BBC chief content officer Kate Phillips has challenged creatives grappling with climate storytelling to deliver the BBC’s next breakout hit format.
Kate Phillips
Indicating the BBC is officially ‘open for business’ when it comes to commissioning big ideas that tackle ecological issues, the exec told an audience of creatives gathered today at the BBC Climate Creatives Conference in London: “We are absolutely in search of that next plot twist that captures the zeitgeist and defines the next period of TV history.”
Phillips, who was speaking in a pre-recorded message, used examples such as Traitors and Big Brother for the scale of show she was after – but with a climate-related twist.
“Some of the most exciting era defining television has really broken the mould in terms of storytelling in the noughties. Big Brother was one of these,” she said.
“The BBC brilliantly used Blue Planet II to put hard hitting environmental messages into escapist glorious natural history content, and they didn’t lose audiences, they increased them. And most recently the Traitors, putting the audience back into the driving seat, knowing things the players didn’t, when life can often feel beyond our control. It’s just great, great storytelling.”
Phillips was speaking before a session entitled Plot Twists: Story Formats Fit for the Future, which explored alternatives to the dominant Western narrative structure known as the “hero’s journey.”
Panellists discussed how this individualistic, conflict-driven model limited the types of stories being told, particularly concerning complex, systemic issues such as the climate crisis.
“We can think of it like monoculture agriculture, that in seeking a successful story crop, we’re actually reducing the story habitat and diversity and quality of the ground that stories are coming from,” commented Sarah Woods, a writer and story researcher whose work has been produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and has aired on BBC Sounds.
Matt Golding, a former viral campaigner and founder of impact communications studio Rubber Republic, argued that storytellers needed to find and amplify existing stories of collective action to make people believe change was possible.
Golding said his latest project, Antidote, focuses on finding unifying stories of change that address common concerns such as food and energy costs, thereby engaging audiences without leading with the topic of climate change.
“The most important thing we can do as storytellers is to find a way to tell people’s stories that make them believe and understand that change is not only possible, it’s already happening all around them,” he said.
Playwright and screenwriter Sonali Bhattacharyya made the case for telling stories that create connection and community to counter the isolation that makes people vulnerable to crises. She argued for using genre, such as horror and sci-fi, to “earn the right to tell much more difficult stories” about cooperation and collaboration.
Darren Emerson, CEO and co-founder of East City Films, said immersive technology allowed for new forms of storytelling where the audience has “presence and agency”. He used his sold-out immersive show, In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, as an example of his work, describing it as a “multisensory experience” using VR and haptics.
The session was hosted by Gaby Hornsby, the BBC’s head of sustainability on content.
The annual BBC Climate Creatives conference, which first launched in 2022 under the stewardship of Phillips’ predecessor Charlotte Moore, aims to equip creatives with more compelling storytelling about climate change and nature. This year’s event was held at the National Geographic Society with a live online stream.
