Exec Producer And Writer Stephen Butchard Talks The BBC’s This City Is Ours

A Love Story At Its Heart

This City Is Ours is a new BBC drama set in Liverpool and here’s its executive producer and writer Stephen Butchard talking about it…

A drama series set in Liverpool is something you have had on a back burner for many years and it has finally made it onto the screen. A key factor is the city of Liverpool. Would you agree it is a supporting star in its own right?

Yes. It is a metropolis. It is a cinematic, international, good-looking city. A beautiful place in the daylight and at night. I would be quite happy to say on the credits: ‘And starring . . . Liverpool. ‘

The idea for the drama is something I thought about five years ago, and the series eventually fell into place. Liverpool is a location that will lend itself to any genre. There is a ‘can do’ attitude in everyone.

The Liverpool Film Office have that attitude. Nothing is too much trouble – we talk to them, and they listen. They say ‘Yes’ – now that is always good to hear.

People in the street come up and ask the cast and crew ‘What are you are making?’ They are curious for the right reasons, asking ‘Who is it by and who is starring in it’ They are proud of their city.

You say one simple three letter word sums up the attitude of Liverpool people have when film crews come to the city.

Yes. That word is YES. The people are happy to help. Nothing is too much trouble for them when their city is on show.

It reminds me of John Lennon’s first encounter with Yoko Ono. John went along to an exhibition in London and there was a ladder leading to a ceiling. John cautiously climbed it and when he got up there it simply said ‘YES.’ It was that ideology that impressed him. John might have expected the word ‘NO’.

John once sang about having no problems – just solutions. Well, that collective ‘yes’ from the city of Liverpool and the people who live and work there says it all. They are proud. I feel the same pride when I see the city portrayed on screen.

You have written many historical dramas and award-winning period pieces. How different is it writing contemporary TV screenplays set in the modern day?

It is down to the characters, no matter where something is set. You must make sure people can buy into them otherwise it just becomes a series of events.

Whether they are in a cloak or wearing a cape or a suit. It is the character that you should care about and invest in.

Betrayal, greed, life and death. All are dominant themes in the series. It sounds like the prologue for a Shakespearean classic drama.

You can add to that some more words such as ambition, failure, pride and envy. You will find a lot of it in Shakespeare – just look at Macbeth.

This drama is very much about people chasing dreams. I want viewers to spend time with these people to get to know them and fall in love with them. Yes, fall in love – even if they do some terrifying, brutal, shocking things throughout.

When you start out on any project, do you write with the idea that it could become a long-running series or do you write to what you were originally commissioned for?

I was commissioned to do eight episodes. I did not call it ‘Series One.’ This City is Ours could never have been, say, a film because I would not have had the chance to develop the characters, and they are all important to me.

I don’t sit there saying, ‘Oh this plot will be developed further in series two or three and so on.’

In This City is Ours I set out to write a fantastic story from episode one to episode eight – a tale of real life and real emotions where families are dragged deeper and deeper into confrontation.

I have set it a real world, a chilling mostly unseen universe of organised crime. It is a love story. A story of love and what people will do to seize and hold on to power.

Dramas set in the dark underworld tend to have a lot of dark humour. This City is Ours is set in a place known for its sense of humour. With such a gritty storyline, how do you manage to weave it into the scripts?

Well, people do not go around cracking jokes. Comments and observations are made by the various characters and delivered in a way each of them would naturally say them. You get to know the diverse personalities and how they talk and how they see and joke about things.

We see christenings, weddings and funerals and it’s at these occasions you will hear the humour. Sometimes when people are saying something funny it is the release of a safety valve – to alleviate tension. Gangsters tend to have a glint in their eye when they say ‘Don’t mess with me’, so you don’t. There are plenty of considered pauses and nuances.

And the Liverpool accent has a very poetic quality. We have a smart Scouse cast who understand where the humour is – you do not need to tell them.

Drug trafficking, the underworld and the brutality and violence of gang life, yet you maintain This City is Ours is ultimately a love story?

It is a love story between drug dealer Michael (James Nelson-Joyce) and Diana (Hannah Onslow) who are desperately in love with each other, and they want a baby to seal that love.

But how can he leave the drug world behind him? Is the deadline he has set himself of three years to get out enough time?

We look at how they plan to overcome the hurdles in front of them. It is a battle of a different kind for him.

It has a crime drama backdrop but there are no lengthy police procedure scenes – no red herrings, it is not a cop drama. There are people looking over their shoulders because the police could come knocking any time.

I am interested in what motivates our characters, what makes them do what they do and justify their actions. Love is a motivating, powerful force, too.

If you had to sum up the series in one word what would it be?

It’s a story that I believe people have not seen before, and the way we have done it is like nothing else on TV. The way we have approached it from casting to locations is something new for TV.

So, the word for me is ‘Freshness.’

But I do like that word ‘Epic’, too, because it is set in a kingdom. It just happens to be of the modern day, menacing, lucrative and dangerous drug kind.