Writer calls for more working-class people in TV
Entertainment
More attention should be paid to social mobility
(Web Desk) - Playwright and screenwriter James Graham has called for more opportunities for working-class people in the TV industry.
Delivering the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Graham cited figures which suggest only 8% of people currently working in television are from a working-class background.
He said that meant only a small number of people are "bringing their experiences, outlook, stories, culture, to a platform that is meant to reflect all those things back to us".
Graham also referred to class as "everyone’s least favourite diversity and representation category" and said more attention should be paid to social mobility.
Graham is best known for writing plays and TV series including Sherwood, Dear England, Quiz, Best of Enemies and Brexit: The Uncivil War.
In his Edinburgh speech, the 42-year-old called for social class to be considered more often when measuring diversity within the industry.
"We are squeamish about defining it," Graham said, "and as a result, we quite often still exclude it from industry measurements around diversity.
"And I would like to talk about how we might collectively make progress on that front."
Currently, diversity is generally used to refer to characteristics such as race, gender, sexuality and disability.
"I could be wrong," Graham said, "but compared to other areas of under-representation, when it comes to class, I feel like we just don’t feel it, as much, in our bones.
"It might be that British embarrassment over ‘money’ thing; we’re uncomfortable, whereas other, more visible, sometimes simpler to define areas of diversity fire up the activist in us. The fight seems purer, the target real."
Speaking to an audience of TV industry figures, Graham said he "was state school educated at a comprehensive – like 93% of the country".
But, he noted, in some parts of the cultural sector, the percentage of the workforce which went to a state school is significantly lower.
