Free Euroscript Event

I can't go cos it's the same night as the wife's birthday! But if anyone does be sure to let us know how it went.

7.00 for 7.30pm June 25th

FREE NETWORKING
Grand Announcement: Competition Winners 2009

With 'Write a Winning Treatment' panel session.

The winners of the 2009 Euroscript Screen Story Competition will be announced at our free industry networking event on Thursday June 25th.

Our panel of experienced professional writers, editors and directors will reveal what they look for in a script treatment, and why the successful submissions to the competition made it through to the final shortlist.

They'll give tips on how to create an impact, warn about some common pitfalls, and outline the golden rules - and when to break them - taking you through the whole process from log-line to fade-out. Invaluable to anyone undertaking the process of writing a treatment or submitting a script.

Come and learn, and ask questions, drink, chat and mingle.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL. To book a place, email events@euroscript.co.uk now - you will need to give separate email addresses for any friends you'd like to bring along.

VENUE
The Green Man
383 Euston Road
London NW1 3AU

Opposite Great Portland Street Station

Things we noticed watching tv this week 28 (spoilers)

With everything else going on, I haven't yet mentioned series 3 of either Robin Hood or Primeval in this column. So this seems a bit overdue. But with Robin Hood having only 3 episodes to go, and Primeval now finished, it actually gives me a chance to look back over a substantial body of work. I'm gonna say from the outset that I enjoy both shows. I know many people don't, and that they think either one or both are rubbish. Fair enough. But as pure Saturday evening slot entertainment, I think both are rather enjoyable. However the idea of this column has never been to give a traditional review that you can find from the TV critics in newspapers etc. What I've always tried to do, for myself as much as anyone, is analyse what I think works and doesn't work so I can apply that to my own writing.

And I think it's really interesting that these series 3's have perhaps shown the value of a US style showrunner (or put simply, a lead writer - and usually creator.) Because I think the lack of involvement of Dominic Minghella (and probably reduced involvement of Foz Allan) from Robin Hood, and Adrian Hodges (and possibly Tim Haines too) from Primeval, has really been noticeable.

Let's take Primeval first, as that has concluded. Be honest, as concepts go it's brilliant. Simple but brilliant. That's why it's being made into a Hollywood movie. And the first two season's rocketed along. So when series 3 kicked off, I had no idea Douglas Henshall was leaving. So Cutter's death came as a complete shock, which I thought was fantastic, because as regular readers will know, I'm very big on killing off key characters in a show that asks us to buy into life and death drama. Because if no one ever dies, well, the belief will evaporate and it will just become boring. (I'll come back to this with Robin Hood.) Then two weeks after that, Lucy Brown left the show, albeit escaping death by the skin of her teeth and leaving of her own accord. This set up the precedent now that no one was safe. For two main characters to leave during a series (as opposed to at the end of one and then not return) is very rare. Suddenly there was the real possibility that anyone could get killed off. But I do feel that the series lacked focus and a sense of unity. By that I mean although Jason Flemyng was brought in and led very well as Danny Quinn, Laila Rouass's Sarah was given hardly anything to do. (And she's an excellent actress, as anyone who saw the brilliant Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee a few years ago will know.) And Captain Becker was even worse. I actually feel a bit sorry for the actor because his part seemed so bland and underwritten.

Then there was the series arc (again something regulars will know I bang on about a lot) This was where the problems really lay and something a strong showrunner would've helped avoid. What series arc there was centred around an artifact from the future, the eventual end of the world, and Helen Cutter running around in the thick of it. Oh and throw in Christine Johnson to that too. Her character actually typified this lack of focus. Because as well as still not having a clue as to who she worked for or what she was trying to do, one week she was getting a dressing down and seemingly beaten after being trapped by Danny and Lester, and the next she was carrying on, throwing her weight around like nothing had happened. It turned out that the artifact showed where anomalies were (although I think we knew that before the finale) and actually didn't seem to make a difference to anyone. It ended with Abby and Connor trapped in one time period, and Danny stranded in another. So I hope, despite strong rumours that the shows future is in jeopardy, this is not the end. It's kind of a slave to the special effects, which in turn eat up the budget, but it doesn't need to be with good writing. One of the best episodes of the series was James Moran's, which in the main featured one little creature and a spooky house. In three seasons, only once, a medieval knight, has anything other than a creature come through an anomaly. More creative thinking and less big digital dinosaurs can reduce the budget and improve the story telling. And of course a stronger series arc!

