Why are TV dramas covering such recent history?

Forget period dramas, the hottest new trend in TV programmes is a dramatisation of an event so recent that the dust has barely settled.

From a play and a TV show about the Wagatha Christie case, which aired just five months after the verdict, to the Jodie Comer TV film Help, which was released in September 2021 before the Omnicron variant had even been heard of, producers are wasting no time in rushing out dramatisations of major news events.

Meanwhile, prodcuers were in such a rush to tell the tale of Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of bogus biotech company Theranos, that a Disney+ drama The Dropout was released before she’d even been sentenced. 

Culture and brand expert Nick Ede told FEMAIL there is an increasing appetite for more recent events to be quickly turned around and replayed on screens as we change how we consume news and current affairs.

He said: ‘We live in a culture now which is based on TikTok nibs that tell true stories in short form, but they fail to tell the whole story. 

‘The spate of quick dramatisations allows the facts to be presented in a compelling way. Using big stars to portray real people make the viewer even more excited, as they want to see how accurate the portrayal is.’

A generation who consumes most of their news through social media in bite-size form clearly has an appetite for these kind of dramas to get the ‘full picture’. 

However he added there is a chance that the fictional retellings of recent events may end up ‘muddying the waters’ in terms of our understanding of such events. 

However, as even more contemporary dramas begin to appear on small screens, the separation between fact and fiction may be an issue that continues to arise.

Nick also explained that production companies need to be sensitive as they reconstruct recent events – particularly those which cover darker themes, such as the pandemic.

Help, which premiered on Channel 4 in 2021, was set little more than one year earlier in the Spring of 2020.

While the UK was just emerging from lockdown following a pandemic which killed hundreds of thousands of people, the drama, which starred Jodie Comer, delved into the care home crisis at the beginning of the lockdown in which patients who had Covid were discharged to their care homes, spreading the virus to other residents.

While some post-pandemic dramas were well received, others were slated for being produced and aired ‘too soon’, such as This England, starring Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson

The Wagatha Christie court battle between Colleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy was dramatised in Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama. Pictured: Natalia Tena as Vardy

Despite airing so recently after the crisis hit care homes, Help received rave reviews as viewers and critics were struck by the retelling of the story.

The Telegraph said the drama was ‘a reminder that the thousands who died in care homes were known to us merely as statistics’. 

Meanwhile the Guardian dubbed it ‘one of the most evocative and harrowing depictions of recent history we have yet seen’.

However, such recent revisits of big events from the past are not always so gratefully received, with another pandemic drama, centred around the response within Number 10 to the Covid crisis, not quite hitting the same note.

As This England, which starred Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson, aired in September 2022, political journalist Martha Gill said: ‘This feels rather quick – perhaps too quick. It is pure chance that the series isn’t showing while Johnson is still prime minister.’

She added that the production of the TV series had been turned around so quickly that the show’s creator, Michael Winterbottom, would likely be ‘kicking himself’ for not including the ‘real end of the story’ – in which Johnson was unceremoniously forced out of office in the summer of 2022 by his own party.

Available now: Tickets for the extra dates are now on sale, with the show produced by Eleanor Lloyd, who is also behind the staging of Agatha Christie’s Witness For The Prosecution in London County Hall

Similarly, a BBC dramatisation of the Grenfell Tower fire in which 72 people died in the summer of 2017 has been criticised by survivors of the tragedy as a petition to stop it from airing has reached 50,000 signatures.

David O’Connell, a leaseholder on the Lancaster West Estate which includes the Grenfell building, told the Guardian: ‘The BBC series is useless unless it shows something new and revelatory. The proper way you tell the story happens 20 years after, when all the hidden stuff is out.’

A BBC spokesperson told the newspaper that the series would be produced with ‘the utmost sensitivity and respect’. 

‘I think that, with real life stories like Grenfell and the pandemic where lives were lost, there has to be respect and permission,’ Nick said.

However he added: ‘They are however public stories in the public domain, which have been highly documented in the media with real life accounts.

‘So a TV dramatisation like Grenfell will, in many ways, make the tragedy even more real and allow those who didn’t understand the full impact to know more and feel more for the families and friends and the communities affected.’  

The Crown has faced backlash as it moves into more contemporary royal history including the marriage of Charles and Diana (Emma Corrin and Josh O’Connor pictured)

Honoured: Confirming the role this week, Charity shared: ‘I have the honour of playing HRH Princess Beatrice alongside a, quite frankly, frighteningly good cast,’ confirmed Sussex-born Charity’

Although it is common for documentaries to be made about somewhat recent events, there is still also place for dramas, he argued – such as in the case of the Wagatha Christie showdown between Colleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy.

‘We love a documentary, but the dramatisations sometimes give us an extra layer as viewers,’ Nick said. 

‘Writers are allowed to expand the storylines a bit more to make it more entertaining.’ 

And he argues big names can pull in even more viewer interest in quick turnarounds for dramas based on real life.

As the British public only just uncurls its toes from Prince Andrew’s disastrous BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis in November 2019, Hollywood star Gillian Anderson is already reading lines in the dramatic reconstruction of the event after being cast as Maitlis.

Scoop, a Netflix production, will star Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew, Billie Piper as Sam McAlister and Keeley Hawes as Amanda Thirsk. 

Meanwhile Charity Wakefield will play Andrew’s eldest daughter, Princess Beatrice. 

Announcing her role earlier this week, the Sussex-born star said: ‘I have the honour of playing HRH Princess Beatrice alongside a, quite frankly, frighteningly good cast.’ 

Some of the most-watched TV shows on screens today include The Crown, which is based on events within the royal family and began when King George VI was on the throne in the 1950s. 

But as the royal drama progresses through the years and begins to cover events which are more contemporary, Netflix quietly added a disclaimer to its marketing of the fifth series.

In 2020, as the Netflix drama began to dramatise Charles and Diana’s marriage, the streaming giant initially refused to add a disclaimer to its programme amid backlash over how it told the stories.

At the time, a spokesman for the streaming service told the Mail on Sunday: ‘We have always presented The Crown as a drama, and we have every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events.

‘As a result, we have no plans – and see no need – to add a disclaimer.’

However in November last year, as Netflix began to promote the fifth series of the show, which moved into events that took place during the 1990s, there were signs of an apparent climbdown.

The trailer for the series was accompanied by the description: ‘Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatisation tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign.’ 

Nick said: ‘Fact sometimes isn’t as compelling as dramatisation and most dramas do say they are based on real life incidents as a disclaimer. 

‘We don’t know what went on behind closed doors in the royal family but we think we do with the Netflix dramatisation.’

He added there is a ‘fine line’ to tread when it comes to dramatisation of real life events.