Representation of Class in Television Drama

Article by Gareth McLeon of The Guardian

• TV Drama is too middle classed
• TV Drama is too metropolitan
• It is loosing touch with reality
• "Ordinary people with extraordinary lives"
• you wonder whether commissioners, producers and writers would recognise "real life" if they were confronted with it.
• Decision makers in TV drama haven't lived much beyond their middle class lives
• Producers and writers seem to be from the same class now as well
• In shameless there was no understanding of the real life world
•  it's a problem that stems from those making drama not being terribly au fait with reality. (I know there are all sorts of issues with terms such as "ordinary people" and "the real world").
• drama could be losing its truthfulness
• aspirational and ultimately untruthful drama will only get worse, as drama commissioning becomes more metropolitan, and drama writers become more middle-class.
• Is television drama now afraid of, alienated from, bewildered by – or worse contemptuous of – the majority of its audience?