James Graham calls for more working-class people in TV industry

Playwright and screenwriter James Graham has called for more opportunities for working-class people in the TV industry.

Delivering the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Graham cited figures which suggest only 8% of people currently working in television are from a working-class background.

He said that meant only a small number of people are “bringing their experiences, outlook, stories, culture, to a platform that is meant to reflect all those things back to us”.

Graham also referred to class as “everyone’s least favourite diversity and representation category” and said more attention should be paid to social mobility.

Graham is best known for writing plays and TV series including Sherwood, Dear England, Quiz, Best of Enemies and Brexit: The Uncivil War.

In his Edinburgh speech, the 42-year-old called for social class to be considered more often when measuring diversity within the industry.

“We are squeamish about defining it,” Graham said, “and as a result, we quite often still exclude it from industry measurements around diversity.

“And I would like to talk about how we might collectively make progress on that front.”

Currently, diversity is generally used to refer to characteristics such as race, gender, sexuality and disability.

“I could be wrong,” Graham said, “but compared to other areas of under-representation, when it comes to class, I feel like we just don’t feel it, as much, in our bones.

“It might be that British embarrassment over ‘money’ thing; we’re uncomfortable, whereas other, more visible, sometimes simpler to define areas of diversity fire up the activist in us. The fight seems purer, the target real.”

Speaking to an audience of TV industry figures, Graham said he “was state school educated at a comprehensive – like 93% of the country”.

But, he noted, in some parts of the cultural sector, the percentage of the workforce which went to a state school is significantly lower.

Graham paid tribute to his former school, which he said “made no apology in foregrounding arts subjects for majority working or benefit-class kids in a socio-economically deprived area”.

Recalling his childhood, the writer highlighted the positive impact that “representative television” had on him growing up.

“I thought the whole world was full of people who spoke like, thought like, felt like my family,” he said. “I’m not sure the same can entirely be said now.”

He referred to a recent survey by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, which said only 8% of people in the TV industry were working class.

“That compares with the between 46-49% of British people, who identify as working class. So, almost half of the population,” Graham said.

“But only 8% of them… [are] bringing their experiences, outlook, stories, culture, to a platform that is meant to reflect all those things back to us.”

Ahead of his speech, the Edinburgh TV Festival announced a new initiative, known as the impact unit, which will aim to strengthen the TV industry’s approach to class and social mobility.

Elsewhere in his speech, Graham championed public service broadcasters, which he said must not be taken for granted.

Referring to critics of the BBC, he said: “Don’t they realise that without the BBC, we lose our competitive advantage over the US markets? That not-for-profit means British stories, set in British communities, with British characters are protected by the licence fee, and may disappear without it?”

Elsewhere, Graham suggested the new Labour government “should allow culture to play an active part in this promised national renewal – not just kept at arms-length in its own silo on the peripheries of policy making, as it so often is”.

He added: “Creativity and arts subjects have been systematically stripped from the education system in England over the past 15 years.

“A reduction of nearly half of all drama teachers, gone from those state schools since 2010. The slashing of hours devoted to music, dance.

“It’s therefore so important that we all hold the new government to their pledge to restore creative subjects to the core curriculum. All of us – here, in television, not just the arts.”

A Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spokesperson said the government was “fully committed” to boosting the contribution “all people, in all places can make to our national story” and a review into better access to creative education for young people had been launched.

“British storytelling on TV must reflect the full diversity of people, communities and experiences across the UK,” they said.

Graham also touched on artificial intelligence (AI), a controversial topic within the industry, commenting that it could not replace the creativity of writing.

He acknowledged the threat posed by AI, but added audiences themselves will be likely to reject art not made by human creativity.

“For all of AI’s so-called efficiencies, and its very real threat to jobs, I have every faith that it will in fact be audiences that reject its encroachment into writing, creating content and art.

“Because the reason you cry at a Taylor Swift song, is that connectivity that comes with knowing that someone human has felt what you have felt, and so you feel less alone with your pain.”