He knows the use of Ashes

As requested by oli, glimpses of the development process on Ashes to Ashes (now officially a hit show, a relief and delight to all concerned).

I’ve mentioned a little about it in previous posts (top secret groovy project). While it didn’t stay top secret for long, it does remain groovy, thanks to its fine pixie boot stylee.

Not long after Life on Mars 2 finished shooting, some time in October 2006, I was asked if I’d like to join in on developing the proposed spin-off. Didn’t take me long to answer.

I joined Matthew, Ashley, Jane, Claire (later Simon), Beth, and Anna (creators and all round top men and writer geniuses, execs, producer and editor) for a number of mind-expanding series development sessions over the next few months. Matt and Ash had the format clearly in place from the start – London, 1981, Female psych cop as co-lead etc. – but how that might play out was another thing. It was the most exciting and stimulating project I’ve been involved in at such an early stage, thanks to the generosity and infectious enthusiasm of all concerned, particularly Matt and Ash, who were quite ready at all times to kick their baby round the room, bounce it off walls and force it into an endless series of mutant shapes.*

To oli’s questions;

Given that the LOM series finale (more or less) concluded Gene et al were fictional, did you worry about the audience connecting with a hallucination, and if so how did you tackle it?

Personally, not for a moment. Every dramatic character is a fiction, every ‘realistic’ world a selective projection of its makers, no matter how ‘real’ they might claim it to be. If the stories and characters are engaging and compelling enough, the artificiality of the story framework is irrelevant. Fantasy stories that explore and celebrate the power of the imagination over the real are so familiar a narrative type that they are almost a sub-genre in themselves. Not many people have difficulty connecting with ‘The Wizard of Oz’, so why shouldn’t they connect with something that has cops at its centre instead of a seventeen year old woman in a chest band, witches, a lion with a speech impediment, and very small people with strange haircuts?

On a similar note, how will you make the fantasy elements effective now the audience (presumably) knows the whole thing is a fantasy?

As above – by making the characters engaging and their stories compelling. Alex as a character has a broader frame of reference and a bigger journey to go on than Sam. Hopefully the audience will be entertained and intrigued enough by the fantasy elements to stick with her and engage with her predicament.

I detect a confusion amongst some critical voices between fantasy and science fiction – neither Life on Mars nor Ashes to Ashes are science fiction. Much as some people might like them to be about time travel, they’re not, and never were.

Why was the decision made to switch from "first person" to "third" - e.g. giving Gene scenes that Alex is not present in?

If the LoM universe is a fantasy constructed by Sam, why should Sam be unable to have POVs other than his own? He has no requirement even to be Sam. Sam could be a six foot mole if he fancied trying out black velvet fur. I don’t know about you, but for me part of a dream’s disturbing power comes from the fact that sometimes I am myself, sometimes I am someone else, and sometimes I am neither, but someone/thing else viewing those characters' bizarre dilemmas (I’ve never actually been a female nurse trapped in a bubble in a stone tsunami, but that didn’t stop my dream of the same haunting me for years of my childhood with its overwhelming 'realness').

There are of course other imperatives - time pressure on the leads, and the necessity to differentiate Ashes stylistically from LoM - it might seem a very similar world, but appearances can be deceptive...

The interesting thing for me is that Sam didn’t take a ‘third person’ POV of his situation – his narrow, very literal, view of the world restricted him to his own POV, which tells you a lot about his character. Alex has a broader perspective, different expectations, an even more turbulent past, and doesn’t share Sam’s occasionally tiresome moral certitude. Her view of the world of 1981 differs from Sam’s view of 1973 as their view of 2007 might. And yet she finds herself inhabiting a very similar world…

Spooky?

Mm.

Intriguing?

I bloody hope so.

* the ‘mutant baby’ metaphor for story development deserves someone’s thesis somewhere, surely?