Just when it seems impossible to contemplate another hospital drama, along comes Psychos, a ground-breaking new series by Kudos productions. Designed to reinvigorate TV medicine with honesty and humour, it also represents characters who would be magnetic in any setting. Charting the fortunes of a young medical team, led by the charismatic Dr Danny Nash (Douglas Henshall), in the psychiatric ward of a Glasgow hospital, Psychos promises to be one of the most exciting and challenging new dramas in years. For the producer Chrissy Skins, the aim is simple: - “to make great drama with something interesting to say.”
Amazingly for such a rich script, Psychos is the debut bid from the writer David Wolstencroft. Kudos Productions already on the lookout for a drama series for Channel 4, received a “writing sample” from David’s agent which was a draft of episode of Psychos. They immediately spotted its potential. “We were thrilled when we read it,” says executive producer Sally Woodward Gentle. “Not only was this an area of enormous dramatic potential but David’s writing talent was so obvious even in his first draft. Such energy, intelligence and wit.” “When we first read David’s speculative script it was spine- tingling.” Says fellow Executive Producer, Stephen Garret. “There was the potential for a TV drama that would do that rare thing – hold a mirror up to the soul. The very best TV drama lays bare why we are who we are. The glorious quality of David’s writing is his ability to pinpoint the fragility of our personalities and those things that define our very being – and, what a luxury it is to be sane.” With Channels 4’s green light the unsolicited script became a full commission within four months.
Gub Neal, C4’s Head of Drama comments “When we first read the script, we all responded to the irreverence of David Wolstencroft’s writing. There is this endearing sense of anarchy about it. From time to time we all have that feeling of not being entirely in control. Also, the portrait of Nash, a central character fighting his own sense of instability, is a great metaphor. Things in life aren’t what they want to be, the world is not as coherent as it seems. David is not afraid of chaos. He’s well aware that we’re all struggling to find sense and order and it’s easier to go over the edge than we’d like to believe. The best TV drama is to do with unravelling mystery, and Psychos is a series about trying to make sense of what’s in front of you.”
“I wanted to find a subject that interested me,” Wolstencroft explains “A writer has to think in those terms – write what you would want to watch as a viewer. One of my oldest friends is a psychiatrist called Robbie Steel. At the time I was thinking of writing something different, there was a vogue for medical dramas, and ER and Casualty were going strong. The thing which interested me was that in that kind of genre you’re trying to find an emotional identification with people. But if you’ve got a kid with a broken arm, it’s mechanical. In psychiatry, you’re dealing with two personalities coming into contact with one another. Dealing with someone whose life is broken is far more emotionally complex than a kid with a bee sting on his nose or a Santa falling down a chimney. What if a doctor who has lost a loved one suddenly has to handle a patient who’s lost a loved one?”
According to the director Andy Wilson, who was responsible for Cracker, “It’s just a brilliant script. It’s a subject that I’d never seen covered before. What’s David does so wonderfully is make issues human and believable. Sometimes in Psychos there is confusion about who is more ill – asking, what is normal and abnormal? Are we to judge patients a s mad just because they deviate from the norm? I want these issues to come out, but most of all I want people to enjoy Psychos like they enjoy ER.”
Neal goes on to praise Wolstencroft’s maturity as write. “David is very subtly analytical about things. There is a wonderful sense that the stories just come crashing through the doors for one week and by the next week everyone is back in their usual positions by the curtains administering swabs. Through the six episodes, the dynamic of the characters in Psychos evolves. Nash, for instance, is on a journey of self-discovery. David thinks very coherently about what he is trying to do. That thoughtfulness is a key to good writing; screenwriters must have a sense of what they are doing. David has a great navigational feel, he knows what he’s doing in terms of constructing the shape of the series. Dramatic worlds are very difficult to create, but this first episode had a coherence and depth which was extraordinary.”
“A lot of incidents on the ward could seem like everyday toil and strife,” Neal continues, “but you get locked into the dramas of the situations and the histories behind the patients. Without being the saints that they are on Casualty, the medical staff in Psychos are meaningful heroic figures because they are struggling to get it right. As they don’t always, they’re more believable.”
As an inevitable by-product, the programme will help us reassess our preconceptions about the issue. “We’re all aware that there is still a taboo about mental illness,” says Skinns. “Look at the whole subject of schizophrenia and the way it’s been covered in the press. With Psychos the idea is to question what is sane and what is insane. The doctors themselves in this drama are seen to have as many problems as the patients. We think we’re on a certain side of sanity, but we can all see manic depression in ourselves. Who decides when that becomes an illness? Here we hope to investigate something that has previously been avoided, Wolstencroft felt this was a subject just begging to be dramatised. “When it comes to mental illness, there’s a hell of a lot of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’. You don’t know how it feels to get liver failure, but all of us have been depressed or manic. We’ve all sometimes found it hard; we’ve all had periods where we don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. That’s going down the same road as someone with deep clinical depression.”
For Wilson, the series has arrived at exactly the right moment. “It’s a subject whose time has come,” he reckons. “The government have just earmarked a lot of money to redress the damage done by care in the community and so the issue of mental health is back on the agenda. We’ve hit the zeitgeist. But there’s no sense of campaigning in the media. We hope they’ll raise this issue as the result of our drama. You can’t raise it in cop or medical dramas. This is much more interesting than broken legs. What pleases me is that our psychiatric advisors are over the moon. They said we got it absolutely right. One doctor from the Maudsley said it was like her whole career being squeezed into a little box.”
All the same Wilson is at pains to stress thin at “we are presenting the patients as human beings in a routine activity. In our series the life of the psychiatric ward is not
over-dramatised or full of physical violence. It’s just a bunch of people trying to help each other.”
The very title of the series is all part of the attempt to confront stereotypes. “You could easily look at the title and think it’s aggressive or pejorative,” says Skinns. “But
Once you watch it you’ll realise that it’s being aggressive about the attitude. People will soon understand that the word Psychos refers to the doctors rather than the patients. I hope people will come away from Psychos thinking, “It’s a good drama and, by the way, it’s an interesting area.”
Psychos also rings true to its depiction of the black humour that often prevails in psychiatric wards. “That’s not exploitive and it doesn’t trivialise the subject,” Skinns argues. “There is also humour in ER when they are working in the operating theatre. Humour is part of everyday life in hospitals. If you’re dealing with difficult issues, it’s like gallows humour. In order to get through life, you’ve got to make a lot of gags.”
The nature of the subject-matter means that storylines don’t always end tidily. “You can’t neatly tie up an episode,” says Skinns. “It’s not like ER or Casualty where they get out the defribrillator and everything is instantly sorted. Things in Psychos can’t be that easily solved. There is resolution, but people aren’t ‘cured’. But when all is said and done, it’s a drama first and foremost. “It’s not all about mental health,” Skinns asserts. “It’s a drama that just happens to be set in that world. Ultimately, you’ve got to deliver. After the first episode, we hope the headlines will be about whether it works or not as a drama.”
Wolstencroft couldn’t agree more. For him, it’s a case of ‘never mind the issues feel the drama.’ “I don’t like ‘social message television. In the end this is a drama series. If people get it, then they’ll talk about it.” Or as Sally Woodward gently puts it: “It’s emotional, sexy and wickedly black. Appointment TV is back.”
From the Psychos press pack