The Honourable Woman continues on Thursday, 17 July at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programmes times please see the episode guide.

More on The Honourable Woman
BBC Two: The Honourable Woman: Take a closer look
BBC Media Centre: The Honourable Woman
BBC Writersroom: Q&A with Hugo Blick and script from episode one
The Guardian: The Honourable Woman Recap: Episode two - The Unfaithful Husband
The Telegraph: Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Honourable Woman: Now the biggest pictures are on the box

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

From There To Here: Recreating an iconic era

2014-05-22T08:36:01+00:00

To be sent a script from Pete Bowker for the BBC One series From There To Here and be asked to read it is a very exciting prospect.

To then open it and immediately have a personal connection to the events was unbelievable.

In 1996 I was living in Manchester training as a director with Granada TV and was walking towards the Arndale Centre when the IRA bomb went off.

Watch the trail: 'Ever since the Arndale bomb it feels like one life isn't enough'

I vividly remember suddenly being knocked off my feet, staring up at a beautiful blue sky and the complete silence all around, immediately followed by a wall of sirens, alarms and chaos in the immediate aftermath.

Having lived in the Manchester of the mid-90s I really wanted to accurately capture the feel of the period: the clothes, the fashion and most importantly the music.

This is recent history so although initially one assumes not much has changed, our production team quickly realised everything had moved on.

The cars, the clothes, the phones and the fashion were all of their era - so extensive research into the footage and photos of the time all fed into our recreation.

Euro 96: The legendary football match between England and Germany

Manchester's music scene was iconic so our soundtrack took on huge importance.

But I didn't want just a simple greatest hits parade, the music had to support and expand the narrative.

Our musical supervision was done by DJ Rob da Bank whose forensic musical knowledge allowed us to dig a little deeper and unearth those gems that were both iconic but had impact beyond simple nostalgia.

We also used the brilliant current Manchester band I Am Kloot to give us an authentic and yet determinedly Mancunian score.

From There to Here is about a family, but it is also the story of a city and a country during a time of great change.

The effects of which are explored through our fictional families. I wanted an ensemble who you believed were two real families.

We were incredibly fortunate to get (among others) Philip Glenister, Steven Mackintosh, Bernard Hill, Saskia Reeves and Liz White, who all threw themselves completely into the project.

In many ways their story mirrors the effect of New Labour over a few key years.

Election 1997: Louise (Morven Christie) waits for the results with the family

From the desire for change before Blair’s election, the euphoria of his first moments in power and how this begins to wane as things like the credit crunch raise their head.

The genius of Pete's scripts is that these themes are examined in such a personal and emotional way.

You realise how much we are all part of a larger world.

I'm very proud of the series and feel very privileged to have been trusted with Pete's brilliant words.

It's a weird feeling to look back to that moment lying on the pavement looking at a clear blue sky, and think it'd still be so relevant to my life 18 years later.

James Strong is the director of From There To Here.

From There To Here is on Thursday, 22 May at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on From There To Here
BBC Four: A Writer's Journey From There To Here
BBC News: TV drama From There To Here revisits 'optimism' of 1996
The Telegraph: From There To Here: how the IRA bomb changed Mancunians forever
BBC Media Centre: From There To Here: Watch interviews writer Peter Bowker and the cast
BBC Writersroom blog: Peter Bowker: Writing 'A love letter to Manchester'

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Jamaica Inn: Seeing sense in Aunt Patience's madness

2014-04-17T13:53:25+00:00

Joanne Whalley plays Aunt Patience who is living with her husband Joss Merlyn (Sean Harris), the landlord of Jamaica Inn, when she is visited by her niece Mary Yellan (Jessica Brown Findlay). She spoke to the BBC TV blog about BBC One’s adaption of Daphne du Maurier’s best-selling gothic novel.

Mary Yellan (Jessica Brown Findlay) arrives looking for her Aunt Patience (Joanne Whalley)

What were your first impressions of the adaptation?
When I read the scripts I got really excited because I thought Emma Frost had brought a really modern take on Jamaica Inn without changing anything.

I read the book years ago and I’ve always had a lovely edition of it on a book tower by my bed. She illuminated it in a contemporary way that I latched on to.

Can you tell us a bit about your character Aunt Patience?
It’s a great love story but she is very damaged by it and she has this unconditional blind love that motivates her.

She has put her lot in with Joss and is going to see it through all the way. I loved her commitment and I found her moving.

I love how she changes and I love that sometimes she’s terrible. But then I understand why she’s awful sometimes.

