Be the Bigger Picture: OKRE Summit 2025

Very often when you're talking about disability programming in whatever format, whatever broadcaster, and any genre, it's seen as a risk. It shouldn't be. If it's a good programme, and it does something different, and it lands for the audience, it shouldn't be see as a risk. And shows like The Assembly are absolutely proving that it isn't.

I was involved as much as I could be, but there were so many different moving parts to it. And I'm going to be honest with you, it was really, really difficult to let go of that, because I am a bit of a control freak and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, as I think a lot of creative people are.

I work in legacy media, right? I make TV, and I guess my personal responsibility is, unfortunately, course correcting decades. Which show had the most Black actors for a very long time? Crime Watch. Yeah. So my sense of responsibility is just almost telling the truth, which is normal life. That's literally Dreaming Whilst Black’s USP - let me just show you normal Black life.

When we talk about, like, Greta Gerwig, it's like, she's the women's director. She makes films for women. But nobody ever says about Martin Scorsese, he's the man's director, he makes films for men. He just makes films about the human experience and being a gangster and that. So I wish I could just live in a world where I was just allowed to be a bit of a dick and write funny jokes. I wish I could just be funny, and that was it. But as it is, I can't, so I'm gonna use whatever I can, to get through the door.

“Good for her embracing internet culture, and it really, really worked... Because the community is so strong on YouTube and the fandom is so great, you see these comment sections really come to life.”

The duty to communities can sometimes be at odds with the desire to get as large an audience as possible. Sometimes drama and fear tactics and extremeness draws audiences. And so how do we find balance in these conversations?

We want to change something in society that we identify as a real issue. It's really important to do that with shifting policy. But what we know to be true is that you need allies. You need people to feel empowered to think differently.

There's this idea that hope breeds complacency, and so kind of hopeful stories or a utopian imagined future somehow doesn't allow us to connect in a serious way with the message of the day. And I think that's misguided.

One of the compliments we get from viewers [of Grand Theft Hamlet] is that they don't feel that we're trying to tell them what to think. And I think a lot of media does actually underestimate the intelligence of the audience, and you should never do that.

I think the whole process was fascinating , a bit scary to start with when it's something so outside your comfort zone, but I think it comes back to [...] trust. When you see authenticity and a desire to tell a proper story, I think it puts your mind at rest and I enjoyed the process.

“In my experience, productions are terrified of working with deaf, disabled, neurodivergent and autistic people, because they think we're coming to get you. But people feel the same about spiders and ghosts. The truth is, we've all been misrepresented.”

If you want to kind of speak to a broader population, you have to kind of meet them where they are. And you also have to make it entertaining. My dad is working class, and he basically only watches things with car chases and explosions. So every time I'm thinking about what I'm writing, I'm like, would he like it, or would he realise he's being lectured to?

I believe that depth, realness, and actually putting campaigns at the heart of TV makes them better. If you have a purpose to making a tv show, it is a better television show.

If you're from an organisation or a charity that wants to explore that world [of TV and commissioning], try and get a production company that you think will be the best partner, that already makes the kind of stuff that you like... and then you can see where that conversation goes.