Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker responds to claim series ‘lost British charm’
'I hear that a lot,' the showrunner said.
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Previous Page Next PageBlack Mirror creator Charlie Brooker has hit back against online criticism of the show losing its gritty British nature ahead of season seven.
The long-running acclaimed dystopia originated on Channel 4 in 2011 as a ‘contemporary British re-working of the Twilight Zone’ and was acquired by Netflix in 2016 where it has since aired four seasons.
The show has been praised for multiple episodes across its repertoire, not least from recent seasons, including the sapphic love story in San Junipero, the bleak outlook on virtual reality in USS Callister and even an interactive movie, Bandersnatch.
But there has been mounting chatter online that the charm of the original two seasons which focused on British storytelling might have been lost under the big Netflix budget.
‘I hear that a lot,’ Charlie told Metro, jokingly referring to it as ‘the charm of the pig f***ing episode’.
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He continued: ‘When we first did the Netflix season it was a conscious decision from me to do episodes like San Junipero which were evocative and romantic, sort of epic, cinematic feeling, sort of story.
Black Mirror has always had ‘very, very British stories’, says creator Charlie Brooker (Picture: Netflix/PA Wire)‘That said, I think that we consistently continue doing episodes like Plaything, Loch Henry, Demon 79. These are very, very British stories, which I don’t think anyone would say are charm offensive.
‘So I feel like that is slightly received wisdom when people say that. I get where they’re coming from but I think if you look overall in the season we do balance the big, slightly more epic stories with gritty ones where people are having a terrible time with terrible teeth.’
‘I think there’s a good balance.’
One such episode in the new season is Plaything, which follows a man called Cameron who is a murder suspect with a link to an unusual 90s video game.
It stars Will Poulter as returning Bandersnetch character Colin Ritman alongside Peter Capaldi and Lewis Gribben who play the older and younger version of the newly-introduced character Cameron.
‘Plaything isn’t really a sequel to Bandersnatch,’ Charlie clarified, as he explained how the character actually returns.
‘While I was writing it, it was a separately conceived story. I just got to the point of, “oh, well, now we’re going to go and meet the creator of this game”.
‘One of my favourite characters ever in the series was Colin Ritman. What if it could be him? And could we get Asim [Chaudhry] as well to play Mo, the owner of Tuckersoft? Could we do that?
‘But I guess we could. Why not? Who decides these rules? It’s not like the government is going to step in and shut us down. So that was why.’
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Previous Page Next PageAnother quintessentially British episode, Bete Noir, follows ‘confectionary whizz kid Maria’ played by Siena Kelly whose life takes a strange turn when a ghost from her past, Verity (Rosy McEwan), lands a job at her workplace.
In the episode, we see an interesting dynamic playout as Maria, a Black woman, starts to feel some heat from Verity that no one else seems to notice.
It’s a powerful parallel to real-life dynamics, and something both Siena and Rosy took into consideration when bringing this story to life.
‘I don’t think we thought about it much. I thought the visuals would do enough. There wouldn’t be anything else we needed to add to it,’ Siena explained.
Then added: ‘I liked that about the casting, especially the reputation Black women get of being angry or volatile and so Maria having to be the one who is extremely professional and really keep her mouth shut.’
Siena Kelly plays a confectionary whizz thrust into an unexpected workplace dynamic (Picture: Nick Wall/Netflix)‘It felt right,’ Rosy echoed.
The show, intentional or not, is a mirror of the world we live in for better or for worse.
‘We’ve got these dystopian elements within our show, and there’s dystopian elements outside the window. So as an animal, selfishly, I try to block out the outside world often when writing, because it’s sort of depressing to look at the news at the moment,’ Charlie explained about his creative process.
This season includes an unconventional story starring Emma Corrin and Issa Rae with queer themes that the Cunk creator has said are more incidental than anything purposeful.
‘It’s definitely got similarities with San Junipero, obviously. It might sound like a weird thing to say but I don’t think too much about that when I’m writing.
Emma Corrin and Issa Rae star opposite each other in a San Junipero-style story (Picture: Netflix)‘Certainly when I was writing San Junipero, when I was writing Hotel Reverie – even though the characters are very specific, which makes it very specific – I’m thinking about universality.
‘And I think hopefully that comes across in the story that it’s not heavy-handed. I hope, in terms of themes, it feels like quite a universal love story and a fantastical story.
‘I think about it by not thinking about it if that makes sense and doesn’t sound too flippant.’
All six episodes of Black Mirror air on Netflix on Thursday, April 10.
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