BBC
The Good Life
More laughs, less dystopia Programme-makers who tackle environmental issues are urged to avoid sensationalism, hears the RTS
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elevision cannot be accused of ignoring the environment. Our destruction of the planet has long been a staple of serious TV documentaries. And in drama, zombies, pandemics and nuclear catastrophe offer stark visions of our future if humanity fails to mend its ways. According to Richard Curtis, however, environmental programming doesn’t have to be “boring, didactic or terrifying”. The UK’s king of comedy reckoned it can also be “funny, interesting, educational and personal”.
He namechecked a few of his favourite environmental dramas, including 1985 BBC thriller Edge of Darkness, Steven Soderbergh’s biopic Erin Brockovich and Sky Atlantic’s recent drama Chernobyl. But, he added: “The show I’d like to see back is The Good Life, a TV programme about people trying to do the right thing environmentally, and what a struggle and how comical it was. “There is a sort of ordinariness about the environmental battle, which is there in our day-to-day lives.” Curtis enjoyed TV success with Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley before moving into movies and creating huge hits such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually. He was speaking at an RTS event that looked at how TV comedy and drama can address environmental issues in a less contrived and sensationalist way. “At every level in our business, domestic and political lives, the environment is a big old theme. I don’t think [a drama] always has to end in a nuclear explosion. “We should remind ourselves of how wide [environmental] issues are. It’s deforestation, water, plastics, fish, animals, recycling, energy – it doesn’t always have to be a cataclysmic breaking of the ozone layer, as entertaining as that might be.” Curtis pointed to recent research commissioned by the environmental charity Global Action Plan, of which he is a patron. This shows that more than three-quarters of young people in the UK want to see TV drama address environmental issues. “We’ve not passed the need to educate because that’s always there… but, in a way, this is the moment for drama to take over,” said Curtis, who was talking to Jeremy Oppenheim, the Chair of Global Action Plan. Also present were Georgia Wagstaff, Bethan Moore, Sophie Marsh, Jack Stanley and Amy Harris, five young film-makers hoping to making environment-themed, entertaining TV drama. They are the finalists in Global Action Plan’s “Flickers of the Future” film competition (see box on page 19). The second half of the RTS event saw environmental journalist and broadcaster Lucy Siegle, of the BBC’s The One Show, chair a discussion on how television can better reflect environmental issues. “The environmental movement has been stunningly good at telling us, if you want to listen, about the [climate] disaster that is playing out,” said