Robin Hood has had similar problems. Season 2 ended with the humdinger of Marion being killed by Gisborne. Many fans were outraged, but I thought this was spot on. Not because of Lucy Griffiths, who I thought was rather good. But because once again, if characters lives are in danger each week, and people are running around with swords and shooting arrows, and yet still no one gets killed, we begin to lose interest. And unlike Primeval, who could easily replace its lead, Robin Hood of course cannot. It's the classic James Bond problem. No matter how many times Robin is on the verge of death, you know he'll be okay. So it gets ever more ludicrous. The pinnacle this season was when Gisborne had him completely surrounded, and a volley of arrows or a rush of blades would've seen him off. But no, he thought, a hungry lion would be the way to go instead! It just becomes silly and although there can be comedy in a show like this, the drama has to be played straight otherwise why should we care. It's a delicate balance of tone. But if Robin can't die, the threat has to come to the others. To that end, I think Robin should've killed Gisborne in the Series 3 opener. The fact that Richard Armitage obviously had breaks from filming and has largely played a peripheral role in the series, only adds weight to this. (Although having said that the twist in last week's episode means that the shift in his and Robin's relationship could drive the series to the finish line.) Same with the Sheriff, who has disappeared but those wiggling fingers when he was supposed to be dead, suggests a return is likely. His absence and the appearance of Gisborne's sister and Prince John has been fun though.

But again, the overall series arc has been missing. Season 2 was a while ago now so forgive me if I am off, but I think there was a long running plan, involving black knights and lords and stuff, to eventually kill the King in the Holy Land. Anything, even remotely like that, has been absent. And that is probably why, with 3 episodes to go, we get Robin's long lost thought to be dead father turning up with the news that Robin and Guy share a half brother who they must save from imminent death. Like I said before, a strong showrunner would probably have held greater creative control and unity of vision to balance the series a little better.

I'm trying to give up reading screenwriting books (seriously it's better to save your money and read scripts) but one I keep going back to at the moment is Alex Epstein's Crafty TV Writing. It's completely from a US perspective but it gives a fantastic insight into how shows work over there. And you are left in no doubt that the showrunner comes up with what's called the template, basically how the show functions tonally, story wise, etc, and that s/he is responsible for making sure every script meets that criteria. In the last few years this has become more common in this country. People like Jimmy McGovern and Tony Jordan have taken control of their shows. But there probably isn't a better example than Russell Davies and Doctor Who. By all accounts he ran the show in every sense, rewriting mercilessly scripts that would never ultimately have his name on. But would the relaunch have worked as successfully had it not had this unity of vision? I personally preferred early Shameless to that latter ones, I imagine it's because of the dwindling involvement of Paul Abbott.

Now most of the people reading this, including myself, are a long way off the chance to create our own shows. Correction. We're a long way off getting them made. The creation is up to us. Over a thousand people entered the Red Planet Prize this year with TV pilots. So plenty of people are doing it. So I hope that when these people do get their chance, it is indeed truly their chance, and the shows they create remain their own unique vision. And if indeed it's time to move on to pastors new, like Minghella, Hodges and now Davies, a suitable replacement is brought in. Over to you Mr. Moffat.

100 not out

So apparently this is my 100th blog post! That's nothing really compared to David's mammoth 1500th - but still seems like a mini milestone to me. I've really enjoyed it and it's been fantastic connecting with other writers. Rumours abound that blogging is out of fashion and dying out cos of things like facebook and twitter - but screw that, I'm not going anywhere! (This blog, and to a lesser extent my facebook profile, is my presence on the internet. And that pays off when I take meetings with people who begin with "so I read your blog...")

