Interview with Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, Babylon writers

29 January 2014

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Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong are comedy royalty, with award-winning shows such as Peep Show and Fresh Meat, and the film Four Lions, among their impressive roster of successes. Their latest series, Babylon, features the familiar, sharp wit of their other work, but is also characterised by a more dramatic outlook. Here, the pair discuss why the project is something of a departure for them, what it was like working with director Danny Boyle, and why the way they watch telly will never be the same again.

 

Babylon feels like something of a departure. Definitely something different to what you two have done a partnership. Was that intentional?

Jesse: We didn’t think “Oh we better do something different to what we’ve done before.” But when we first chatted to Danny about it, it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t going to become a sitcom version of the police. I would really say that it’s more of a drama than a comedy drama, even. I think that it just emerged out of the subject areas that we are dealing with.

Sam: Danny and Executive Producer Robert Jones pitched us this idea about doing a show about a modern police force, and as soon as you have that starting point, you are very much in a different frame to Peep Show.

 

So Danny made the approach to you two. Had he watched your stuff?

Sam: Yeah, I think so. You would have to ask him what he had seen, but him and Robert are certainly fans of Peep Show.

 

And what was the nature of what he and Robert wanted to do?

Jesse: They were particularly fascinated in the way that all the documentaries about cops are quite arresting, one of those shows that you tend to stay looking at if you’re flicking through the EPG. And there was the spate of police blogs like NightJack, so there was a kind of seepage of the control mechanisms around how we know the police. And so we were asked to have a think about that – and came back with a suggestion about doing a multi-stranded look at the police so that you see the top echelons and the political interactions, and the communications department, and also see some ground level work with the public order cops (the TSG – territorial support group), and the armed cops (the SC019’s).

 

What did you do in the way of research?

Jesse: Personally I did a lot of reading, I’ve read Ian Blair’s book and John Stevens’, and people like Keith Halliwell, who was the drug czar, and Brian Paddick’s, who has been an advisor on the show, so I read a lot of those kind of biographies, and journalism and so on. And also, the blogs that have appeared – some in book form – so the gossipy stuff and the rather more political biographies. And then we met lots of people – serving and ex-cops – and talked about what it was really like.

Sam: We met quite a lot of cops both in and out of the Met. I think the main thing was trying to figure out what was a fresh angle, because you couldn’t count the amount of cop shows, cop films and cop novels - you wouldn’t be able to stop. And it was daunting in that respect. You have a genre which is way past the point of saturation. We wanted to do things that we hadn’t seen before. Danny was very into getting a modern take on the genre, with all the cameras, all the digital surveillance, the drones and iPhones. And I guess one thing that we decided early on was to feature everything except the detective level. Because most cop shows have the detectives at the heart of it, and we don’t have any detectives in the pilot or in the series. It’s just people above or below that band because, apart from anything else, we didn’t think that we could compete with all those great shows.

 

In research, if you’re talking to member of the police force, are they able to speak quite freely or do they have to do it in secret?

Sam: The ones that we have spoken to that are currently in the force have been anonymous. I guess we spoke to more cops who are retired, which is the perfect position to be in for us because obviously they have had all the experience you could ask for, but they don’t have to go into work the next day and explain why they are talking to us. That’s the majority of the police that we have met.

 

Did you write any of the characters with actor in mind?

Sam: No, we didn’t, and we had a great time casting with Gail Stevens. She and Danny have worked together for many years, and she was great. I mean the thing with working with Danny is that it feels quite exciting casting with him as you feel that almost anyone could come and talk to us… you do feel like the door is wide open.

 

And that is very much reflected in the cast, every role, even small, everyone is a recognised actor?

Sam: Special mention goes to Nicola Walker who has about two lines in the pilot. Pretty remarkable. But we have beefed up her part a lot for the series. We have been trying to work with her for years, and we are very excited to have her but we are also very grateful that she was able to do the pilot bearing in mind what she’s got.

 

What was it like working with Danny?

Jesse: I think, disappointingly from the point of interview, really good. He is just a very nice and decent man and that radiates out throughout the show, from the way he treats people in audition, to the inclusive feeling around the rehearsal process, which he is very protective of. He’s not looking for input all the time because he knows what he’s doing, but he’s open to input, so he’s really pretty much a dream director for a writer to work with , I have to say.

Sam: A film crew is a bit like an army, you’re fighting all the time the big enemies of money and time, and getting everything done, and this army felt like the morale was very high, I mean people would go over the top quite willingly, and that’s nice feeling. It was a very focused, intense, exciting set. Everyone is mucking in, a lot of actors were having a really great time. I mean it was really lovely, even the actors with very small parts were clearly banking the memories, and that’s a very nice atmosphere.

