Jane Tranter

Doctor Who is back, bigger and arguably better than before. RTS Cymru Wales was first off the mark, hosting a premiere in Cardiff two days before the show returned to BBC One. It was also 60 years to the day since the Time Lord first appeared on TV.

A roar rose from a sold-out audience at the conclusion of The Star Beast, which saw David Tennant and Catherine Tate return as the Doctor and his assistant after almost 15 years. Also back, as showrunner, was a visibly moved Russell T Davies.

Fans of His Dark Materials have been going cold turkey since Philip Pullman’s fantasy drama ended its third and apparently final series on BBC One in February. But, according to executive producer Jane Tranter, who was speaking at a sold-out RTS Futures event last month, further helpings could be served up.

In August 2020, as the pandemic raged in the US, a tweet by LA-based writer Julia Claire went viral: “Do people understand that if they don’t wear their masks and physically distance, we’re never going to get a third season of Succession???”

Now, after a two-year delay, HBO’s hit show has finally returned with all the familial backstabbing, billion-­dollar machinations and poetic profanity we have come to love from the media magnate Logan Roy and his squabbling, super-rich children.

Bad Wolf co-founder Jane Tranter shoots back with a rapid reply when asked what her Cardiff-based production company is up to: “Dealing with high-level anxiety all the time, probably emanating from myself.”

If so, Tranter – speaking over Zoom – hides it well. Any stress would be understandable. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, Bad Wolf has brought the second seasons of fantasy epics His Dark Materials and A Discovery of Witches to the screen, and launched two acclaimed contemporary dramas, Industry and I Hate Suzie.

Thank you to RTS Cymru Wales for inviting me to give this year’s lecture. It’s a privilege to be with you all here tonight, particularly as we’re here in this shiny building – the new home for Cardiff University’s prestigious school of journalism, media and cultural studies as well as, of course, BBC Wales.

Opportunities such as this give a rare chance to reflect publicly on what has been an incredible few years - a constant and glorious work in progress that myself and the other Bad Wolves are passionately driven and obsessed by. 

The Welsh Government should stop “throwing money” at short term ventures by producers from outside Wales and instead invest in home-based companies was the hard-hitting message by Jane Tranter in this year’s RTS Cymru Wales Annual Lecture.

Before 2005 and the production of Doctor Who in Cardiff, Wales was always seen by the BBC – including me – as the “problem child”. But, just as with a “problem child” in a classroom, alarmingly, the problem is more often with the teacher/adult than the child; invariably, “problem children” are the most interesting in class and mature into the best of adults.

Philip Pullman's award-winning fantasy trilogy - Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - will be brought to BBC One as part of a New Line Cinema/Bad Wolf joint production. 

The books, published between 1995-2000, follow the life of the orphan child Lyra and her adventures travelling through parallel worlds. They have been praised for their imagination, epic scope and masterful inclusion of broad, often adult themes including religion, conscience, puberty, innocence and knowledge.

It is the question that British writers and commissioners perennially ask: which system works best – the UK’s single voice or the US’s showrunner model?

Former head of BBC Worldwide Productions turned independent producer Jane Tranter tried to answer this key question with a panel of writers, who outlined their experiences to see how they compared.

She pointed out that, during her seven years in the US, it was not a subject the industry there generally debated openly.