All to Play For (14 page)

By five o’clock she was on the Central Line, watching the stations go by: there were seventeen between White City and Stratford where she lived. Usually she liked to read, but this evening she used it for thinking. Half of her wanted to turn her back on the BBC forever, to go back and work in theatre where creativity was relatively easy, safe, rewarding and enjoyable. And badly paid. With dwindling audiences. The other half wanted to take on the monster and beat it: prove that she was good enough, make some great programme or other which would win a prize and allow her to feel that she had left her mark on the world. She was damned if she would let a git like Stewart Walker put her off. She was a match for him and anyone else whose ego was out of control.

Making television drama was mostly politics, she realised that now. Instead of the ‘us and them’ game she was used to, this was a much subtler business. It was like trading in your game of snakes and ladders for a chess set. It was all much harder than she had expected. She realised with hindsight that she had been arrogant to think she could walk in off the street and carry on as if this were merely an extension of her theatre career. It was another game altogether; clearly, anyone who really wanted a successful career at the BBC had to be utterly single-minded. You had to take it very seriously indeed if you were going to get anywhere.

Allies, thought Maggie. I need friends I can count on. Rhiannon, maybe. She seems like someone I can trust. I’ll call her tomorrow, see if she wants to meet for lunch.

Chapter Seven

At the last minute Maggie’s contract was extended by another twelve weeks. She and I lunched a lot over the next few months; we called it our Powder Plot. We always had a laugh and felt better for sharing our frustrations. You need to relieve the pressure now and then when you work in an intense environment. We often bounced ideas off one another, always searching for that great new project that could be our route to the all-conquering BAFTA. One day Maggie arrived with a Welsh idea.

“I saw this news item about Welsh hill farmers. They can’t survive, it’s terrible.”

“I know,” I said.

“Did you know the suicide rate’s rising faster there than anywhere else in the UK?”

“It doesn’t surprise me.”

“Someone should make a drama serial about it. Don’t you think so?”

I grimaced; it didn’t sound much fun to me. “How Grim Was My Valley?”

“Very good. I thought, what if you’ve got a family farm that goes back generations, and they have a poetic tradition too – bards. Isn’t that a big thing? Eisteddfods and all that?” I tried not to look bored as she carried on: “We don’t have that in England, I wish we did. It could make very powerful viewing, don’t you think?”

“If you say so.”

Maggie wasn’t going to be put off that easily. “Supposing the eldest son’s a poet, and he’s really not into the farm, the father’s desperate for him to help keep it going but the son knows it’s hopeless. They both feel suicidal. So the main storyline’s about the farm, and the subplot’s all in poetry – it could be a narrative voice-over.”

I could see Maggie was really into this idea, and although it wasn’t ringing my bell, I thought it had potential. I said she should go ahead, and suggested a Welsh writer I knew of who would be ideal for it.

Whilst we devoted ourselves to the creative rat race, others were similarly occupied at management level, where a volcanic upheaval was imminent. Chris Briggs had made a good fist of his work on the License Renewal Committee, and he was rewarded with a magnificent promotion. It was easily the most challenging post he’d had, and the most public. It was essential to make a success of it, or his career would certainly peak and dive. He prepared himself with great care.

Late one Sunday evening, Chris and his wife Catherine lay cosily in bed after a pleasant session of lovemaking. After twelve years together youthful passion had gradually been replaced by technical expertise and in many ways this was more satisfactory for both of them. It was certainly a good deal less messy and time-consuming, quieter and more efficient. Catherine snuggled into his shoulder, eyes closed, dozing contentedly, her short bobbed hair falling across her face, her mouth pressed against his firm pectorals.

Chris propped his head up with one arm behind it and allowed his gaze to wander round the bedroom. It was a large airy room in a fine Georgian house with all the original fireplaces still in situ. Damask curtains from Heals were swagged casually at the huge sash windows, and lovely Indian carpets covered most of the varnished floorboards. Tomorrow he would begin his new job as Controller of BBC2, and he was looking forward to it. At thirty-eight he was not the youngest man ever to take the job, and he didn’t think he was the most brilliant, but he was quietly confident and totally determined to make a great success of it. He had proved to be a notable General Trainee, especially since taking the lead by bravely championing the digital future, and he was now being groomed – along with others – for the top job of Director General. He would occupy that role, and then retire to pursue whatever lucrative interests presented themselves, possibly in the House of Lords. He was well on course and had every reason to feel satisfied.

Downstairs the front door opened and closed heavily. Glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece Chris saw that it was twenty to eleven; that would be the nanny returning from her evening at the cinema. Catherine stirred and roused herself, “Oh God I nearly went to sleep.” She sat up, fluffing the pillows, and tried to straighten out the bedclothes on the graceful antique brass bed. Giving up on them she leaned down and picked up her briefcase from the floor, dumping it beside her with a sigh. Her eyes automatically sought out a photo collage on her bedside table featuring happy family shots of their baby Natasha, now four-years-old. She wondered whether this time she would conceive again. She willed it to happen, and began to form a mental picture of a baby boy. Or another girl. Or one of each… then she pulled herself together, opened her briefcase and removed a sheaf of files, and put on the spectacles which were waiting in a professional manner in their place between the photos and the radio alarm.

“Are you in court tomorrow?” Chris asked.

Catherine tutted. “How many times?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, you’ve got an important week too. Haven’t you any work to do tonight?”

Chris picked up his own spectacles and a heavy book, opened it halfway and began reading. Catherine nosily peered at it and smiled to herself.
Management and the Technological Revolution
. It looked incredibly boring. She gave her full attention to The Crown versus Sanderstead Holdings plc.

