I picked up the 3-season DVD boxed set and watched all of The Sandbaggers a while back, to find that it holds up brilliantly. If only all vintage TV could so well match our memories of it… the episodes are mastered from decently preserved tape, not telerecordings, and while the production values are standard for…

A short story twofer, free to Kindle now and over this weekend. Find it here

Just got the pix from Lisbon. This is me being… I have no idea what I’m being. But I’m thanking Sharon Bloom, Chris Farrer, Philippa Giles, David Richards, and the Silent Witness cast and crew.

The Kingdom of Bones was the title I gave to my script for BBC Films’ Murder Rooms series, the one I was discussing in my previous post. Writing about its parallels with the Ripper Street cancellation prompted me to dig out this showreel clip. I didn’t know it at the time, but piecemeal funding of…

Last week’s post on the cancellation of the BBC’s Ripper Street sparked a surge in blog traffic, retweets, and general indications of agreement. It seems I’m not alone in my view that the BBC is letting down its subscribers by running its programming in imitation of an ad-funded broadcaster. This Den of Geek piece is…

Every show’s cancellation hits the people who love it, and every show has a core group of people who love it lots. But the wider dismay over the BBC’s cancellation of Victorian-era police drama Ripper Street seems to have an unusual edge to it. I’m not a fan. By which I don’t mean that I…

I’m heading down to London to give the LFS Returning Drama masterclass that I wrote about here. Stop laughing. Yes, you. It’s real and they’ve said there’ll be biscuits. I’ve always been wary of the whole masterclass idea because the longer I go on, the less I’m convinced I know. But putting together a little…

It doesn’t happen often, so what the hell, let’s shout. I’ll write a proper update on the event tomorrow (ish – it’s very late and we’ve been hitting the bright lights and low dives of Lisbon) but for now, from the press release: Lisbon, Friday November 22nd 2013 On the eve of Doctor Who’s 50th…

Congratulations to Hull on the winning bid. No doubt there’ll be the usual city-what-culture snark but my memories of Hull are all good ones, of deep history and atmospheric landscape and unique creative energy. Down River was my love letter to Humberside and the East Yorkshire coast. For all those cities in competition, apparently the…

Saturday’s Dr Who day (Doctor Who: The Science Behind the Scenes, University of Central Lancashire) was great fun, as these things always are. When people come together for an occasion like this one, there’s an air of cynicism-free joy that’s completely at odds with some of the online griping you see. Which leads me to…