Anyway, never one to miss a chance to take stock of a few things, I am gonna do just that if I may.

Firstly, I've been quite overwhelmed with the amount of requests I've had to read The Storyteller. I can understand why. If I'd known Felicity the year before, I would've also wanted to read her winning script, just to get even a hint of a leg up. However just a word of caution. Had I read Felicity's before I entered, it may well have done more harm than good. Not because her script isn't any good, because it's excellent, but because her style, tone, story, pretty much everything, is sooo different from mine. If I'd read that thinking okay, this is what a winning script looks like, it may well have thrown me off my game, as opposed to help me improve it. So by all means, you're welcome to read The Storyteller, because it did win, it is a good script, and reading good scripts helps write them. But please, please, don't make the mistake of thinking this is what the Academy is looking for so I should tailor my project to fit this kind of thing. What they are looking for is what they say the are looking for. And surprise, surprise, it's what everyone is looking for. Originality, strong voice, great characters, good story etc. Write the story you want to write and just write it as well as you possibly can.

By the way, I think I have responded to everyone who has emailed so far, but some have gone to junk and some of my replies have apparently gone to spam for some reason. So if you haven't heard from me check that first, and if there's nothing there, feel free to drop me another line.

Finally on this subject for now, with just over a month to go until the deadline, drafts should be well under way. If you would like me to look at it I would advise getting in as early as possible, because firstly, you'll want time to rewrite afterwards, and secondly, if everyone emails at the last minute, it's gonna be a nightmare!

In other news, I got a few questions about what happened to the Rise Summer Challenge, probably cos I mentioned it on the blog a few weeks ago. I have to say I had no idea as I'm not connected with them in any way, just another entrant. So I decided to email them myself and this is their response:

We have had a lot of enquiries regarding The Summer Challenge and understandably so, it has been an incredibly long time. We have found it hard coming up with a short-list as many people are involved with reading at this stage. This has meant it has been hard coordinating everyone's busy schedules to finalise the list.

If you would like to enter other competitions or send your screen play to other people, please feel free to do so however refrain from giving any rights away as we still hold them. To regain them please send an email to summerchallenge@risefilms.com stating your withdrawal from the competition and wait for a response.

We are sorry for the wait but we want to give each submission the attention it deserves.

Best wishes

The Summer Challenge Team

So whilst it has been a rather long time, fair play to them for being upfront about it and explaining the delay. I assume therefore that if you haven't had an email from them saying you haven't won, you're still in with a shout! So keep the faith and those fingers crossed.

I'm also relieved to say I made it through the first Writers' Academy culling - meaning I'm down to 150 from around 500. Massive phew and thank goodness for that. Nothing now until the end of June. But there was an interesting blog from Ceri Meyrick about the initial process here. It's well worth reading and provides some interesting insights as to what sort of thing is being submitted, what's working, and what's not. The summary was particularly interesting to note and breaks down like this:

Positives:

- Most of the readers felt that the standard was higher this year.
- Lots of bravery - interesting original worlds.
- Sparky dialogue
- Technically accomplished scripts (although this meant the need to be stand out original was greater)

Negatives:

- Too many stage directions
- Scripts opening with several pages of monologues
- Dialogue that sprouted facts endlessly
- Spelling mistakes and hard to read script formats

The positives are great news. Overall improvement and brave story telling across the board is better for everyone. The negatives though were a little shocking. I blame the Americans for the stage directions! The wealth of scripts on the net is fantastic for writers but we need to be careful about reading shooting scripts, or scripts that are published but are not really how the script would've been written in the first place. Long story short, lay off the stage directions. We just don't do them here. And if you don't wanna look bad to people who matter, like BBC readers, leave them out.

