FILMMAKERS are “actively told” not to explore Scotland’s working class history despite it being a “never-ending rich source of material”, actor Peter Mullan has said.
The film and TV star said it is “absolutely scandalous” that Scotland’s history is confined to the wastepaper basket by BBC bosses as they don’t want “period dramas”.
Mullan, who is known for starring in films like Trainspotting and Braveheart, is also an award-winning director and screenwriter who created cult classics such as Neds and The Magdalene Sisters.
The 65-year-old, originally from Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, told The National about his outrage that working class stories are being overlooked.
Mullan said he had been told to his “face more than once” by an executive at BBC Scotland that they were “not interested in period drama”.
“It's shocking because it means we have to confine our history into the wastepaper basket. It's outrageous,” he said.
He added: “The history of the Scottish working class is the history of Scotland and it's a never-ending rich source of material.
“The idea that we are actively told to our faces, no, don't even go there, is scandalous, absolutely scandalous.”
Mullan, who commonly explores stories of working class people and their environments throughout his work, was speaking at a panel discussion hosted by the Scottish Producers Circle on Monday.
The discussion, which was centred around the difficulties of representation of working class people in the film and TV industry in Scotland, was a precursor for a screening of the documentary, Quiet on Set: The Class Division in the Film Industry, exploring this theme by director Mark Forbes (above).
Mullan told The National that conversations with other filmmakers throughout the night around the difficulties of Scottish representation on and off-screen, and that stories from the country’s industrial history kept popping into his head which would make “epic tales”.
Mullan explained that when one person mentioned libraries, he instantly thought about Andrew Carnegie.
“You're looking at a guy who came from literally absolutely nothing,” he said. “A rich guy decides to give him access to his library; Carnegie self-educates himself.
“He goes to America, works his way through the steel industry, ends up the world's richest man, turns into an absolute bastard, kills people left, right and centre for even thinking of joining or creating a trade union, starts the Pinkerton detective agency, so they can kill trade unionists all over America.
“It's an epic tale.”
He added that he hasn't written any scripts for the story but said historical tales like Carnegie's could be well adapted for film or TV – and questioned how are Scots supposed to know themselves if their history isn't being told.
“Literally just somebody mentioning libraries, I immediately think of Carnegie's libraries because after he'd been a bastard and a half, he then decided he wanted you to get rid of all his money or he felt he would never get into heaven,” he said.
“So, then this guy starts giving all his money away by creating all these libraries because that's what saved him in the first place.
“I mean, that's Scotland's Citizen Kane right there, but we can't even go there because we've been told no period dramas.
“How are we supposed to know ourselves?”
The series is based on the real events surrounding the 1988 bombing and the joint Scottish and US investigation that followed to find the culprits.
A spokesperson for the BBC said: “BBC Scotland is open to all genres and stories, and we have a number of period dramas in development or due to air in the coming years.”
