Late night tales

I feel like I'm back at uni. After weeks of festering inactivity on the writing front I'm getting involved with the BBC In the Red rapid response short script competition.

I worked on my script, which is about military cuts, for much of yesterday but there's still plenty to do on it. Came home from work and cracked on with the script pretty much straight away. It's now twenty to one and I've got the old style Essay Crisis feeling of 'oh god, this is twaddle but getting something on the page is the main thing.'

I'm off to bed now, with time for one last quick edit tomorrow lunch and off it goes. I'm not 100% happy with quite a few scenes, but I suppose that's the point of a rapid response piece. The brief was to take a few risks and write outside your comfort zone, which I definitely feel I have.

Single Father (BBC)

Episode one of Single Father was lovely. Written by Mick Ford, who has been writing for television on and off since the Play for Today 1980s. His recent credits include Wiliam and Mary, Ashes to Ashes and Inspector George Gently.

It's the story of a family designed to pull the heartstrings. The first episode set the happy family scene. A cast of David Tennant, Suranne Jones and Laura Fraser are all eminently appealing. Even the kids (and I normally can't stand a child actor!) are decent. The script is understated, playing on long silences and lingering looks. It allows the deep gutteral howling pain to slip through the gaps in the dialogue.

I'm not sure that Ford needed to play with the narrative linearity; once I saw Rita die I waited somewhat impatiently through the flashback. Though it set the scene of the family appropriately it didn't propel the story in any way. Though perhaps made more poignant by the knowledge that it wouldn't last.

It's not quite as gritty as Recovery*, the drama Tennant did back in 2007 with Sarah Parrish which told of a happily married father of two who is left brain damaged after an accident, and his subsequent struggle to recover. Single Father was a bit more emotionally driven rather than issue-led.

Overall I loved it, though in subsequent episodes the script will have to work hard to differentiate itself from plenty of shows before this that tackle the same issue of being a widowed father with young children.

And it looks like there's more drama where this came from at the BBC this autumn and winter.

*Written by Tony Marchant (Holding On, The Mark of Cain, The Knight's Tale from The Canterbury Tales BBC adaptations).