Scripts opening with pages of monologues - and for that read voice over too. There are loads of people to blame for this, like American Beauty, Guy Ritchie and many others! But you know what, they all worked, so what's the problem? The problem is, most of the time it doesn't. Nine times out of ten, it's just really boring. I would never give a sweeping rule like don't ever open your scripts this way - but I would say think very carefully about whether this is the best way to do it. This extends to the next negative, which amounts to expositional dialogue. It's a massive no, no! It's boring, slow, and will mostly float over everyone's head. But here's the flip. Every script that's ever been written, probably has some exposition in it. Any information that you as writer know, but you need the audience/reader to know, is probably exposition. The trick of course, is to get it over in a way that doesn't look like you are doing just that (like two characters having an argument,) or that there is something else going on in the scene that is more exciting and distracts us. Probably the all time classic example of this is in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Who the hell remembers all that jargon about where the Ark is and how comes the Nazis are digging in the wrong place. But we do remember praying that Indie doesn't eat the poisoned dates that kill that little monkey.

But Ceri's final negative was the most shocking of all. I really thought, with script samples out there, and formatting programmes like Final Draft, Movie Magic or indeed various free ones, that this sort of nonsense was on the way out. In fact, less and less of the scripts I get sent, either privately or through companies, are guilty of this. So if I'm not getting them, why on earth people are sending them to the BBC in the most crucial, biggest, life changing scheme around, I really don't know.

People - we have to sort the format out! It's courier 12 point for a reason. The script layout is there for a reason. It doesn't matter if you've found a cooler font or a flashier way to set it out. You're gonna look like an idiot. No I take that back, you're gonna look like an amateur, which is worse. Invest in a formatting programme or get someone to show you how to download one of the free ones if you're not technologically minded (I'm certainly not!)

As far as spelling goes. This too is unforgivable. Again, I don't see this too often so it's bizarre it's been an issue for the Writers' Academy. It's extremely hard to proofread your own work. You tend to just see what you think you wrote. But it's always, always worth putting it aside for a bit and then doing a read through purely looking for spelling mistakes and typos before you send it anywhere. Better still, if at all possible, get someone to read it through for you with a big red pen at the ready. Actually proofreading properly is a thankless task, because you shouldn't be reading the text for the story. It's slow reading in a very detached way. I know because I'm a professionally trained proofreader with Chapterhouse.

So, I've decided to open up a proofreading service connected to Script Reading On The Blog. Once again, I would always suggest that if you don't need this service, of course don't use it! Far better, and easier, to get a mate, a partner, a parent, whoever, to do it for you. (As long as they do it properly!) But if you don't feel you have anyone you can ask or trust, by all means get in touch. Because it's the saddest thing in the world to slave over a script, work so hard on getting the story and characters right, and then just piss off readers with typos or spelling mistakes (and formatting ones too.)

So that's it for now - here's to the next 100 posts!

Moving On (Part Five)

Moving On concluded with Butterfly Effect by Esther Wilson. (To my knowledge this is her first screen credit although she appears to be an experienced playwright.) To be honest, this story had a weird title (yes I know what it means) for a confused story. Initially it had the biggest cast, and that contributed in making the opening far more confusing than the previous episodes, which had been characterised by a very clear ‘this is our theme today.’

Essentially the story was about Sylvie, who works at a youth home shelter type thing (I really wasn’t sure) and one night, lets in a young man who lives there who is being chased home by a gang of youths. The twist is that this guy is in a heightened state and wielding a gun. However Sylvie is the only one who sees the gun (or so we are led to believe, although later it’s revealed a colleague did but kept quite to either protect herself or the boy, something that is never followed up on,) so the police are powerless.

