Diederick Santer
Diederick Santer, the MD of drama production company Lovely Day, chooses three scenes from contemporary dramas that have inspired him over the past few years. Happy Valley A big drama highlight for me in recent years has been Sally Wainwright’s series Happy Valley. I admired everything about this show – the tone, the look, the casting and Sally’s hugely original and ambitious storytelling. James Norton was filming his leading role in our series Grantchester while Happy Valley transmitted in the UK, and the parts he played in each could not be more different. In Grantchester he’s a charming vicar; in Happy Valley he’s a violent and disturbed ex-con. Happy Valley explores, among other things, violence and, as such, has to depict it. But I’ve rarely seen the consequences of violence, and in particular violence against women, played out so fully on TV. Yes, there are disturbing moments, but the audience and characters then have to live through the consequences of those moments. “I think they’ve killed me,” whispers young PC Kirsten McAskill into her radio as Tommy Lee Royce repeatedly reverses a yellow Mini over her in episode three. It’s a moment we and the other characters didn’t see coming. It changes everything for everyone – it galvanises sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) into action and reveals to us the full extent of Tommy’s violent and dangerous nature. The Walking Dead I love this series! Like Happy Valley it is hugely violent, but in a more comic-book way (which is … Continue reading Diederick Santer
