Some Thoughts on Russell T Davies, Tip Toe and the Decline of British Television Drama

Frank Cottrell Boyce once made the staggeringly lofty claim that Russell T Davies' contribution to British television drama was "saving it from extinction." This always struck me as an over-the-top assertion given there are plenty of other writers of Davies' generation - most notably Peter Bowker, Paul Abbott and Kay Mellor - who have enjoyed considerable popular and critical success with author-led, issue-based works of their own. Yet Davies seems to have become the face of British drama to such a degree that he enjoys the kind of public profile that was once reserved for heavyweights like Dennis Potter and Alan Bleasdale. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when this happened, but Channel 4 viewers in the late 90s and early 2000s will no doubt recall seeing Davies being respectively interviewed and grilled about his ground-breaking drama serial Queer as Folk on talk shows such as Right to Reply, and some may even remember him turning up on more light-hearted fare like 100 Greatest Moments from TV Hell discussing his early forays in children's programming. For most people, though, the first time he probably made their cultural radar was for reviving Doctor Who back in 2005. This was no mean feat, by any means: given both the sorry reputation the show was unfairly saddled with in the late 80s, and the creative cul-de-sac that was the Americanised 1996 TV movie, the fact that he managed to give it a whole new lease of life (and even, albeit briefly, turn it into a cottage industry with the spin-off series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures) was nothing short of remarkable. It was around this time he found himself turning up as a guest on popular entertainment shows as varied as BBC Breakfast, Richard & Judy, Blue Peter, and This Morning. By the late 2000s, he was even mentioned by name on the long-running soap opera EastEnders, where one character opined that he'd made Doctor Who "too gay"... Ah, the heady, care-free days of 2008.

One certainly couldn't begrudge Davies his success. His unapologetic, in-your-face depiction of modern gay life in Queer as Folk, set in the hustle and bustle of Manchester's thriving gay scene; his tender yet witty romantic drama Bob and Rose, in which a gay man falls in love with a woman; and his thought-provoking religious fantasy The Second Coming, where Jesus Christ's return to Earth in the form of an unassuming TV repairman ushers in Armageddon, had all granted him well-earned critical recognition as a talented, even visionary writer with a strong, distinctive voice. And as for his initial tenure as Doctor Who showrunner, it was a relief to finally be able to admit in public that you were a fan without people automatically assuming you were a high-functioning autistic who's never been laid. But this new-found celebrity brought something else, too: namely, an air of self-importance that not only strangled his subsequent work but transformed it into a mouthpiece for the worst corners of self-styled 'progressive' liberal groupthink.

Leaving aside Davies' disastrous second stint overseeing the Whoniverse (YouTube's pretty much cornered the market in that line of criticism), if recent dramas like his paranoid dystopian fantasy Years and Years ("TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!") and retro-state-of-the-nation serial It's a Sin ("AIDS IS BAD, BUT CONSERVATIVES ARE EVEN WORSE!") are a far cry from the multi-layered, gloriously messy and idiosyncratic worldview of his earlier work, peddling simplistic narratives that no doubt reflect the moral compass of his TV overlords, his recent offering Tip Toe occupies a different planet entirely. This is a work that purports to 'show both sides' in its contention that the LGBT community is facing growing hatred and stigma, but ultimately only shows one while dismissing the other with manipulative, sleight-of-hand reasoning; a work where characters raise culture war talking points, but their cartoonish, thumbnail personalities leave us in no doubt which ones we're supposed to sympathise with or reject outright. In short, this is nothing more or less than moral blackmail masquerading as art. In fact, it brings to mind a line from Andrew Davies' wonderful 1989 television play Ball-Trap on the Cote Sauvage, where the main character explains to his children that a visionary is "someone who has a dream and hopes that it's true." The other Davies - the one who gets aliens to declare their pronouns, has LGBT characters complain about people stereotyping them as sex-obsessed while showing them to be slaves to their libido, and who thinks it's movements like MAGA and Reform who are responsible for stirring up perceived animus against the trans community rather than the excesses of the politicised wing of the movement itself - clearly has a dream that he sincerely hopes is true, and that dream is that we all live in his carefully-constructed universe, and strut and fret according to the design laid down by our moral guardians... Including, of course, Davies himself.

