ABOUT

After being given a brief by SOL's Young Producers which asked for online content which explored what life would have been like for people from different backgrounds throughout history, I was tasked with developing a YouTube series. How would personal heritages have altered the trajectory of people's aspirations, achievements and realities? This is a question whose answers are threaded amongst the policies, laws, societal expectations and prejudices in which we are tangled today.

From a writing perspective, I first had to think about this brief episodically. I wanted to tell true stories rather than imagined ones which were the result of some research that then amalgamated into fictional characters. There are plenty of examples of brilliance in humanity and this felt vital to capitalise upon for a show which aimed to engage young people in history and heritage. The episodes would be able to sit in amongst historical fact without existing in a way which bent the truth or misrepresented people. English Heritage runs the Blue Plaque scheme in London and this seemed like a simple and accessible way to episodically delve into the lives of historic icons from underrepresented backgrounds. These are stories which are essential to tell, and so it quickly became apparent that using Blue Plaques as the core route through which to explore these histories would not be deviated from.

I was mentored by Gerard Foster, a children's comedy writer who has worked on shows including Horrible Histories. Over approximately seven weeks, I wrote six, 10-15 minute scripts which each focussed on a different Blue Plaque recipient and told their story in a light-hearted digestible way. The whole purpose of Shout Out Loud is to engage Young People in History and Heritage, which is often a subject which scares people off. It was my responsibility to select stories from history which don't appear in the textbooks, explore their relevance and then present them to our intended audience in a format which would not be intimidating and which might spark further intrigue.

So, in Plaque to the Future, the protagonist Ada (who is, at times, her own antagonist) is a modern teenage white cis-woman. The fact that she is a white cis-woman is circumstantial. She is alive now. And she is a teenager. By mentally setting aside the other parts of her existence, I have more than doubled the size of my figurative audience-fishing net. But how do you mentally set aside facts which are so clearly visible on screen? You have to ensure that none of those attributes are intrinsically linked to the character’s predicament. When stripped down to their cores, all of the problems which Ada faces throughout the series stem from being a young person who’s forgivably naïve about the way the world works.
Whilst on a residential trip, Ada discovers an old telephone which has the ability to connect her to icons of history (who all just so happen to have Blue Plaques). Due to a slight miscalculation on her part, Ada assumes that she is able to use this phone whenever she faces a problem with her college work or with something in the wider world. It is these bathetic hiccups that seem to permeate Ada’s life which draw connections with the much worthier trials of each of our six episodes’ subjects. And it is therefore Ada’s perspective through which we learn about these iconic figures’ achievements and the societies in which they lived. By ensuring that the connection between Ada and the Blue Plaque recipients is purely derived from teenage life and worldly fears, we are able to create a dialogue which has more similarities than differences and confidently exhume these fantastic lives with a flash of relevance that will hopefully grab us by the collar and not let go. I started using the agent ‘we’ in that sentence because this task is now a collaboration with you, the viewer.

Do Ada’s comparatively miniscule daily troubles make a mockery of Blue Plaque recipients’ achievements? This was a question which I consistently asked myself and I’m pleased to say that it is not the case. Within the context of a comedy-drama, Ada’s staggering normality in the face of conversing with historic geniuses is enchanting and opens up the opportunity of drawing bold parallels which help us to (albeit briefly) develop a truly understanding connection with figures of heritage. A particular favourite example from the series is Ada interpreting the love letters sent between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West as a WhatsApp conversation. A WhatsApp conversation is, of course, nowhere near as romantic and doesn’t factor in the views surrounding queer relationships in the 1920s, but in 21st Century Britain, we all have the advantage of hindsight, and Ada’s non-surprised reaction to Woolf’s relationship is what makes the conversation engaging, and what keeps the great author on the phone.

I wanted to answer the question posed by Brief Two with humour and authenticity and the best way to do this was by looking at these lived histories through a very modern gaze. This made it simple to quickly bring to the fore the key things about these incredible people’s lives that would realistically engage a modern teenager who has no interest in history. It also allowed us to contextualise events in a way that was light-hearted, easy to break-down and, at times, incredibly current.