Sylvie though is traumatised by the incident, doesn’t want to leave the house any more, keeps texting and checking up on her son at uni, and goes as far as handing in her resignation at work. The trouble is, I didn’t believe any of this. I don’t mean to be glib. I’m sure anyone who has been in proximity to a gun wielding man can be very badly affected. But Sylvie wasn’t really threatened, like she says she was. Jacko, the boy, yells at her to open the locked door so he can escape the youths (let’s ignore the fact that he had a gun so surely had the upper hand.) I don’t think that at any point he actually threatens to harm Sylvie. So her reaction seems completely over the top. Life goes on, right? Again, I don’t mean to be flippant, but I found it interesting that Sylvie’s mate, Barbara, basically says as much in the script. I seriously wonder whether this was included to flag up and pre-empt what everyone assumed the audience would be thinking. This can sometimes be clever writing, as long as there is a pay off as to the real reason for Sylvie’s reaction (like she’d been the victim of a bad attack when younger or something and it evoked repressed memories.) But nothing was forthcoming.

Then all of a sudden another witness to the gun comes forward, offscreen and who we never meet, but now it means the police can prosecute. This could’ve been really interesting. It’s something that we could all relate to and a theme that I have always found fascinating. What motivates have a go heroes? What would I do if I had to testify against someone dangerous? Is it better to turn a blind eye and protect myself and my family or should I do the ‘right’ thing? If the Butterfly Effect had been about this, we could’ve been in for a cracking drama. As it was, this was all handled very quickly, and essentially resolved by a bizarre confrontation between Sylvie and Jacko.

I’m not sure witnesses are allowed to approach defendants on the street, shout at them for ruining their life, pretend to have either a gun or a mobile phone in their bag, and then hit them round the head with the phone. I think it would probably jeopardise the case. But this is exactly what happened. And it concluded with Sylvie retracting her resignation and turning up in court to testify against Jacko. Well and truly ‘moved on.’ So all she needed to get over her massive emotional trauma was to yell at him. I don’t mean to be pedantic, but the whole thing seemed to be a missed opportunity with a potentially cracking theme, but just turned out to be rather ill conceived.

Which was a shame, because I think the series as a whole was very worthwhile, with some good writing and hey, it’s better than watching repeats of Diagnosis Murder. Jimmy McGovern must be applauded for, along with The Street, his one-man crusade to surreptitiously bring back the play for today. It’s pie in the sky of course because the world has run out of money, but wouldn’t it be nice if the BBC could do more of these, along with Doctors, and the recent Missing, and have three home grown daytime dramas to offer opportunities to new writers?

Moving On (Part Four)

There was an interesting change of pace with the fourth instalment of the Moving On series. Previously, plots have evolved quickly, arguably too quickly at times. But Dress to Impress by Arthur Ellison was much more of a slow burner. And a pretty effective one too. It established almost immediately that today’s issue was going to be cross dressing – mixing it up a bit with the fact that Daniel, the man in question, was a teenager. So you were waiting right from the word go for his parents to discover this, and normally you’d expect it to occur early as the inciting incident. But the writer does something clever in holding it back and holding it back, all the time cranking up the tension for the explosive reveal that you know has to come at some point.

So in actual fact the story was more an exploration of the state of the marriage of his parents, Laura and Jake. When Jake discovers sexy underwear et al, he assumes they are his wife’s birthday present to him. So when she doesn’t deliver, as it were, he is not a happy bunny. Having already seeded the idea that another man, Les, is after his wife, it was pretty clear where this was going. I don’t mean that in a bad way. There is nothing wrong with good set ups and pay offs, as long as they are used correctly. Here, everything was done to increase the tension and drama.

So when Daniel’s revelation came, it was to stop his parents tearing lumps out of each other. What worked really well is that Daniel didn’t just decide he’d had enough of living a lie and blurt it out. How many times does that happen in real life? More likely, we hold onto our secrets until we have absolutely no choice but to reveal them. This story reached a point where Daniel’s motivation was born out of having absolutely no alternative. Forcing your characters to (plausibly) do the thing they least want to do is always a good start when looking for a dramatic story.

