The TV industry has been too ‘squeamish’ to discuss what it means to be working-class and so has excluded it from discussions about diversity, a leading TV writer has said.
James Graham, who is behind TV shows Quiz and Sherwood as well as hit play Dear England, said the amount of people working in television from lower socio-economic backgrounds ‘maybe worse than it’s ever been’.
Giving the MacTaggart Lecture at Edinburgh TV Festival, he said that class was ‘everyone’s least favourite diversity and representation category’.
Graham, 42, said that unlike other areas of underrepresentation in Britain, such as race or sexuality, that when it came to issues of class people did not ‘feel it’ as much ‘in our bones’.
Leading James Graham (pictured) was giving the MacTaggart Lecture at Edinburgh TV Festival
Mr Graham claims the TV industry has been too ‘squeamish’ to discuss what it means to be working-class. (James Graham after being presented with the Best New Play Award at the Olivier Awards)
The writer said that only eight per cent of people working in television are from a working-class background (Pictured, image from BBC programme Quiz)
James Graham, who is behind TV shows Quiz and Sherwood as well as hit play Dear England. (Pictured, a scene from Sherwood)
The writer suggested there was ‘British embarrassment’ about money, which made people ‘uncomfortable’ as compared with ‘visible’ forms of diversity, which ‘fire up the activist in us’.
He said that only eight per cent of people working in television are from a working-class background as compared with about 49 per cent of British people who identify as working class.
Graham said of working class diversity: ‘And yet – we are squeamish about defining it, 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.’
Graham, 42, said that unlike other areas of underrepresentation in Britain, such as race or sexuality, that when it came to issues of class people did not ‘feel it’ as much ‘in our bones’ (Joseph Fiennes plays Gareth Southgate in Dear England)
He said the working class were ‘the demographic least able to find a foothold in the industry’ (Cast members from Sherwood: Pictured from left to right, Christine Bottomley, Perry Fitzpatrick, James Graham, Ria Zmitrowicz, Oliver Huntingdon, Monia Dolan and Robert Lindsay)
The writer suggested there was ‘British embarrassment’ about money, which made people ‘uncomfortable’ as compared with ‘visible’ forms of diversity. (Pictured, scene from BBC Quiz)
He added: ‘I could be wrong – 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.’
Graham said: ‘We have an inbuilt alarm bell, an innate bullshit detector, especially when – elephant in the room – it comes to white men waving a diversity flag. Which I suggest is correct. A necessary cynicism, born out of evidence.’
During his speech the playwright said ‘high-quality working-class’ and British stories could be lost if the BBC was to lose its funding.
He said the working class were ‘the demographic least able to find a foothold in the industry’ and said there needs to be ‘a proper, industry-wide standard, and plan’.
