If I worked in television in North America, I don't think I could help but get frustrated with British television. Not only do they have an insufferable amount of high calibre acting talent and a literary tradition dating back to before quite a few countries even had invented the wheel to draw upon for their television shows, they also seem to be able to have the pick of the best of contemporary writers whenever they feel like it.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not blind to the fact that the Brits are every bit as capable of producing bad television as the next country, but they also have an annoying habit of being able to produce stuff that leaves anything we do on this side of the pond in the dust. One of the big differences is they don't appear to make the distinction between working in television and working in film that is the norm over here. An actor, director, or scriptwriter could be working on a movie one day and a television series the next and think nothing of it.
In the past, North American audiences had limited exposure to British television through rebroadcasts of select shows on Public Television stations in Canada and the United States. All that's changed now with the expansion of the home entertainment market and specialty television stations. The advent of digital media has allowed distributors on our side of the Atlantic an inexpensive means of making a great deal of material available that previously would never have been seen over here.
Acorn Media is one of the companies offering a wide selection of quality productions from both the BBC and independent television companies in Britain. On June 3rd, 2008, they will be releasing yet another example of British television by drawing upon the vast array of talent available to them in order to produce shows both literate and entertaining. A Time For Murder was originally produced in 1985 by Granada Television and featured six original scripts written by some of Britain's finest mystery and scriptwriters at the time.
Charles Wood (Iris and Help), Gordon Honeycomb, Frances Galleymore, and Michael Robson might not be household names over here, but Antonia Fraser and Fay Weldon have both graced best seller lists across North America many times. Each of them, whether we've heard of them or not, are highly experienced and adroit writers. While it doesn't necessarily follow that a good novelist will make a good screenwriter, none of those involved with this project suffered from making the transition.
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