Given Davies' position in the pecking order of British television, I doubt very much that he's been compromised in some way by the industry itself. After all, this is a writer who refused to work for the BBC unless they brought Doctor Who back - and even then, only if he was at the helm. That said, he's a useful reference point for understanding the trajectory of modern British television drama, from deregulation and identity crisis in the late 90s to its renaissance in the 2000s after John Birt vacated the Director General's chair at the BBC, and its subsequent losing battles with content-busting streaming services in the late 2010s and beyond. If Dennis Potter and Alan Bleasdale were accused of being indulged back in the late 80s and early 90s for producing sprawling, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink dramas like Blackeyes, Lipstick on Your Collar, The Monocled Mutineer and G.B.H., it was less to do with their celebrity status and more for their ability to craft challenging and impactful television. Lest we forget, this was at a time when creatives were allowed to fail. Davies' early work was born in that world, but came of age at a time when 'bums on seats' was the overriding mantra within the hallowed halls of broadcasting. He didn't save British television drama from extinction, as Boyce haughtily proclaimed: he heralded the extinction of a certain kind of television drama (the thoughtful, multi-faceted variety that seeks to understand rather than explain) and through his celebrity helped replace it with something shamelessly deterministic, elite-approved, patronising and 'consensus'-based - the very antithesis of what great drama should be.

A Decade of WordJam... And I'm Late to My Own Party

Can it be? Is it possible? Oh, frabjous day: WordJam returns! Clogging the outer corners of the ethernet with its customary blend of snarky critique, shit-posting and all-round fuckwittery.

The reason for my prolonged absence is due to a series of ongoing health complaints mentioned in a previous post - although I should mention, in the interests of transparency, that's really only half the story. What started off as undiagnosed testicular pain (not cancer, thankfully) has since shifted to a series of other maladies that are currently under investigation. As it happens, this week I have the pleasure of both a gastroscopy and colonoscopy to look forward to, which hopefully should shed more light on the matter. Although I'm not particularly looking forward to either procedure, I'm sure observing my upper and lower intestines on a flickering blue screen will be infinitely more pleasurable than sitting through three hours of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. (I know, I know - low hanging fruit: I'm just getting back into the humour thing after several months of self-pity, so go easy on me.)

Unfortunately, the last few months haven't been a walk in the park, what with anaemia, dizziness, unexplained digestive issues and all-round anxiety to contend with - which is really the reason why WordJam has been on ice for so long. Oh, I had all sorts of plans to mark a decade of this site, but the ability to actually sit down and write them, drawing humour out of myself that just wasn't there, completely eluded me. Plus, I was getting fed up with trying to spin something funny out of current events when everything going on around us in the last few months has been so bloody depressing.

Well, it's time to get up off my arse and rectify all that. Whatever happens in the next few months, I'm going to try and get this blog up off the ground again and justify the faith so many readers have had in me. Just looking at the stats over this last year has shown there's a receptive and enthusiastic audience out there, so to all those people who've been regularly dipping into the archives (and those who've emailed with personal greetings) I offer my humblest and most sincere thanks. The best is yet to come, folks.

Onwards... 

In Memoriam: Peter Watkins (1935-2025)

Peter Watkins was the greatest filmmaker of the second half of the 20th century: an artist who not only understood the power of the audio-visual medium, but spent his life and work interrogating that power. A pioneer of the docudrama genre, Watkins explored how images are constructed, the way we relate to them, the influence they hold on our perception and, later in his career, methods of resistance. He was, in this respect, every bit as important as D. W. Griffith and Orson Welles, and his influence can be seen in any number of filmmakers, from Michael Hanneke and Ben Wheatley to Bill Douglas and Stanley Kubrick.

A full tribute will follow in the next few days. Until then, there can be no better way of commemorating Watkins' passing than revisiting the film that put him on the map and marked him out as an extraordinary talent. I first saw Culloden (1964) about 20 years ago; it was my introduction to Watkins' work, and for me it captures the raw spirit of his vision: intense, playful, acerbic and profound, yet shot through with great empathy and compassion. I can think of no greater compliment than to say I envy anyone watching it for the first time.

ⓒ BBC/BFI

Snatches of Oblivion and Snatches of Renewal: The Lost Months of 2025

Well, we're halfway through 2025, loyal WordJammers, and what a year it's proving to be. Trump's back in, Starmer's on his way out, Ukraine's winning and losing at the same time (so what's new?), Gaza's still eliciting the same hysterical, anti-human responses from both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Diddy's added a new word to the popular lexicon - although, to be honest, I could happily have lived the rest of my life without knowing what a "freak out" is. We all know the old Chinese proverb that it's a curse to live in interesting times, but, truth be told, that's a load of old bollocks, really. Let's be honest, would you rather live in a time of great, seismic geopolitical shifts that are almost Manichean in scope, or one of dreary, "moral" stability where the stranglehold of Permanent Washington/Whitehall/Brussels/etc. make life resemble a Disney+ sitcom?