You would go a bit crazy stuck out there by yourself with a gang of wreckers.

'A lonely spot like this, we could be murdered in our beds'

I’m sure she imagined a different life for herself at one point and you see what time and this love has done to her.

How was she different from the character in the novel?
I don’t think anything changed. My memory of the novel was that Patience was crazy and I guess you would call her abused, mad, but really there is a sense in her madness in how Emma wrote the script working from the book.

She brought out the understanding that we all have now: abuse can be a cycle that you can’t break easily.

That’s why women find it difficult to leave abusive husbands sometimes.

It’s never that simple when huge emotional dependency is involved, or what we call love.

I was able to identify with Patience, who was made accessible in a modern way without sacrificing the period, because of how she was given that dimension in the writing.

'Don't you give me judgement for something you don't understand' - Aunt Patience

What was it like working with the director?
Anyone who reads a book can see things completely differently and have a different take on a character according to their own life experience and their world view at that given moment.

It’s always interesting to hear people’s perceptions of the same material.

I really liked what Philippa Lowthorpe was saying about the story and the character and how she talked about it visually.

How did the location influence filming?
Julian Court, the director of photography, did a spectacular job with the tones and the textures and the bleakness.

It is like another character: you feel the setting and the environment.

We react to our environments, unconsciously and consciously, and we are affected by our surroundings.

It affects your mood and your perception of your life and relationships.

You feel the mood that enhances and pushes them all deeper into the impossible situation they are in.

Joanne Whalley plays Aunt Patience in Jamaica Inn.

Jamaica Inn starts on Monday, 21 April at 9pm BBC One and BBC One HD. The series continues at the same time on Tuesday, 22 April and Wednesday, 23 April. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More On Jamaica Inn
BBC: Jamaica Inn: Meet the characters
BBC Media Centre: Read interviews with Jessica Brown Findlay, Matthew McNulty, Emma Frost and Phillippa Lowthorpe
Radio Times: Radio Times discovers the real Jamaica Inn
The Telegraph: Jessica Brown Findlay interview

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Crimson Field: Recreating a WW1 army hospital

2014-04-11T14:52:09+00:00

As the production designer my job on The Crimson Field was to design the set: choosing the ideal location, deciding on the layout, designing all the different areas and selecting the style and decoration.

I researched historical photographs and paintings found from the Imperial War Museum archives, which was important early on as they communicated the atmosphere and look of the production.

I presented my design ideas to the producers in the form of mood boards, drawings, scale models and plans.

My whole team then worked closely together to achieve the ambition of the production.

Early base camp layout plans: the pharmacy set across the square from the quartermaster's store

Once the plans were finalised, I drew a 3D sketch of the whole site to bring it to life

My pharmacy design sketch detailing how the interior of the pharmacy would look

The construction of the pharmacy took three weeks, including painting the buildings

The dressing plan detailed the location of the large furniture in the pharmacy

Ready for filming: it took a week to fully stock the pharmacy with medical props

Marianne Oldham as Rosalie Berwick in the pharmacy

During my research, I noticed from photos of military hospital at Étaples that all the tents had been adapted to make them practical for hospital use.

Entrances and exits had been cut into the canvas wherever necessary, with a variety of wooden doors, storage areas and practical shelving added in.

So I joined three tents together to make a large L-shaped ward tent and imagined that the connecting corridors were storage areas and nurses stations.

I planned the nurses' station to be connected to Ward 1 through a series of corridors

My colour illustrations helped visualise the interior look and feel before construction

Oona Chaplin as Kitty Trevelyan on set in the ward

This scaled drawing showed what the quartermasters store would look like from all sides

An old photograph inspired this rock feature and all of the stone was appropriated nearby

The quartermasters store set dressed with props and ready for filming

Captain Miles Hesketh-Thorne (Alex Wyndham) visits the quartermaster (Jeremy Swift)

Cristina Casali is the production designer for The Crimson Field.

The Crimson Field continues on Sunday, 13 April at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on The Crimson Field
BBC One: The Crimson Field: Watch a set tour narrated by Cristina Casali
BBC Media Centre: The Crimson Field
World War One At The BBC: More television and radio programmes
BBC Writersroom: The Crimson Field: Interview with creator & writer Sarah Phelps

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom

2013-12-05T10:18:57+00:00

Filming in the jungle is always tricky. As the series producer, getting to the location in the first place, setting up power supplies when we are there, transporting enough food and water to feed a large team are just some of the logistical hurdles I have to think about.

