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Coel calls for transparency in MacTaggart

Michaela Coel delivers her MacTaggart Lecture at ETVF

ETVF: Michaela Coel, creator of E4 comedy Chewing Gum, used her MacTaggart lecture to urge greater transparency in the TV industry when it comes to racism, diversity and sexual misconduct.

Delivering the annual MacTaggart at the Edinburgh Television Festival, the award-winning actor and screenwriter suggested the industry needed to improve the way it works with diverse talent – who she referred to as “misfits.” She also recounted her own experience of sexual assault.

Coel’s first television gig came when her play Chewing Gum Dreams was picked up by FremantleMedia-owned scripted prodco Retort (recently replaced by Hare and Tortoise). While Coel noted that she was left alone to craft her show, she said TV companies too often pay lip service to their desire for diversity, immediately pairing fresh talent with experienced writers and crushing their vision for the projects.

“When people mention ‘diversity,’ I can guess we mean people who aren’t watching or making much of our telly,” she said. “Of late, channels, production companies and online streaming services have found themselves scrabbling for misfits… aware they might be very profitable.”

“In the quest for new writers, the misfit-looking people are instinctively sought first. But instead of nurturing them to write for themselves, the last few years have seen an immediate coupling with writers before the process has begun – writers more experienced, who fit into this house more. Is it important that voices that are used to interruption get the experience of writing something without interference at least once?”

Coel went on to say that the lack of varied perspectives among producers can have “catastrophic consequences,” citing a post-Chewing Gum acting job filmed in an unnamed location where local men threw stones at her when she was off set.

“The producers saw shooting in that place as a low-cost haven. They didn’t consider the experiences of the brown and black cast to meet the morals of their diversity compass, because they didn’t think to see things from our point of view,” she said.

When Chewing Gum returned for a second season on E4, Coel was named as creative co-producer rather than executive producer, standard practice for new writers who are inexperienced with show budgets.

Coel wants to see more transparency in this area, so new writers can learn the ropes earlier, and suggested the cloak of secrecy helped keep costs lower than they should be on shows with new or inexperienced writers.

“As they enlighten you, with TV stories you can’t film or write without them, enlighten them: shine a torch on the figures and budgets they can’t,” she said.

“I wonder whether someone should investigate how the shows of new writers are budgeted each year, within channels, to look for patterns. It may be that ‘business affairs’ have found it easier to get away with more on certain shows, sometimes budgeting way below what is commonly held as acceptable.

“When a budget is lower than standard, it leaves production companies saving and scrimping, and that save is often taken out on the writer; for example, the erasure of script editors. Without a healthy writing team, and a great story, what do you have on the screen to inspire misfits? Oh, Love Island.”

The speech followed this morning’s news that Coel is writing and starring in a provocative new drama for BBC2. With the working title Jan 22nd, the show will explore sexual consent in contemporary life.

In a highly charged address, Coel recounted her own experience of being sexually assaulted by strangers while working overnight on a script deadline.

“The first people I called after the police, before my own family, were the producers,” she said. “How do we operate in this family of television when there is in an emergency? When there are police involved, and footage of people carrying your sleeping writer into dangerous places; when cuts are found, when there’s blood… what is your job?”

She described having to ask for, rather than being offered, an extension to the script deadline after the incident, though the company did pay for therapy.

“I asked to push the deadline back and for the channel to be informed as to why. The deadline was pushed back, but the head of comedy never found out why,” she continued. “I’ve been invited here to speak to you as producers, from a creative perspective. As I’ve only made one TV show as a creator/actor and acted in some other roles, I can only speak from my experience. I’m not intending to single anyone out.”

Concluding her speech, Coel said: “Instead of standing here wishing for the good old glory days, about the way life used to be before Mark Zuckerberg graduated, I’m going to try to be my best; to be transparent; and to play whatever part I can to help fix this house. What part will you play?”

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