"But Richard," I hear a stifled, albeit imaginary, cry, "we all know that; the real question here is where the fuck have you been all this time?"

That's a tricky one to answer, but I'll do my best. Late last year, two very positive things happened: one was an invitation from a professional filmmaker to collaborate on a project, the other was securing corrective surgery for a minor procedure I underwent as a teenager that had resulted in long-standing complications. The former was quite a boon given the difficulties I've had in recent years of drumming up interest in my work from publishers and producers (it may sound like sour grapes, but it's hard finding an outlet if your satirical focus isn't perfectly in line with their values), while the latter, without going into details, would mark the end of a thirty-year journey to finally resolve an issue that's been eating away at my confidence for much of my adult life. As such, I planned to take a little break from WordJam until after these two important commitments had been met.

Cut to late January: my operation had gone smoothly, and I was plugging away like crazy on a scene breakdown for the film project. All the while, though, an unexpected problem was starting to present itself. It began with a mild feeling of discomfort in my right testicle, although at the time I assumed it was a combination of sitting for hours at a computer while working, and the rest required for my recovery. By late February, the film having folded following difficulty securing finance, I found myself practically crippled with pain that flitted from testicle to testicle. After a late night visit to accident and emergency, which thankfully ruled out a testicular torsion, I was booked in for an ultrasound to check for irregularities. Frustratingly - or reassuringly, depending on your point of view - cancer was ruled out, as was the possibility of an infection, but that, of course, left the problem of what the bloody fucking hell is actually going on with my love blobs.

It's a distressing thing when an intimate problem like this goes unresolved, and even more so when it affects your every day life. As such, I hope my readers will understand why things have been so quiet on WordJam recently. Thankfully, the pain I've been experiencing is starting to reduce, my mood is lifting a bit and life is starting to return to normal, which, despite the medical limbo I've been living with for the last few months, is making me a little more gregarious again. As such, I hope to be posting more on WordJam in the coming weeks. There are a number of pieces I've been working on recently which I'll be putting out soon, although they may need to be backdated so they make sense. You'll know what I mean when I publish them.

Anyway, for now, thanks for your continued support: I can see from the stats there's a very loyal audience out there, and as we're racing towards WordJam's tenth anniversary and a quarter of a million views, rest assured this blog isn't dead - it's just been taking a leave of absence.

Onwards folks.

Coming Soon from WordJam Publishing; P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves Stories As You've Never Experienced Them Before...

The winds whistling and howling outside Berkeley Mansions were nothing compared to the cyclone brewing inside the Wooster heart that unseasonably bitter March morning. Indeed, one's fairly certain that if King Lear had felt like gloomy young Bertram that particular Wednesday AM he would have challenged the winds to blow and crack their cheeks while standing in the ornate streets of Mayfair, not some newt-infested piece of shrubland in Dartmoor. But then, if poor K.L. had access to the remarkable gizmo that was currently exercising B.W.'s fingers and thumbs he would have spared poor Edgar's ears the proverbial bashing. I paused my rage-fuelled activities on Twitter for a moment to consider what an eighth century iPhone would look like when I was shaken from my reverie by a polite cough. I looked up blinking to find Jeeves standing over the bed brandishing the old eggs and b.

    'Ah, Jeeves,' I said frostily, glaring at him with the annoyance one usually reserves for a child kicking the back of one's theatre seat. 'Am I to assume from the sickly aroma of fried pig carcass and boiled chicken ovulation currently invading the Wooster bedroom that my stern talk with you after returning from the Drones Club last night fell on disinterested ears?'

    'On the contrary, sir,' he replied with his customary, measured bonhomie. 'I recall yesterday evening's declaration with absolute perspicuity.'

    'Yes, well, perspicuous or not, Jeeves, I want to make it absolutely clear that not another piece of dead animal flesh shall pass these lips.'

    'No, sir?'

    'No, indeed, sir. When one thinks of those poor blighters couped up in pens no bigger than a snooker table I go quite weak'

    'May one enquire if the chief architect of sir's culinary volte face will be sharing in this herbivorous demagoguery?'

    'If you're referring to Bingo, absolutely, Jeeves! Well, he doesn't have much choice, really, now he's once again a slave to the quixotic spirit of l'amour - or Tabitha Earthchild, to give her her nom de activisme. She who walks in beauty like the night, of cloudless what-not and etcetera. An intersectional feminist, no-less, Jeeves, engaged in the eternal struggle for social justice necessitating the dismantling of heteronormative, colonial-patriarchal values. Jolly good luck to the little woman, I say.'