For Wild Burma: Nature’s Lost Kingdom, I was part of the first team of wildlife filmmakers to be granted access to some of the least studied forests in the world in a country just emerging from a 50-year military dictatorship.

A jungle alive with sound: A light trap in the treetops to catalogue the insects in the canopy

This was a challenge on a different scale from anything I had done before.

The only reason we succeeded in Burma (also known as Myanmar) was that no matter what strange request I came up with, our fixer Tony Htin Hla and his assistant Tin Tun always came up with the answer. We relied on them entirely.

One of our biggest problems was how to transport two tonnes of camera kit around the country.

Our second location was in the heart of the Rakhine Yoma mountains in western Burma and, without roads or helicopters, our only option was to walk.

My original plan had been to use boats – 20 of them – so we could transport the kit as far upriver as possible. We would then use domestic elephants to help carry the kit the rest of the way.

However, when we arrived the river was much lower than anticipated and the elephants had not materialised because they were busy transporting logs elsewhere.

We reverted to plan B – ox carts. The heaviest kit was loaded up and taken to the last village along the river.

Change of plans: The ox carts move off

From here the track ran out completely and we would have to continue on foot.

We overnighted at the local monastery, the oldest in the region – made from entire tree trunks over 15 metres in length, it towered into the sky.

The head monk was not in residence, which, in retrospect, was a good thing – I suspect he would have been horrified at the sight of thirty dishevelled crew sleeping on the floor of his beautiful monastery.

The girls had the best deal as we slept outside on the balcony. I woke up the next morning to, what was for me, one of the most memorable scenes of the trip.

The village headman had hired over 100 people from the surrounding area to come and help us carry all of our equipment to basecamp.

Local Rakhine villagers also acted as guides to help the team reach the forests of Salu

Camera kit, food, solar panels, generators, fuel and cooking pots were all tied to bamboo poles until a long line of us, stretching over 100 metres, were ready to set off.

We waded through rivers, across rice paddies, clambered over rocks and trekked into the heart of the mountain range. The whole journey took two days.

Once in the jungle, the first things to do, in this order, are: dig the loos, build the kitchen, create a washing area upriver from both, find a clean stream for drinking water and clear the area of leaves to make sure you aren’t going to step on an unsuspecting snake.

Burma has the highest death rate from snakebites in the world but, with no mains power and two days walk from the road, keeping anti-venom refrigerated is a problem.

Our only option was to leave a store of anti-venom in the nearest hospital over two days walk from basecamp – too far.

Unbroken forest for 1000 miles

Usually on a remote location shoot, we would have medical helicopter evacuation planned, but Burma does not yet have any commercial helicopters that we could call on in case of emergency.

After a lot of head scratching, we decided to speak to the Burmese military. They immediately agreed that, should we need their assistance, they would send their helicopter to pick us up.

Having a hotline to the head of the Burmese Army is certainly one of the stranger evacuation scenarios I’ve come across.

Luckily, the expedition went without major incidents and I did not need to make the call.

Susanna Handslip is the series producer for Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom.

Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom continues on Friday, 6 December at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Paradise: Katherine's need to conquer

2013-10-24T08:21:57+00:00

I was instantly attracted to playing the heiress Katherine Glendenning in The Paradise because she is so different from me (thank God!).

I was in no way disappointed throughout the whole process. She is such a complex character, there is so much to explore. Just like an onion, layers and layers to peel off and delve into.

Katherine has great qualities but uses them all for the greater bad.

Katherine (Elaine Cassidy) faces different challenges on her return to The Paradise

She is a force to be reckoned with, and if she had used all this for a good cause she could have done great things.

Her and Moray are very similar. They are both ambitious, non conforming, rebels. Also, because he doesn’t roll over and play ball, this adds to Katherine’s need to conquer.

As Katherine has never had a healthy, balanced relationship with anyone (including her father), it means her partnership with Tom Weston is no different.

He is a challenge. They take turns on winning each battle. I think they are fairly evenly matched and use their own strengths to succeed.

The opening gambit? Katherine with her husband, Tom Weston (Ben Daniels)

You get to see another side to Katherine in series two.

She’s more vulnerable as she’s an injured animal still with the fresh wounds of being jilted by the man that she allowed herself to love and being struck with grief from the unexpected death of her father (the number one man in her life).

Katherine’s new step daughter Flora helps bring this more sensitive side to the forefront.

She’s still got her priorities in life out of balance, but Flora gives her a new sense of purpose to try to be a better person, and makes her more aware of her humane side and compassionate side (however small, but still there).

