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| Mark Williams as Father Brown, photo: Des Willie/BBC |
Father Brown was developed by Rachel Flowerday and Tahsin Guner from G.K. Chesterton's short stories about a Catholic priest who solves mysteries. The series was a daytime gem, attracting no end of critical praise and crackerjack ratings. A second series has been commissioned and a repeat nearer prime-time is likely, I'd suggest.
Roland Moore's Land Girls was another daytime series that proved a smaller budget was no barrier to compelling drama. Jimmy McGovern's anthology series Moving On attracts major talent with the quality of its writing, often by new scribes working with McGovern. Many emerging writers learn their craft in daytime, especially at the BBC.
But some snobbery still lingers in the industry, perhaps leftover from lacklustre shows of the past like Crossroads. Daytime doesn't have the prestige, an executive once told me. The budget dissuades others from developing series for mid-afternoon. But the success of Father Brown puts the lie to that. Long may it continue. Onwards!
5 comments:
I'm sorry you think this a gem and not a travesty. I can find no reason to call it "Father Brown" it is a set of jolly stories, with a cast of regular characters, set in a pretty Cotswold village where it never rains and where the Catholics still own the parish church. But it has nothing to do with Chesterton, the date is wrong, the plots are wrong and the actor playing Father Brown is the wrong shape. Ms Flowerdew has scaled a very low barrier. THe BBC clearly thinks the afternoon audience will love anything simple.
Still some interesting stories and Fr Brown's humanity really stood out. Also whatever the mistakes over practice of the faith (and strange the BBC could not get someone to check these plots (Cremation was not allowed in the 1950s for Catholics for example) they are delightful and much better than the other doctor/police/house buying/makover type programmes we are so bored with. It's nice to see Stanbrook Abbey and the Cotswolds too-we dont all live in the East End or big cities.
More please!
If you wrote for Doctors perhaps you are aware of horrific mistakes on that programme in the religious field viz Mrs Tembe's (obviously CofE with a trendy woman "priestess") church would NEVER be called St Bernadette's. St B is one of the most traditional RC Saints and a CofE church would never bear her name. Also the clearly intended to be NHS hospital would NEVER be called St Philomenas for similar reasons. Does the BBC actually employ someone as religious adviser or do the commit such basic faux pas on purpose?
Doctors uses multiple consultants in an effort to avoid mistakes, but those are more to do with medical and police procedures. There are researchers as well, but sometimes mistakes creep through...
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