Response to ITV Post Office drama ‘shows power of factual content’
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Actor and creator Seb Carrington has spoken of the importance of TV factual dramas following the “incredible public response” to Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.
The ITV show, starring Toby Jones, Will Mellor, Monica Dolan and Julie Hesmondhalgh, has shone a light on how subpostmasters were wrongly convicted over money which was missing due to faulty Horizon accounting software.
The Crown star Carrington, 31, is hoping the power of the ITV drama will lead to more TV factual dramas being commissioned, including his own about the infected blood scandal.
“Since the Post Office scandal, everyone is thinking why do we not have a TV drama about the infected blood scandal so now we can go back and double down on our convictions,” he told the PA news agency.
“A TV drama goes into people’s living rooms, it goes into their lives, and you’re made to sit and live with these characters for quite a few hours, which is a substantial amount of time, much longer than just reading a newspaper article.
“And through that time, you get to see the the layer-upon-layer of scandal and the impact it has emotionally and physically on these victims.”
Carrington, who has also appeared in the West End, said he has haemophilia and so did his brother James, who contracted hepatitis through the scandal in the 1980s, but later died in a car accident.
Despite having his own experiences, Carrington’s TV drama is based around the boys who contracted hepatitis at Treloar’s College, a school for disabled children with a facility on site for haemophiliacs.
Carrington said he reached out to a number of commissioners, including the BBC, but it was felt “there wasn’t much space for more factual dramas on their slate”.
He told PA he has got “so much hope” for the future of TV factual dramas “given the incredible public response” to Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.
“I think it’s brilliant that they’ve had this effect,” he said. “I’m delighted for the victims, they’ve been fighting for justice themselves for so long.
“It’s a shame in some ways that it takes a TV drama to force politicians to do the right thing.
“But it seems these days politicians will only do the right thing when it’s in public knowledge and therefore, in some ways, reflecting well on the politician.”