Katherine invites Flora (Edie Whitehead) to explore The Paradise

Filming took place in Durham on the huge Lambton Estate. It would take five to ten minutes to drive to the set from entering the gates. Both sets, the department store and Katherine’s house were in this location.

The Paradise set was built in Lambton Castle itself and Katherine’s house was set in Biddick Hall - a real grand house five minutes’ drive away.

The street was built from scratch, and to the naked eye looks like the real deal.

I enjoy the scenes we do in the house more than the ones in the store, only for the fact that there is a calmer atmosphere there.

That’s hugely down to the green room we have at the house, it’s a real sitting room, with comfy couches and a TV.

Edie the real house keeper pops her head in every now and then to see if we would like REAL coffee (in a cafetiere) and REAL tea (in a tea pot) and then serves it to us in bone china cups and saucers with some biscuits, heaven!

Now that’s the way to work, especially when you are playing a character like Katherine, ha!

Elaine Cassidy plays Katherine Glendenning in The Paradise.

The Paradise continues on Sunday, 27 October at 8pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Bad Education: Giving Alfie our worst characteristics

2013-08-27T14:00:48+00:00

Jack Whitehall and I have written together since school, though the first time we spoke, we ended up having a fight.

In fact, Jack is the only person I’ve ever punched. And even then it was only once, despite the fact that we’ve spent months trapped in a cupboard together, writing Bad Education.

Alfie Wickers (Jack Whitehall) is back at school

Jack did nearly punch me recently. I beat him at FIFA at my birthday party, playing right there on the dance floor ie in my front room.

Uncool, but that’s the schoolboy streak in our relationship. (I instantly regret using the phrase ‘schoolboy streak’.)

Though put a schoolboy on a dance floor and off he goes, clumsily flirting, throwing some (bad) shapes, being rejected, then vomiting into a shoe.

Not us. We just want to score points off each other.

With Bad Education, Jack and I give our worst characteristics to Alfie in a competitive way.

For instance, Jack thinks that I’m obsessed with ‘long’ books like Harry Potter. (Yes, I’m a Pot-Head.)

And so Alfie becomes a fantasy geek and we laugh at how dorky he is. By which I mean, at how dorky I am. Jack 1, me 0.

Then we write a scene in which Jack is naked and horrifically blotchy. No goal-line technology required: Jack 1, me 1.

And it’s this spiteful spiral that’s turned Alfie into an even more inadequate, tragic little man in the second series.

Alfie and Joe (Ethan Lawrence) sport matching trendy haircuts

Jack and I are also amazingly lucky to write for actors like Sarah Solemani, Michelle Gomez, Mat Horne, Sam Spiro and Harry Enfield.

After the rehearsal week, their feedback helped us twist lines to land better, harder.

The same goes for the younger actors: give a bland line to Layton Williams and he will jujj the hell out of it.

Writing the first series, we’d sometimes manipulate our characters to suit random jokes.

Now, with the second series, we can hear the actors’ voices in our heads. It sounds creepy, but it’s made everything feel like it fits into place.

Bad Education lets me do the things I couldn’t do as an actual schoolboy.

I can tar and feather teachers, invent legal highs in chemistry or (a personal story now, so imagine violins playing) defy the bullies by taking my top off in swimming lessons.

It also lets me write with my friend, like we used to when we weren’t punching each other. So it’s great, really.

Freddy Syborn is the co-writer of series two of Bad Education.

Every episode of series two of Bad Education will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer seven days before it broadcasts on BBC Three.
Episode one is available on BBC iPlayer from Tuesday, 27 August and is on BBC Three on Tuesday, 3 September at 9pm. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Dreaming The Impossible: Unbuilt Britain

2013-08-19T10:38:31+00:00

Architectural projects that were designed but have never been constructed have always captured my imagination. To me, the unbuilt represents possibility and vision.

Books that I enjoyed while I was an undergraduate, and still have a place on my shelves, included Unbuilt Oxford by Howard Colvin, and London As It Might Have Been by Felix Barker and Ralph Hyde.

Both out of print, but well worth tracking down if you too feel the allure of the unbuilt.

I started working with Timeline Films, who made Dreaming The Impossible: Unbuilt Britain for BBC Four, after they got in touch with me through the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain - a group for everyone and anyone interested in architecture and its history.

There have been countless plans to connect mainland Britain to the outside world

I began by giving research advice, then one thing led to another and I ended up in front of the camera!

We wanted to look at some of the mind-boggling unbuilt plans from the past and find out why they hadn’t been constructed.

