In today's Society section in the Guardian, Takin' Over the Asylum creator Donna Franceschild argues that this challenging drama - which also happened to give a certain David Tennant his first major TV role - would not be made today.
Franceschild writes:
The television landscape has changed remarkably since Takin' Over the Asylum went out in 1994. It is no longer acceptable to routinely portray people with mental health problems as dangerous or to poke fun at them. The soaps, in particular, now run positive storylines about Alzheimer's, bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which hardly raise an eyebrow. In 2003, the Sun faced a storm of protest from its own readers for running the headline "Bonkers Bruno locked up" when the former boxer Frank Bruno had a breakdown. The newspaper was forced into a humiliating climbdown and, changed the headline in their later editions to "Sad Bruno in mental health home".
So does this mean it would be easier for a serial like Takin' Over the Asylum to be made today? The simple answer is probably not. Because the changes in attitude that have made it possible for mental health issues to be addressed and discussed openly have been undermined by the emergence of a television culture obsessed with the extreme and the bizarre.
In the past year, I have been approached about writing two television dramas. The first was a story about the mother of a severely disabled child who, overwhelmed by the responsibility of looking after him, fantasises about bashing his head against the wall. The situation is resolved when the child is placed with a foster mother, and the natural mother goes back to the work she loves. The second was a story about two depressed teenagers who fall in love, and then deal with their alienation and rage by going on a killing spree and murdering their classmates. In the face of a rash of teenage suicides, where is the drama that explores why children with their whole lives in front of them choose to end them? Where is the drama that depicts the battles fought by parents of disabled children to get and keep their kids in mainstream education, to obtain any kind of support from their local authorities, to find housing for their children when they reach adulthood?
It is barely there. It is almost invisible. Because, in a media environment now infatuated with "high concept" drama, stories that reflect life as it is actually lived by its audience are no longer considered to "make good television". Just like that, we've come full circle. My hope is that these stories will find a way to come round again.
Btw - the BBC is about to put Takin' Over the Asylum out on video, after the drama became a YouTube hit.
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