‘Sherwood’ Writer James Graham Fought for Weekly Episode Drops

“Sherwood” writer James Graham has revealed he fought for the BBC drama to be made available in weekly episodes rather than released all at once on streaming platform iPlayer.

Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday, where Graham was delivering the annual McTaggart lecture, he revealed that the BBC’s chief content officer Charlotte Moore had included him in the conversation about how the series should be made available to viewers.

“There was of course a discussion about whether to make the entire series available on iPlayer, rather than weekly,” he explained. “I am not against that freedom of choice for an audience. A good old binge works for some shows. But I also really cherish those television experiences that stretch out, that demand we wait, so that actual, in-real-life conversations can be generated around the work. Those infamous ‘watercooler’ conversations the morning after the night before.”

“I really felt like not only the twists and turns of ‘Sherwood’ should be something that we protect, by teasing them out, so that a significant chunk of the audience were roughly following along at about the same time. But also because of the social and political themes that were deliberately structured to unravel at certain moments.”

Edinburgh’s annual McTaggart lecture has in recent years become known as a platform to campaign and Graham continued that tradition by speakingly primarily about class, and in particular how working class people are underrepresented. He cited a study that found only 8% of those working in television are from a working-class background, despite being up to 49% of the population. He also pointed out that working class people are the biggest consumers of TV.

Graham called on both the industry and the new Labour government to improve the situation, saying what is needed is “a proper, industry-wide standard and plan” including monitoring class diversity on productions and awards.

He also said the new Government should “allow ‘culture’ to play an active part in this promised ‘national renewal’ – not just kept at arms-length in its own silo on the peripheries of policy making, as it so often is.”

Graham also said the industry at large needs a “joined-up approach” and that he would “welcome the resources and expertise of those in the television and film industry to help get the funding to build something, and keep it running – as a statement of intent toward change, as much as a genuinely valuable resource.”

As the first step towards making that change, Edinburgh TV Festival’s charitable arm, The TV Foundation, unveiled a new initiative called the Impact Unit which aims to make the industry more inclusive.

The Impact Unit will be led by The TV Foundation’s Gemma Bradshaw and amongst the initiatives it will implement are creating a pan-sector working group, introducing a social mobility bursary for the festival and contribute to developing measurements and monitoring.