 

One of the lead characters, Communications Head Liz Garvey [played by Brit Marling] is American. Why did you decide to do that?

Jesse: It just felt right. We wanted someone who is culturally outsider-ish. We just knew that we wanted her to be from a different world. It provides a happy stick for her opponents to beat her with.

Sam: It is a very old-fashioned but very useful technique to have someone who is new to a situation, especially when you have a situation like the top branch of the Met which is unfamiliar to a lot of people, so we wanted you to go on that journey with her and learn about the strange working of that organisation with a fresh pair of eyes.

 

The other thing about her character is it’s quite unusual to have a spin doctor who is not painted as an evil schemer

Sam: We felt that PR people get a lot of satire and mockery aimed at them, and it’s just a like any other job. It’s not some piece of PR nonsense about a viral marketing campaign, you know, this is a real organisation with big responsibilities. The ultimate throwing in at the deep end, so we had no problem with making her sympathetic.

Jesse: Liz is evangelical in her belief in doing communications in a certain way – which is as much openness as possible all the time. That sounds very alluring – and it sounds like what everyone would want. But I think that in a public institution, it’s not as simple as that. She appears very refreshing, and has a good heart in terms of what she is trying to usher in. But I don’t think it’s going to be that simple for her.

 

Are you - I don’t want to over simplify the series – making any specific points about policing? Any political points? Anything about where it is going?

Sam: One thing we always try to remember and reflect in our scripts is the sheer complexity of being in an organisation like the Met.  Yes, there are lots of recently publicised problems and scandals, but the police force is a publically funded organisation which exists to protect public good.  So you’ve got to look at the big picture.

Jesse: If you give the answers then it’s propaganda, but if you raise the question it’s drama.  So yes I mean we’re potentially interested in all sorts of questions and issues, and I have personal views, but as I see it our job in writing drama is to create characters that verbalise both sides of those arguments and situations that dramatize them too.

 

And do you ever worry that, if the portrayal is deemed to unflattering, that you’re going to start getting pulled over all the time, you’ll have your house searched at 4 in the morning?

Sam: The cops that have read the script, none of them – who are mostly retired – none of them have come out saying you can’t do that, no that is outrageous, which is reassuring.

Jesse: Well, it’s a comedy drama, it’s heavily researched, but it’s not a documentary. I think of all the things the Commissioner has to be concerned about, this is fairly low on the list. I think that on the whole what we give is a humane portrait.   

 

You’re dealing with some fairly sensitive issues. Are you wary of taking humour from something that might be sensitive?

Sam: Yes, I think you have to be wary. I mean, when you show someone being killed – which does happen in the show, spoiler alert – jokes, normal jokes that work on Peep Show and Fresh Meat don’t work in that situation. That’s one of the reasons why it isn’t as comic as those shows.

Jesse: Having said that, you have to be very careful and then very reckless. As a writer you have to go ‘right, I know all that, all the background, I know all the difficult areas’, but then just dive in because otherwise you end up with a sort of focus grouped script.

 

You’re now in the midst of writing the full series. Do you find that you watch the news with one ear open as to how it could play out in a script?

Sam: Yeah. Oh my God yeah. There is so much about the police in the press all the time, so it’s crucial to keep up with it every day, you don’t want to be behind the curve. At the same time you don’t want to write the news. You have to make stuff up and hope it still applies in a year’s time when the show comes out.

Jesse: As a writer you often watch things with a certain distance.. More often, you’re worried that something that you have invented is going to become reality, and you’ll look like you copied it.

 

Can you ever enjoy scripted material – drama or comedy – or do you always have that kind of analytical part of your mind going?

Jesse: I can just about enjoy it. There is an initial hurdle, where I feel like, oh goodness me, I’m going to watch a sitcom or a drama and it’s my competition. But luckily quality tends to override that, so when I have been watching Him and Her or Girls or any of the shows I admire, you simply enjoy them. Not that I don’t occasionally say that I saw that coming – or I wish they hadn’t done that with that character – but I think that’s the same with any viewer. Luckily, it somehow switches off that super-critical part of you.

Sam: TV is something that I can’t really enjoy as much anymore because it’s weirdly unrelaxing, I’m rewriting the script in my head. I think the exception is stuff that is so excellent, you kind of forget it, so when I watch Louie, it’s one of my favourite shows at the moment, it’s so brilliant, that I just love it. I saw 12 Years a Slave on Sunday, and that was incredible. So I think if something is just really great then you just enjoy. But there are shows when you are doing mental re-writes thinking, “Oh I would have done that differently.” It’s not exactly relaxing.

 

Babylon is on Channel 4 on Sunday 9th February at 9pm on Channel 4.