There are far too few regional dramas on television today, says the creator of Brookside

Like many Liverpudlians, I was saddened by the recent death of screenwriter Carla Lane because she was a voice from the city writing about the city. Who can forget some of the classic Liverpool-set shows she co-created and wrote like The Liver Birds and Bread?

Carla was just one of the writers from Merseyside, including Alan Bleasdale (Boys From The Blackstuff), Willy Russell (Educating Rita) and myself with Brookside, who helped project Liverpool’s voice on the national stage, and prove you didn’t have to live in London to make it in telly.

The 1970s, 80s and 90s were a time when, thanks in part to the creation of Channel 4 in 1982, new screenwriters from other parts of Britain – such as Russell T Davies, who wrote the Manchester-set Queer As Folk – also got their work on the small screen. But that’s changed and regional ‘voices’ are no longer getting the commissions they once were. There are exceptions of course – in the next few weeks Manchester-born Mike Bullen will launch the follow-up to his phenomenally successful series Cold Feet, which is set in his home city. But in the main, the television world has become much more London-centric. It’s a real shame and TV drama is poorer as a result.

Most of the controllers and commissioning editors at the big channels today have a very metropolitan – read: London – view of life and don’t really seem that interested in the new regional writers waiting to be discovered. So many of today’s big issues – be it the Brexit vote, the disconnect between London and ‘the provinces’, or what’s happening to the Labour Party – could be examined through a new regional drama, but the TV networks just don’t seem interested in that.

And when they do step out of their London bubble they don’t really go in search of the authentic new voices in places like Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham; they simply make fleeting visits before heading back to the capital. They’re like media tourists. That could be why a TV drama such as Line Of Duty is set in an undefined regional ‘any town’, which I find odd. I’ve always tried to set my dramas in a particular place – be it Brookie, or my other Channel 4 soap, Hollyoaks, which is in a Chester suburb.

Setting a drama in a specific place gives it a richer tapestry. I believe the BBC and Channel 4 (set up to fill the broadcasting gaps that weren’t being filled elsewhere) have a duty to ensure that today’s regional ‘voices’ are being heard. That’s not the case right now, which saddens me, and would have saddened Carla too.