BBC4 revels in its serious side
Network wins praise with upscale programs
This was most emphatically not because her station's fortunes were in free fall or that she had succeeded at doubling her salary overnight thanks to moving over to a U.S. cable channel. Rather, the soft-spoken Hadlow, a 48-year-old mother of two, is taking a six-month sabbatical to enable her to finish a book on "mad monarch" King George III.
It's hard to remember another case of a U.K. channel controller taking a sabbatical to write a book -- let alone one about 18th-century English history -- but BBC4 is not your typical web. On two separate occasions in the last four years, BBC4 won the prize for channel of the year at the Edinburgh Intl. TV Festival.
In the unforgiving world of network TV, it says a lot for Hadlow's confidence, and the BBC's faith in her, that she feels comfortable enough to take a six-month career break. The truth is that BBC4, following a shaky start, is one of the creative success stories of the digital age this side of the Atlantic.
Reviewers are frequently crushed in the stampede to praise BBC4 programming, which isn't based on acquisitions, repeats or spinoffs. Originally hyped as a station for culture vultures since bowing in March 2002, BBC4 has evolved into an upscale, mixed genre channel that repeatedly proves that so-called "serious television" is anything but dull.
BBC4, created to replace the less-than-sparkling BBC Knowledge net, was the first British web to show "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Subsequently BBC4 has blazed a trail in the sitcom arena than its better-funded and more established rivals would kill for.
Two of the station's comedy hits have set a very high benchmark that competitors rarely get close to matching in these risk-averse times -- "In the Thick of It," an edgy satire on the Tony Blair government's PR machine scripted by one of Blighty's sharpest humorists, Armando Iannucci; and "Lead Balloon," co-written and starring deadpan U.K. stand-up comic Jack Dee.
BBC4's track record in drama is equally impressive.
The bio pic "Fantabulosa!," a character study of tortured British funnyman Kenneth Williams of "Carry On..." fame expertly portrayed by Michael Sheen, is a favorite to win a BAFTA TV award for best single drama next month. Another recent low-budget BBC4 drama, "Fear of Fanny," a film about British TV's first celebrity chef, Fanny Craddock, was similarly feted.
In documentaries too, the channel is also scoring. "California Dreaming," featuring a look at Los Angeles' post-Sixties rock elite, was a must for baby boomers.
Recently, Hadlow, who in a previous job at the BBC helped reinvent history for modern audiences by commissioning blue-chip series such as "The History of Britain," spoke at Oxford University. Her subject was 'The Importance of Being Serious -- Why Serious Television Still Matters in the Digital Age."
In one of her talks, she offered this definition of "serious television": "Serious TV is as much about the feel of things as it is about the facts. It is essentially a big-picture medium, big narrative, big ideas, illuminated by the personal, the human story that gives life and color to things."
It is advice that some of her more high-profile peers would do not harm to take on board as they too grapple with the challenge of the digital age.