    'And presumably sir has had time to reflect on the practicalities of this new-found lifestyle choice since he was put to bed last night in a state of advanced inebriation-?' 

    'Well, I've certainly 'educated myself' on the wider implications, if that's what you're driving at, Jeeves. Or rather, Bingo filled me in between Jägerbombs. Do you realise how much CS gas it generates transporting what's left of old Daisy, Mr. Porker and Tinkerbell to Smith's Butchers? Head-spinning stuff!'

    'Tinkerbell, sir?'

    'It struck me as a good name for a chicken, Jeeves. I was toying with Henry, but it seems rather disrespectful when one considers Agincourt, good old C. of E. and, of course, the motor car.'

    'If I may correct sir's entirely fallacious but wholly understandable blunder, the first automobile - or 'Fardier à vapeur', as it was then called - was in fact invented by a Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1769, and not our colonial cousin Mr. Ford.'

    'A Frenchman, Jeeves?'

    'So his place of birth in the Void-Vacon region of north-eastern France would indicate, sir.'

    'Well, I never,' I said, trying to take in the enormity of this revelation. 'Just think, Jeeves - if Napoleon had used these F.V. contraptions at Tarutino or Waterloo the course of history would have been altered.'

    'Alas, sir, it took some time for Monsieur Cugnot's invention to catch on.'

    'Well, it's a bally shame it caught on at all!' I snapped, Jeeves' observation handily placing me back on my train of thought again. 'All these infernal motorcars filling the air with noxious gas - it's a crime against nature, Jeeves. Do you realise the Earth is boiling? That we've passed the point of no return? And unless we drastically reduce our cardboard emissions and adopt renewable energies all life on the planet will be wiped out in twelve years' time?'

    'I take it sir is referring to carbon emissions?'

    'Yes, those as well.'

    'Well, one need only point to the underreported phenomenon of global greening to see that the promise of a barren, uninhabitable, apocalyptic future is wildly exaggerated, sir.'

   'Global greening, Jeeves?'

    'Yes, sir. A remarkable occurrence which has led to areas of forest comparable to a continent approximately twice the size of the United States mainland emerging over the last thirty-three years. According to studies, this unprecedented increase in the growth of plants and trees is chiefly fuelled by carbon dioxide. The slight rise in CO₂ emissions over the last century from 0.03 per-cent to 0.04 per-cent has thus provided ready food access for plants while at the same time preventing them rapidly losing water from their stomata. As a consequence, greening appears to have spread to arid landscapes previously unable to support vegetation, such as Western Australia and the African Sahel.'

    I looked at him for a moment in bewilderment, wondering if he had finished his truly extraordinary recall of facts that were as alien to me as a camel is to a polar bear.

    'That's all very well, Jeeves,' I finally replied, falteringly at first but with renewed gusto as the Wooster brain kicked back to life. 'But haven't you forgotten something?'

    'Sir?'

    'Good grief, the animals, man! Surely the forests drawing in all that CO₂ is going to choke the poor little perishers? Never more shall we see the nimble-footed chimpanzee swing his plucky way through the jungle, or the delicate wood vole nesting in fallen twigs if all those horrid emissions are being sucked up by the trees.'

    'Quite the opposite, sir. The carbon absorption produces oxygen, sustaining life. With reforestation and conservation, tree coverage has increased by 2.24 million square kilometres over the last forty-two years, creating a stable home for our bestial friends. And while it is undeniable that human beings have regrettably brought about the extinction of a number of species, this trend is gradually reversing. Over the last five hundred years, Gregorian calendar notwithstanding, just nine species of birds and mammals have shuffled off this mortal coil. Overfishing of the oceans naturally remains a problem, as indeed is plastic pollution in the oceans, sewage spilling into rivers, habitats being fragmented by urban growth and so on, but with careful husbandry and increasing awareness these trends are happily proving reversible.'

    There was another brief pause, after which he added 'sir' as a much-welcomed full-stop. 

    'And the reliance on fossil fuels-?'

    'Far more efficient than wind turbines and solar panels, sir. And if one may expatiate upon this matter with one final but paramount observation, the fanatical scramble towards net zero in the Western world borders on redundancy compared to the consumption of coal, oil and gas in potential superpower countries such as India and China. While they will enjoy an ever-increasing standard of living, we will find our daily comfort at the mercy of barely functional heat pumps, power shortages and an accelerating cost of living crisis.' 