But for some reason the Moving On series does seem to have a bit of trouble closing their stories out. This time we are led to believe that Daniel moves out (but he’s a teenager – where does he go and with what money??) Only for the next scene to have him return home for a visit during for his mother’s birthday lunch, during which there’s an indication that his father has come to terms with his wardrobe choices. Surely this scene would have sufficed and the whole moving out thing seemed unnecessary and made little logical sense. But that’s a really small gripe of what was a very good script, that produced three strong performances from its leads. I don’t know Arthur Ellison but he clearly likes exploring marriage as a theme. And having written two of my favourite The Street episodes, (the one where David Thewlis steals his dead twin’s identity, and the one where the sisters bury the abusive husband under their mother’s coffin,) he is clearly a talent to watch.

Moving On (Part Three)

The third installment of the Moving On anthology came from the least experienced writer on the series. So I was even happier that Drowning Not Waving, by Sarah Deane, was the strongest story so far. Ellie (played by Christine Tremarco) has money problems. This is quickly established with a series of visuals culminating in putting her house up for sale. There's been a lot of that in Moving On - did no one hear about the property slump! But actually I am being facetious because the script uses this to its advantage. Ellie is desperate, so when former school bad boy John Mulligan re-enters her life and offers to buy her house and rent it back to her, even though there are better property deals to be had for him, she finds it hard to refuse.

Although she is wary at first about what he is really after, and declares she is not for sell too, he won't take no for an answer. And after he turns up on her doorstep with a takeaway and an apology, they end up in bed. There's a slight misunderstanding when she answers his mobile to someone called Tracy, but later he tells her that she's his sister, and that he's not playing around cos he really fancies her. But when Ellie's friend, Maria, hears she is seeing John, she reacts badly. She tells Ellie that if she continues seeing John and sells him her house, she never wants to see her again. At first I thought Maria's explosion was another one of these Moving On escalations in drama that seems out of pace and proportion. But the difference this time was that it became clear where this had come from and what motivated it. It turns out that Maria also knew John from school and says everyone knows he's made his money from drug deals not property deals. This I could understand. No one would want their mate getting involved with anything like that and it worked as an effective midpoint.

Ellie confronts John who insists he dealt for a few months when he was sixteen, he's not proud of it and doesn't now. Moreover, he and Maria had a brief affair a year ago and he left her, so now this is her jealousy motivated revenge. When Ellie confronts Maria, she admits to the affair but maintains she was the one who ended it, because she learnt about his current drug dealing. Next Maria confronts John to warn him to stay away from her friend. This was a really cool scene because although John came across as someone maybe a little bit dangerous, it was done in such a way that either of them could've been telling the truth. It kept up the suspense nicely and you didn't know who to root for.

As Ellie and John prepare to go away to New York for a few days, he suddenly has to stay behind on business and will join her later. So she sets off to the airport on her own and during the car ride we get one of the now familiar Moving On flashbacks where we get a recap on some of the key scenes and dialouge from the story. The major difference this time is that it really felt Ellie was replaying the incidents in her head, and all of them now had new significance. Has he been playing her all this time? Sure enough, as she checks her luggage, she finds drugs hidden away. He was using her as a mule. It was really well written and actually reminiscent of that famous ending in The Usual Suspects!

In the next scene we find out John got sent down for five years and then rather bizarrely Ellie goes to see him in jail. He shows his true colours and tries to equate his drug dealing with her excessive debt inducing buying and makes her feel bad because he paid for her house with drug money. For her part, Ellie says she came to see him to see if she would feel anything, and the look on her face suggests she doesn't. There's a moment where John's bravado seems to falter as he realises he has failed. The story ends with Ellie moving out of the house and riding off with Maria, moving on...

I'm not sure the final couple of scenes worked for me and whether they were really necessary. In fact, it might have been cool to end it as Ellie discovers the drugs in her car and then gets arrested herself. But I'm not naive enough to think that this darker ending would've necessarily been appropriate in the middle of the afternoon. However generally speaking this was a well plotted, taut drama with excellent performances from the two leads. I've enjoyed watching Tremarco since her barnstorming performance in the excellent Faith a few years ago and feel she is better actress than the material she gets sometimes suggests. And Richard Armitage, in between trying to catch Russian spies and killing Robin Hood, is still the go to guy for dark brooding leads, and he gave a performance both charming and dangerous.

