Now that there’s a competition show for practically every profession or hobby you can imagine, you might think that viewers’ appetites for them would be on the wane. I certainly thought I was over this kind of thing, yet, somehow, every Sunday evening, I find that I am suddenly enormously invested in people making novelty teapots out of clay. Clearly there is still plenty of life in the format yet. Enter Bring the Drama, a noble, sometimes earnest, often lovely quest to give wannabe actors of all ages a shot at fulfilling their dreams.
It is hosted by Bill Bailey, who chivvies things along nicely, though the real star is the fair but stern casting director Kelly Valentine Hendry, who is there to put the eight ambitious amateurs through their professional paces. “This industry is skewed towards privilege,” she says. “I believe that has to change.” There’s actually little mention of class, at least directly, but it is evident that, for one reason or another, the eight finalists did not feel able to pursue acting as a professional career. Some say this was financial, others cultural, while some simply did not know where to begin. Here, they are offered the same sorts of opportunities they might have had access to if they went to drama school. They get an acting coach, auditions, and at the end of the series – for the three standout contestants – a showcase performance, attended by agents and other professionals.
The show’s success relies on the audience rooting for the amateurs, and, fittingly, they have been very well cast. This might be the post-Traitors effect, but it continues to be refreshing to see more of a broad age range taking part. The actors here range from 22 to 67, and as a result, their stories are nicely varied. Ex-police officer George, 62, says that he always wanted to be an actor. When he retired, he set up a local drama group, but explains that he is from a “tough” family and that showing his emotions does not come naturally to him. When he gets on to a set and the cameras are on, however, there is no stopping him. Lizzie, 26, is now a civil servant, but dropped out of university to give acting a go and worked as a cleaner, in retail and in a call centre to support herself. She says that her mother wanted her to be a doctor, but hopes that one day, at least, she might be able to play one.
Each week, the actors get to audition, and those who are successful go on to recreate a scene from one of the UK’s biggest dramas. They’re not auditioning to be in the shows, exactly, but to go on set and film a famous moment, as directed by one of the stars of the show. So in the first episode, they all trot off to Elstree, to replay the scene from EastEnders in which Sonia saves Ben Mitchell from his collapsed lung, while Phil and Linda look on and panic. Natalie Cassidy, who plays Sonia, directs them with kindness and compassion. Soap acting requires heightened emotions, we are told, but as the aspiring actors are new to the game, their interpretation of “heightened” veers from kitchen-sink realism to “You ain’t my muvva!” extremes. Hendry doesn’t pull any punches. “I thought that audition was … adequate,” she says. To be fair, she has forewarned them that rejection is par for the course. It’s clear that a bit of tough love is nothing compared with what they would face in the real world.
One issue with a programme that is mostly about the acting craft is that your interest in the process of learning to emote may depend on how invested you are in the skills required to be a professional actor. Similarly, most people will tell you that film and TV sets are pretty tedious places to be, once the novelty has worn off. They mostly involve a lot of standing around in a padded jacket, waiting for the catering van to serve up a jacket potato.
This sort of thing has worked before. The now Oscar-nominated Jessie Buckley got her break on I’d Do Anything, the Andrew Lloyd Webber-led hunt for a cast of an Oliver! stage production. Bring The Drama is gentle – it’s very pleasant to watch, rather than a Queen Vic-worthy melodrama – but it is important. Acting is far too skewed towards privilege. If that is such a problem in the real world that it takes a new TV competition series to address it, then we should take it as a warning sign. If only wealthy and privately educated actors get access to such opportunities, then something significant will be lost before we even know that it has gone.
Bring the Drama aired on BBC Two and is available on BBC iPlayer.