*

Selina greeted him with a warm smile and a fresh cup of coffee. The papers were ready on his desk, and a vase of flowers he couldn’t identify adorned the coffee table. Chris sighed with pleasure: how marvellous this girl was, she seemed to anticipate his every need before it even crossed his mind.

She had proved to be an effective secretary when they worked together on the Licence Renewal Committee, examining the BBC from every angle and drawing up a strategy which would appease the government’s enthusiasm for privatisation, which was well known and widely feared within the industry; it was thought that commercial pressures on the public service broadcaster would reduce it to a carbon copy of ITV. Because of this the Director General had been keen to anticipate the government’s every objection and spike their guns. Ruthless efficiency measures and cuts were to be put in place across the board, every department would be instructed to become cost-effective or risk closure, and producers of all programmes were to be told they need no longer use internal resource departments but could go to outside firms for any service they needed, if it saved them money. This was expected to make the BBC such extraordinarily good value to the viewing public that they would consider the license fee a bargain.

The strategy had been spectacularly successful and the government had not put up a fight at all, renewing the BBC’s charter for ten years. The Board of Governors were delighted with the DG and the committee. Cynics suggested that the government was equally delighted with them for implementing Tory policy with such dedication – without even having been asked to do so.

Chris had taken a leading role on the committee and had impressed everybody with his clarity of vision and conviction that they must embrace a digital future. He had been given this promotion to see whether he was as good at practical implementation as he was at theorising: the corporation staff were still blissfully ignorant of what was coming, and the changes would not be easy to handle. He, in his turn, had not hesitated to invite Selina Crompton to become his Personal Assistant. She had provided excellent clerical support to the committee and understood the framework within which he would approach the job of Controller. He had learned from the DG that you needed like-minded people around you if you were to succeed in making changes. Selina was totally reliable and showed a level of diplomacy, which promised an exciting future. She was also attractive, slim, blonde and well educated, although Chris, naturally, was not the kind of man to prioritise these factors.

As he had such a thorough knowledge of the organisation Chris lost no time in planning his approach to scheduling Channel Two. He would work closely with the new departments currently being set up alongside him on the seventh floor, devoted to strategy development, policy planning, focus group research and ratings analysis. They would supply hard facts and figures, which would give him a scientific basis for choosing programmes and re-arranging the schedules. Based on American systems which had already proved their worth in the US, they would help to drag the BBC out of its civil service past and transform it, ready to compete in the world marketplace of the 21st century. This approach constituted something of a revolution from the top down, and sooner or later there would be trouble from the staff. However, the DG’s stroke of genius was to make every department, whether they supplied resources or made programmes, survive or collapse entirely on its own merit. There would be no announcements of closure or redundancies, which would only precipitate strikes. Targets would be set, and departments would know that they had the same prospects as any business in the outside world: either they would break even or they wouldn’t, in which case they would go bust. This meant that market forces would dictate which parts of the corporation were dead wood. Savings made by cutting them away would be put into new technology. It made perfect sense. It also meant that any internal opposition would be hard put to focus on any one aspect; when redundancies came along they would be scattered, and those involved would feel that they were personally at fault rather than the victims of cuts, and would go quietly.

For the moment Chris only had to worry about his own channel, which made a nice change and presented a fascinating challenge: how to improve the results without getting such high viewing figures that he would be criticised for putting on mainstream programmes which ought to be on BBC1. He intended to bring a new approach to a post which was traditionally led by one person’s taste and judgement – a system which was naturally flawed. Instead of inviting Heads of Department to propose ideas they wanted to make, choosing a handful, and ultimately arranging them such that an evening’s broadcast schedule resembled a kind of variety bill, he would do it the other way around. He would decide what the schedules were to look like, count up the various slots, and tell the Heads precisely what kind of shows he needed: how many, and how much he would pay for them. They would know exactly where they stood. He hated intrigue and this would minimise it.

Chris asked Selina to arrange a series of conferences with each programme department. He would address the producers and staff together in an open meeting so that they could get to know him and ask questions. He was keen to be seen as approachable and hoped to communicate his enthusiasm directly, sowing seeds which would return a nourishing harvest of prize-winning programmes. He had no doubt that every department would survive and prosper under the new system, flourishing like well-pruned trees.

Television Centre lacked a room large enough to comfortably accommodate more than a hundred people and so a new conference room had been designated on the seventh floor: to be more accurate, a boardroom had been extended by knocking two neighbouring offices into it. It was spacious and looked onto the centre of the doughnut, which had a courtyard with a non-functioning fountain in it, where staff would bring their bacon baguettes from the new deli-style tea bar to sit and eat on the little surrounding wall, under the towering statue of Ariel, a dated but inoffensive naked male figure symbolising aspiration of astral proportions.

Inside, the conference room was comfortable without being luxurious; cleaner and with a noticeably deeper pile carpet than was found on lower floors. On the longest wall hung an impressionistic mural depicting a busy television studio with huge lumbering cameras not seen in the studios for thirty years. The mural was unusual in that it had two doors, which met in the middle like a giant cabinet.

The real problem was the seating plan. The room was not only very long and thin, it was curved, constituting about a fifth of the doughnut ring. If Chris spoke from one end he would be unable to see the people sitting at the far end on the courtyard side without a mirror. If he spoke from the middle, with his back to the wall of windows, he would have only a few rows of people directly in front of him and the majority to the side and over his shoulders. If he stood in front of the mural it was marginally better but he would have not only the sun in his eyes, but the glassy golden gaze of Ariel’s giant face.

Chris sighed and looked at Selina with exasperation. She agreed.

“There really isn’t anywhere better?” he asked without hope.

“Not unless we book a studio, and that would mean paying for it. At least this is free.”