We often read and hear about people trumpeting new writers, only to find that the 'new' writers they are referring to have loads of soap or radio credits. Nothing wrong with that. Fair play to them. But it was really refreshing to see something from a writer, who although has other commissions on the go (according to her CV) this was still her first screen credit. I certainly look forward to seeing more of Sarah Deane's work.

Moving On (Part Two)

Next came Bully, written by Marc Pye. (You can read an interview with the writer about the inception of his episode and the series as a whole over at Lucy's place.)

Briefly, two neighbouring families go on holiday together and we are led to believe that something went down between the two young sons, Andrew and Ryan. So much so that Andrew's father tells him that if anything similar happens again, hit him. This was essentially the pre-credit sequence so no messing about. Scene and title laying the theme right out there in no uncertain terms. And sure enough, not too long elapsed before Andrew was punching Ryan in a playground scrap, and leading him into a lamppost in a game of blind man's bluff.

The respective parents are a little puzzled by the turn in Andrew's behavior, until his mother tells Ryan's that his dad, Colin, is trying to toughen him up to stop him getting teased about his weight. (In actual fact Andrew wasn't really overweight, just a lot taller than Ryan, which would surely be a reason not to tease him. But never mind.) The main problem was that apart from the pre-credit scene, we'd seen nothing of Colin and Andrew's relationship. So this sudden increase in violence, when Andrew did not appear to have been the victim of bullying of any kind, felt a bit odd to say the least.

In probably the most touching and interesting moment, Colin admits to his wife that he was teased when he was younger and doesn't want Andrew to suffer the same fate. I thought this was an excellent idea and gave empathetic motivation to an otherwise repugnant character. But it was never followed up on. There was no catharsis for Colin, no coming to terms with his past, not even a genuine acknowledgment that violence was not the answer, which was a shame. Instead the subplot involving Colin was about him having an affair, and getting his mate Les (Ryan's father,) to cover for him. But even this wasn't used to its full potential. Once the families were at war, the fact Les had enormous dirt on Colin didn't seem to occur to either. If some neighbour's kid was beating up my son, and I knew he was having an affair, I would use it, grass or otherwise. So it might have been more interesting if Les had found out about the affair a little later, and then suddenly Colin would have to change tack, make nice, in order to protect himself. The whole thing got wasted and basically forgotten by the end of the story.

Overall Bully was an improvement on the The Rain Has Stopped. But I did find it interesting that Pye said that the idea started off as a one hour drama for The Street. I have to say it felt like it. The pacing was really uneven. I understand the desire, and need, to escalate drama and tension, but we went from everybody being friends, to Andrew assaulting Ryan numerous times, Colin defacing Les' car, and Les threatening Andrew twice, declaring he would kill him and do time for him if he went near Ryan again. It was a shocking twist to see Les bully a cowering Andrew, but it all felt rushed and didn't ring true. This was even more bizarre considering the brief flashback sequence. Like the voiceover yesterday - did we really need to be reminded of moments from such a short script? It made me wonder whether they had the budget to actually shoot enough material?

Again like yesterday, the denouement was handled very quickly. Andrew ran away, but it turned out he was hiding in the attic. It brought father and son together, helped the two mothers make up, and reunited Colin and Les. It was a shame for the respective writers, although probably not their fault, that two consecutive stories used a child disappearing as major turning points. But unlike Liz yesterday, I was unsure who was 'moving on' in Bully. Probably a toss up between Colin and Andrew, but I'm not sure not hitting people any more constitutes 'moving on.' However, where Bully worked was a unity of theme that was missing from The Rain Has Stopped.

Come back tomorrow for a look at Drowning Not Waving by newcomer Sarah Deane.