TV review: Moving On

Published on Monday 22 June 2009 21:32

MOVING ON, BBC1

EVER since the BBC axed its seminal Play For Today strand in the mid-1980s, British television has been bereft of an ongoing platform for standalone dramas. PFT was valued by viewers and industry types alike for its groundbreaking output and the opportunities it afforded to iconoclasts, such as Mike Leigh, Alan Bleasdale, Dennis Potter and Ken Loach. The past 30 years of British film and television is unthinkable without it. And yet the BBC has persistently failed to resurrect PFT or anything similar, presumably because it isn't interested in dramas which can't be milked indefinitely. After all, a harrowing play about a Glaswegian alcoholic shouting at betting shops won't have much of an afterlife on DVD, so why bother?

I hate to sound like a senile rose-tinted whinge-pot, but this is why these days the mercifully axed Bonekickers was thought worthy of commission, and the likes of Abigail's Party probably wouldn't even find a home on BBC4. And before anyone pipes up with "oh, Play For Today probably produced just as many duds as it did classics," that's beside the point. At least the opportunity to experiment was there in the first place – for 14 years on BBC1, no less.

You may recall that in 2007 the BBC announced PFT's imminent return, but since then nothing. Recently, it appears as though the acclaimed TV writer Jimmy McGovern (Cracker, Hillsborough, The Lakes) is the only person trying to revive its spirit via his popular drama series The Street. Essentially a collection of self-contained plays linked by a shared location and occasionally overlapping characters, its loosely interconnected format was, I suspect, McGovern's crafty way of getting plays commissioned under the guise of an ongoing series. Yet its success proves – as if proof were needed – that viewers are still willing to invest in characters they will never see again, either in subsequent web-isodes or a disappointing BBC3 spin-off.

A similarly well-intentioned McGovern-produced effort is Moving On, a series of five single dramas (we don't call them plays anymore, apparently) designed to showcase the talents of emerging writers. Recently shown on afternoons throughout a single week, they're currently repeated in a weekly late-night slot.

Unfortunately, removed from its daytime furnishings, Marc Pye's Bully came across as an awkward mix of The Street and an issues-led CBBC drama. This cautionary tale of a sensitive lad encouraged into bullying by his overbearing father almost succeeded as a sincere diatribe against the ugly fallibility of male aggression. Yet, despite decent performances (the child actors were perfectly convincing, a rarity in television) and a script trying its best to refrain from overwrought melodrama, it was too pat and predictable for discerning adult viewers. Presumably I speak on your behalf.

And how could an experienced television writer/producer like McGovern allow Pye's screenplay to be smothered by hackneyed direction and intrusively sentimental background music? It was as though someone had set the keyboard to Sad Piano Waterfall and forgotten to switch it off.

I'm almost loath to criticise Moving On, as it is, theoretically, precisely the sort of thing I want to see more of on TV. Unfortunately, it merely proves that programmes scrubbed for lunchtime just will not wash at night. The return of Single Drama For Today can't come soon enough.