Introduction: Scotch on the Box: Television Drama in Scotland, 1952–1990

Abstract

Despite its position as possibly the most ubiquitous of all post-Second World War popular cultural media forms, and the wealth of existing scholarship on multiple aspects of British TV drama, television occupies a surprisingly marginal position within the study of modern Scottish culture. Despite being a markedly younger (and, in terms of cumulative production volume, a markedly smaller) indigenous representational tradition, Scottish cinema has attracted several monograph and anthology publications since the appearance of the pioneering Scotch Reels: Scotland in Cinema and Television in 1982. Scottish television drama, however, still awaits the publication of any book solely dedicated to it as a subject. This special issue of Visual Culture in Britain therefore aims to highlight Scottish television drama’s considerable cultural and scholarly importance and encourage enhanced levels of academic research in this area. Tellingly enough, given television’s traditionally sidelined status within Scottish cultural studies, this special issue derives its inspiration from the AHRC-funded project, ‘The History of Forgotten Television Drama in the UK’, based at Royal Holloway, University of London. That project ran from September 2013 until June 2017 and placed a specific emphasis upon the critical and historical investigation of television drama from the British nations and regions. As a part of the project, a conference entitled ‘Television Drama: The Forgotten, the Lost and the Neglected’ took place at the University of London in April 2015 and included a panel devoted to Scottish television drama. All the papers from that panel are included in this special issue, along with other work undertaken as part of the ‘Forgotten TV Drama’ research project. John Cook’s essay plays a vital scene-setting function for this special issue. Cook casts light on the historical origins of television drama production in Scotland by exploring the careers of key figures such as James MacTaggart (1928–74) and Pharic Maclaren (1923–80). Through a comprehensive account of those men’s local and BBC network activities, Cook shows both how and why enhanced historical understanding of one televisual tradition also results in better comprehension of others. Specifically, Cook’s analysis pinpoints the dense, mutually informing connections between the history of television drama produced from and/or about Scotland and the evolving (and frequently contentious) debates about drama’s place within the BBC’s UK-wide public service remit between the mid 1960s and early 1990s. Cook’s detailed historical account also possesses ample contemporary relevance. His work reminds readers that the idea of devolved and distinctive television production