    'You surprise me, Jeeves,' I replied archly, doing up the top button on my pyjama collar to underline my quiet outrage. 'I wouldn't have expected climate denialism from a dashed clever chap such as yourself.'

    'I prefer to think of it as empirical scepticism, sir. I haven't discounted the rise in global temperature, however small - merely expressed a Pyrrhonic view that the narrative disseminated by government agencies and mainstream media outlets does not hold the monopoly on truth.'

    'Well, in future, perhaps you should pay less attention to what this Python fellow says and place just a dash more trust in the wisdom of your superiors and betters.'

    'Very good, sir.'

    'However, I will add on a conciliatory note that your argument about the conservation and, one assumes, protection of wildlife, has made me consider that the occasional rasher of bacon, poached egg, lamb cutlet or sirloin steak will do no harm. After all, I am but one man, Jeeves, and therefore unlikely to drive any of our dumb friends to extinction single-handed.'

    'I'll prepare a fresh breakfast for you, sir,' he replied, the faintest hint of a smile lighting up his fine, chiselled face.

Well, now we know what all that grinning was about...

Five Great, Absolutely 100% Genuine Unreleased Carry On Films

Anyone with even a passing interest in British film heritage will know there are 31 canonical Carry Ons, from the tentative steps of Carry On Sergeant in 1958 to the thoroughly execrable Carry On Columbus in 1992 - but did you know there are five complete films that remain locked in the vault at Pinewood Studios, never to see the light of day? Well, you do now, sunshine. So, dear readers, join WordJam as we take a deep(ish) dive into this treasure trove of smutty laughs, slide whistles and sexual dysfunction. Who knows? If we're lucky someone at Studio Canal might even be reading this and set to work liberating these copper-bottomed masterpieces from the archive - although that's highly unlikely as they do sound like the sort of vaguely amusing tosh one might dream up while, say, sitting in the laundrette on a wet and miserable Monday afternoon. Anyway, on with the dog and pony show...

* * * * *

Carry on Deepthroat

(1974)

When bumbling Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein (Jim Dale and Peter Butterworth) investigate a break-in in the women's changing rooms at the Watergate Volleyball Club, they soon discover a top-level conspiracy that implicates none other than President Richard Milhouse Nixon (Sid James). Co-starring Kenneth Williams as Henry Kissinger and Hattie Jacques as the domineering Pat Nixon, rumour has it this production was shelved on both legal grounds and for the appalling quality of the accents.

* * *

Carry On Banging

(1986)

A late entry made during what would become the series' wilderness years, Banging sees Kenneth Connor star as Andipandi Dyatlov, the pompous chief-engineer at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. When his put-upon staff decide to get their own back after filling the coolant chamber with custard, it's a race against time to prevent disaster. Unreleased over concerns of bad taste, the film co-stars Patrick Mower, Jack Douglas, Vicki Michelle, Maria Whittaker and Nosher Powell as Mikhail Gorbachev.

* * *

Carry On Picketing

(1986)

Another lost classic from the era Carry On forgot, Picketing sees the Ironware Lady (Joan Sims) take on Arthur Slagheap (Bernard Bresslaw) when he leads the N.O.B. (National Organisation of Brickies) out on strike after hourly tea breaks are cut from half an hour to 29 minutes. Rank chose not to release the film fearing audiences would wrongly assume it was inspired by the Miners' Strike. Co-stars Windsor Davies as Ian MacTadger and Melvyn Hayes as Labour leader Neil Knockers.

* * *

Carry On Cortéz

(1967)

Arguably the most coveted of the unreleased Carry Ons, made as it was at the height of the series' popularity, Cortéz stars Sid James as the eponymous Spanish explorer who toppled an empire. Featuring what would've no doubt been memorable performances from Kenneth Williams as Montezuma and Barbara Windsor as the improbably blonde, bubbly native girl La Malinche, the film was axed just before completion when a pissed up Charles Hawtrey (as narrator Bernal Diaz) accidentally burnt down the set after carelessly discarding a cigarette.

* * *

Carry On Up Your Auschwitz

(1975)

Kind of does what it says on the tin, really. By all accounts, Kenneth Williams gives a career best performance as camp commandant (pun intended) SS-Obersturmbannführer Groper, while Talbot Rothwell's script excels itself with pratfalls and puns aplenty. Rumour has it the film's most memorable exchange -

        GROPER: (Williams) Tell me, Jew, do you vant to go to ze gas chamber?

        LEO PUTZ: (Hawtrey) No, thank you, I went this morning.

- was borrowed from a now lost episode of I.T.M.A., recorded at the Nuremberg Trials.