Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1

Introduction

Historical Illusions: Different but the same

Cross-boundary comparison and drawing the lines: problems of method?

Historical Parameters and Public Service Frameworks

Drama as a television genre

Structure of feeling plus social imperative

Questioning the ‘golden age’

The Production Process, and Creative Practitioners

Chapter 2

Democratising culture

Peuple et culture, Télé-clubs and l’État d’Urgence

Cultural intervention, an affair of state: Manifeste des 121

Culture and Class in Britain

Cultural debates and definitions

Cultural activism – France and Britain

The BBC cultural mission

The culture of everyday life: authoritarian structures

The pre-Osborne drought

Angry writers: a catalyst for change?

Watching film in cinema …watching drama on television.

Chapter 3: INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FRENCH TELEVISION.

Push pull factors of dramatic control

Comparison

Post-war priorities

Radio – a basic essential of everyday life

Television relaunched – officially.

Five-year plan and a promising future for television

Management structures: with commitment

RTF has landed – with govt control:1958/59

De Gaulle in the living room

De Gaulle, Peyrefitte and the voice of France

ORTF start up: liberalism and dramatic suppression.

Bureaucracy: les bouchons for programme makers

Co-production, the erosion of public service broadcasting- and advertising

May 68, censorship, no AI but transistors, and television drama directors

Return to normal life: sackings and reforms

Chapter Four: The Politics of British Television Drama: Class and Profitable Interventions

Introduction

Social and Historical context: post-war setting for television drama

Institutional priorities: BBC Management

Television has come to stay: a luxury service, or shoestring technology?

Television sets for the people - in Britain - and in France!

Public service, the BBC and centralized control

BBC management and the TV ugly duckling

Collins and McGivern: radio men converted to television

To expand or not to expand, a question of politics and television access

The Coronation, a Ten-Year Plan and competition for the BBC

Programmes for sale, but under strict control:the start of ITV

Regionality, ratings, drama and social class

BBC, competition, and the search for new ideas

Pilkington Report – Good marks generally...but for some, room for improvement

The Greene start-up: The New Young Gladiators of BBC2

BBC culture, industrialization, and the rise of professionalism

Television and Political Happenings

Conclusion

Chapter 5: THE POLITICS OF FRENCH TELEVISION DRAMA: The Liberation Generation

Introduction

Start Up: A Beautiful Future

Management and dramatic changes

Live output, technology, studios and dramatic results

Authenticity: politics and practicalities

Television director as auteur

Liberation Generation and the Institut des Hautes Cinématographiques (IDHEC)

The people’s teachers and public service

Live broadcasts: directors, auteurs, trade unionists, fingers on the buttons

Directors and politics part 1: ‘The strike would be hard and long…’

Continuity genre and codes of politics

Directors and politics part 2: the Lorenzi Affair and political victimisation

Censorship, Drama Directors, and control of production process

Drama Directors and control of the production process

Trade union membership and opposition to de-professionalisation

Television drama: quality and quantity post-1964

The drama of politics: May 68 and the television directors

Conclusions

Chapter 6: Writer, Director, Social Class: new voices in British television drama

Introduction

Writers, class, and the politics of culture: new writers, new drama

Television drama scripts as a try out for theatre and cinema

A sort of writers’ workshop

Crossing the boundaries to interpretreality: the tiny window of television.

Chayefsky and new insights

‘Television needs the writer even more than he needs television.’

The ‘eloquence of the vernacular’, and social class

Writers, politics, and teamwork

Reorganisation for writers

A ‘real organisation of writers’…and no golden age

Mediators and output: writers, producers, agents, gender, control

The writer/mediator conflict

“To get writers we have to woo them…good plays are in short supply.” 

Chapter 7 

Director, writer, change, and challenge in the drama of French Television

Comparison 

The Director: the pivotal profession 

The press TV critics and status of the director 

The role of the writer 

Director, producer: control? 

Un des genres télévisuels par excellence: innovation and the politics of drama

Si c’Était Vous : the first Nouvelle Vague production 

Les Cinq Dernières Minutes

Television Drama and Political Consciousness: La Camera Explore…

Écriture par l’Image -TV images and reality

Conclusion

Chapter 8 

Comparisons 

Television relaunch, reluctant government support

The People’s television sets 

Political address and drama 

Live transmission and recording potential: technology and aesthetics

Public service, literary adaptations and theatrical influences 

Innovation, the author, and teamwork

Drama which connects from the left 

Power in the studio 

Creativity, management, innovative output 

Bibliography 

Specialist Libraries and Archives consulted 

Libraries and archives 

Manuscript and other Primary Sources 

BBC Written Archives (Caversham)

British Film Institute Library Special Collections

Press Sources

Archive material

Personal Interviews

Index