Some of them were clearly outlandish and technically impossible, but many of them were actually going to go ahead – until a twist of fate, finance, or public opinion pulled the rug from under them.

We wanted to investigate schemes from across the UK. There are loads of unrealised projects for London, precisely because it is the national hub, but it would have been rather metro-centric not to look further afield.

Two of the schemes that we explore are in Scotland – the Mid-Scotland Ship Canal and the Bruce Plan for Glasgow.

Robert Bruce designed this stark, modernist vision for regenerating Glasgow in 1945

The Bruce Plan is fascinating because it demonstrates a moment when Victorian architecture was so out of favour that planners were on the brink of obliterating the historic buildings of Glasgow’s city centre and replacing them with a Modernist ideal.

Fortunately, it didn’t happen - they’re exactly the same buildings – by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, for example – that tourists flock to see today.

Architecture and drawing have a very close relationship, so the graphics for the series were really important.

The brilliant graphic designers at Playdead did a fantastic job of conjuring up 3D visuals from the surviving assortment of plans and perspectives, so that you get a sense of what it would have been like to experience some of these buildings and urban spaces.

Joseph Paxton's only surviving drawing of a giant elongated Crystal Palace brought to life

It was a privilege to talk with so many experts, often in wonderful surroundings, or in strange places. Interviewing under the seabed of the Channel was certainly novel!

Norman Foster and Eric Kuhne fitted us in to their busy schedules with clients – fortunately the time they gave us didn’t put any yet-to-be-realised projects at risk!

Talking with contemporary architects is a key part of the series. The problems that architects of the past were grappling with are essentially the same that face us today – a rising population, the need for transport and communications, and the desire to represent ourselves in what we build.

The schemes we look at are historical, but they help us to appreciate how architecture and infrastructure play a crucial role in our present-day and future lives.

Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner is the presenter of Dreaming The Impossible: Unbuilt Britain.

Dreaming The Impossible: Unbuilt Britain continues at 9pm on Monday, 19 August on BBC Four. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Family Tree: Characters that aren't so everyday

2013-07-23T08:02:26+00:00

A lot of people have asked me what my role in Family Tree was. Actually, only one person has asked me and that was my wife.

Basically, I co-wrote, directed, and executive produced Family Tree. I also co-wrote the song at the end of the show.

I have always been interested in genealogy, and after my dad died I began looking into my family history. He left me many boxes filled with photographs, diaries, war medals, and his toy soldiers.

I met with Jim Piddock, my co-writer, and we began to lay out a story. We created a fictional family and their entire family tree going back many generations.

Antiquarian Mr Pfister (Jim Piddock) isn't sure about Tom Chadwick's (Chris O'Dowd) fashion choices

It was a real joy working with Jim and it felt as though we had been writing partners for a very long time.

We spent many months coming up with the names of characters and trying to figure out their back stories, such as where they went to school, and what kind of music they liked.

There are many scenes in the show that stand out as favourites.

The dates Chris O'Dowd goes out on, Nina Conti performing her ventriloquist act at a Greek wedding, and Tom Bennett (Chris O'Dowd's best friend) working at a children's zoo.

Tom's date shares her unconventional views on dinosaurs

The main character in the show is Tom Chadwick played by Chris O'Dowd. I first met Chris in London over a year ago and realised instantly that he would be perfect for the role.

I was searching for an actor who was funny, endearing, and who could improvise. Chris was able to do all those things brilliantly. A very rare thing.

The method I use as a filmmaker, shooting without a script but rather having a series of outlines, was used in the making of Family Tree.

I discuss the scenes in great detail with the actors but there is actually no rehearsal. I've often compared it to musicians improvising together.

The actors must listen to one another very closely and know when to solo, if at all.

Tom with his sister Bea Chadwick (Nina Conti) and Monkey, her hand puppet and constant companion

I always knew Nina Conti would be involved. Or hoped she would. The part of Bea was created for her.

Nina appeared in For Your Consideration, a film I directed, and she was fantastic. It's amazing to behold her talents as a ventriloquist and as an actress as well.

Jim Piddock and I wanted to populate the show with eccentric characters. We read somewhere that creating dull characters wasn't as good an idea.

Characters come from years of observing everyday people. Apparently they aren't so everyday after all.

It's difficult to pick one character that I am most fond of. I think they all work well together.

Christopher Guest directed, co-created and co-wrote Family Tree. He is also is one of the executive producers for the series.

Family Tree continues on Tuesdays on BBC Two and BBC Two HD at 9pm and BBC Two NI at 11.20pm. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.