Reflection iii: Transnationalisation, Television Formats and the Universal

This reflection argues that, despite various good reasons for approaching the notion of the ‘universal’ with caution, cultural theorists should give up their resistance to the universal. The prominence of formats in today’s television suggests that the time is ripe to do. Intentionally or not, accounts of difference implicitly also often reveal sameness; the more we probe heterogeneity, the more likely we are to encounter something that remains consistent and similar. Thus, it is time to collaborate with scholars from the numerous disciplines for which the universal has long had validity and pertinence.

Chaos, culture and fantasy: The television plays of Howard Schuman

The single plays of American ex-pat playwright Howard Schuman produced for British television between 1973 and 1983 have received little critical attention. Written in a distinctly un-British madcap, non-naturalistic and often pulpy 'B movie' style, they centre around caricatured, hysterical and/or camp characters and make frequent references to popular culture. This article provides a general survey of Schuman's plays and analyses his sensibility as a screenwriter, drawing extensively on material from interviews with the writer. The article's particular focus is how and why different cultural forms including music, film and theatre are used and referred to in Schuman's plays, and how this conditions the plays' narrative content and visual and aural form. It also considers the reception of Schuman's plays and their status as non-naturalistic dramas that engage heavily with American pop culture, within the context of British drama. Finally, it explores the writer's relationship to style and aesthetics, and considers how his written works have been enhanced through creative design decisions, comparing his directions (in one of his scripts) with the realized play to reflect on the use of key devices.

Postmodernism, culture and feminism: the aesthetics of space and performance in Rock Follies and Rock Follies of '77

This article discusses the aesthetic and spatial representational strategies of the popular studio-based musical television drama serials Rock Follies and Rock Follies of ’77. It analyses how the texts’ themes relating to women and the entertainment industry are mediated through their postmodern ironic mode and representation of fantastic spaces. Rock Follies’ distinctive stylised aesthetic and mode of caricature are analysed with reference to the visual intentions and ‘voice’ of the writer, Howard Schuman. Through considering the programmes’ various spatial strategies, the article draws attention to the importance of visual and performance style in their postmodern discourse on culture, fantasy, gender and subjectivity. Analysis of the spaces of musical performance, characters’ domestic environments and simulated entertainment spaces reveals how a dialectic is established between the escapist imaginative pleasures of fantasy and the manipulative and exploitative practices of the culture industry. The shift from the optimism of the first series, when the LittleLadies first form, to the darker mood of the second series, in which they are increasingly divided by industry pressures, is traced through changes in the aesthetics of space and characterisation. As a space of artifice, performance and electronic visual manipulation that facilitates the texts’ reflexive representation of culture and feminised fantasy, the studio’s unique aesthetic strengths emerge through this case study.

The transatlantic dimensions of the time lord: Doctor Who and the relationships between British and North American television

This chapter explores some of the textual specificity of the Steven Moffat/Matt Smith Doctor Who, in relation to its positioning within the current transatlantic television landscape. The chapter develops further the existing scholarship on Doctor Who, by both offering a critical assessment of the transatlantic dimensions of the Moffat/Smith-era Doctor Who, and by challenging some of the existing critical arguments about Doctor Who's transatlantic dimensions. Particular attention is paid to the casting, physicality and costuming of actor Matt Smith as the Doctor in relation to notions of Britishness.

British television drama: past, present and future. 2nd edition

British Television Drama provides resources for critical thinking about key aspects of television drama in Britain since 1960, including institutional, textual, cultural, economic and audience-centred modes of study. It presents and contests significant strands of critical work in the field, and comprises essays by TV professionals and academics plus editors' introductions to each section that contextualise the chapters. The new edition includes a revised chapter by acclaimed TV producer Tony Garnett reflecting on his work since Cathy Come Home in the 1960s, new chapters by Phil Redmond, the creator of Brookside and Hollyoaks, and Cameron Roach, Head of Drama Commissioning at Sky TV and former executive producer of Waterloo Road. New academic analyses include work on Downton Abbey, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Ashes to Ashes, adaptations of Persuasion, and the changing production methods on Coronation Street.

Performing right: legal constraints and Beckett’s plays on BBC television

Drawing on BBC archival documentation, this article outlines how BBC television versions of Beckett’s plays were affected by copyright. Rights to record and broadcast original drama for the screen differ from those governing adaptations of existing theatre plays. Rights can be assigned for specific territories and periods of time, and are negotiated and traded via complex contractual agreements. Examining how Beckett’s agents and the BBC dealt with rights sheds new light on the history of his work on television.

How to watch television? Pedagogy and paedocracy in Beckett’s television plays

This article responds to scholarship on Beckett’s television plays that regards them as positive interventions which encourage the viewer to reconsider the conventions of the medium, and that raise the cultural standards of television drama. In making claims about how the plays address and educate their viewers, critical approaches shift between conceptions of audience. This analysis of Beckett’s plays on British television reconsiders their aesthetic strategies, their relationship with television culture, and the dominant assumptions of critical writing about them by examining the parallel between conceptions of the audience and conceptions of the child in writing about television and Beckett’s television plays.

International films and international markets: the globalisation of Hollywood entertainment, c.1921-1951

The international appeal of Hollywood films through the twentieth century has been a subject of interest to economic and film historians alike. This paper employs some of the methods of the economic historian to evaluate key arguments within the film history literature explaining the global success of American films. Through careful analysis of both existing and newly constructed data sets, the paper examines the extent to which Hollywood's foreign earnings were affected by: film production costs; the extent of global distribution networks; and also the international orientation of the films themselves. The paper finds that these factors influenced foreign earnings in quite distinct ways, and that their relative importance changed over time. The evidence presented here suggests a degree of interaction between the production and distribution arms of the major US film companies in their pursuit of foreign markets that would benefit from further archival-based investigation.