Happy Valley, Top Boy, Doctor Who, Slow Horses, Killing Eve, I Will Destroy You, Fleabag and, most recently, Adolescence – at first glance, it seems perverse to argue that British TV drama is in crisis. But this is the message from leading figures within the industry.
Amid headline-grabbing debates about the dangers of toxic online content to children sparked by Adolescence, the show has provoked discussion about the threat to British TV from streaming services. Co-written by the British writers Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, and filmed with British actors in the north of England, Adolescence was funded by the US company Netflix. In February the platform launched the acclaimed Toxic Town, also written by Thorne, dramatising the 1995 toxic waste scandal in Corby.
