Black writers need more than 15-minute snippets
If I had been given Unsaid Stories to watch and asked to name the channel, ITV would not have been my first guess. It’s safe to say that the broadcaster has lagged behind the BBC on the diversity front. While the BBC has been punting out initiatives left, right and centre, it took ITV until last month to publish its “diversity acceleration plan”. Now ITV is bringing us a series of 15-minute films inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and telling stories from black perspectives, dropped into the middle of primetime.
Episode one was a two-hander between a father and daughter, played by Nicholas Pinnock and Yasmin Monet Prince. The daughter, Justina, was planning to go on a BLM march with a friend. But she had been banned from going by her dad, and he caught her as she was sneaking out of the house.
There followed an exchange of views: he said the march was causing trouble and would lead to vandalism and looting; she said young people were trying to change the world and save lives.
It turned out that the father, Oliver, had attended a protest as a young man and lost his best friend, who was beaten to death by racists while the police did nothing to help. He had never told Justina this, and in a new spirit of cross-generational understanding they headed off to the march together.
Jerome Bucchan-nelson’s script raised some interesting issues and it was certainly topical. But it is very difficult to craft a 15-minute drama, and the story was defeated by the format: the writing tried to cram a build-up, big reveal and satisfying conclusion into a quarter of an hour, in over-simplified dialogue that would have been better suited to a show aimed at teens. (The next episode, starring Adelayo Adedayo and Joe Cole as a former couple meeting at a party after she dumped him, works better.) It’s a shame that ITV’S attempts at representation mean giving black writers such a tiny slot to work with. Why not put its money where its mouth is and commission black talent for a major series?
Unsaid Stories is trying to capture the times we’re living in, and unfortunately that means Covid. So Justina and her dad headed off to their protest in masks; in the next episode, social distancing is shoehorned into the conversation. As with ITV’S earlier series of short films, Isolation Stories, these references create a sense of impermanence that ultimately does the drama no favours.
The makers of The Yorkshire Jobcentre (Channel 4) spent five years convincing the Department for Work and Pensions to let them make this series. The DWP should be pretty pleased with the result. Everyone at Southern House in Leeds came across as kind and empathetic. The jobseekers seemed to enjoy their visits. Almost three million are currently claiming unemployment benefits and the pandemic could send plenty more of us in that direction, but let’s not get too bleak about it. You can imagine Ken Loach watching in a fury, throwing peanuts at the screen and yelling: “But it isn’t like this!”
This first episode of six introduced us to some of the “work coaches” and their “customers”. Much as I would have liked to see which job the first interviewee landed just so I know how to avoid him (“Why do you think you’ve had a lot of rejections?” “Because I’ve just come out of jail for kidnapping and threats to kill, that’s why”), the show focused on others.
They included Karen, 61, who lost her job as a bookkeeper five years ago. She lived alone and wanted a job, at least in part, to make friends. Employers aren’t allowed to discriminate on the basis of age, but what else would you call telling Karen that they’re looking for someone to stay in the job for 10-to-20 years?
It was rare to see the coaches get tough. Jan tactfully described Pam as being “a long way from the job market”. She used the centre’s funds to buy Pam smart clothes for a training course; Pam collected the clothes but gave the course a miss. Jan warned that her benefits would be stopped if she didn’t make an effort, but delivered so gently that I’m not sure Pam quite grasped the situation.
In the end, Karen found work on the tills in a supermarket. She was thrilled, but not as much as Kenny, who got a job at a recycling plant and was still grinning even after a shift sorting dirty nappies. “It’s absolutely awesome,” he beamed. It was a feelgood ending, although I was left wondering what proportion of people who visit the jobcentre are Karens and Kennys, and what proportion are Pams.
Unsaid Stories ★★
The Yorkshire Jobcentre ★★★