True story dramas: what's next, the tale of Salmond and Sturgeon?

The Commons Culture Media and Sport Committee has written to Channel 4 and broadcast regulator Ofcom demanding answers. Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes said: “Sometimes we do have these wake-up calls where, as a country, we just go, ‘This has gone too far.'” 

A second such call was the broadcast of Channel 5’s Under Suspicion: Kate McCann - the first drama about Madeleine McCann’s disappearance after a run of documentaries.

There was already unease in the industry and among viewers about the growth in “true story dramas”  - works of fiction based on facts and altered for dramatic purposes. With the McCann drama, there is a sense that a red line has been crossed. If a real person at the centre of such a famous case can be dramatised, what is to stop any writer or filmmaker from doing what they like?

In a rare public statement, Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry said of the film: “We have not given, or been asked for, our consent and have had no involvement whatsoever in its making. We fail to see how it will help.”

True story dramas are all the rage because viewers, ironically, crave authenticity. So ubiquitous is the formula that it is now harder to find a series or film that does not open with “based on a true story” or “inspired by real events”.

But what can those at the centre of such dramas do about it? If you are the actor Daryl Hannah, whose real-life relationship with JFK’s son was portrayed in the Disney+ series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, you publish a scorching rebuttal in the New York Times. 

“The actions and behaviours attributed to me are untrue,” writes Hannah. “I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s.”

You get the idea. “It’s appalling to me,” she added, “that I even have to defend myself against a television show. These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct — and they are false.”

Love Story comes from the stable of Ryan Murphy, to many, the man who started the true-story drama trend with The People vs OJ Simpson in 2016. It won a record number of Emmys and was applauded by critics and viewers alike. 

The same year, Peter Morgan unveiled The Crown, his epic look at the British royal family. Morgan’s depiction of real royals led a government minister, Oliver Dowden,  to demand the show be labelled a work of fiction. Morgan refused, arguing that he had done his homework. 

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It is not all negative. Victims of the Post Office IT scandal laboured for years to get justice, to no avail. Then along came Toby Jones in Mr Bates vs the Post Office and suddenly everyone was rallying to their cause. 

Nor should it be forgotten that old school documentaries had their flaws. Usually commissioned, written and directed by chaps who all went to the same school, they showed bias in their own way, be it in their choice of cast (more chaps), music, or even how a character was lit.

But it is the true-story dramas of today that are causing a stink. As filmmakers find ever more inventive ways to tell stories - including using AI-generated talking heads to represent real people - the arguments will continue.

Professor of criminology, television presenter and Herald columnist David Wilson has found a red line of his own in police procedural documentaries such as 24 Hours in Police Custody and Catching a Killer. Wilson says these present themselves as fly-on-the-wall, anything-can-happen pieces, but they are not.

“The police officers who appear in these observational documentaries are chosen. They are cast, almost like they were going into the Big Brother house.”

Moreover, the makers of this “police reality television” are inspired by dramas such as The Bridge, says Wilson.

“The public can be perfectly excused for consuming this as both drama and entertainment, but more worryingly as fact.”

Wilson will be joining Emilia Fox, fellow presenter of Channel 4's In the Footsteps of Killers, at Deadline's Reality TV Summit at SXSW in London on 2 June.

Once a version of a story or person is out there, it sticks. As Hannah put it: “In the digital age, stories do not disappear. A dramatised portrayal can become, for millions of viewers, the definitive version of a real person’s life.”

We have seen how a movie star can take care of themselves in this true-story wild west, but what of the ordinary person? One way is to follow the example of Dr Caroline Muirhead from Glasgow. When her fiancé told her he was responsible for a fatal hit-and-run, she called the police. She also made him show where the body was buried. 

She was, then, a crucial part of the story. Yet when BBC Scotland made a documentary about the investigation and trial, Dr Muirhead was nowhere to be seen. She had opted instead to be her own advocate in the Netflix documentary, Should I Marry a Murderer?

But her attempt to get her story across, “reclaim the narrative” in PR-speak, backfired, and she has been mocked mercilessly on social media. 

Another close-to-home example of a real person taking action is the Baby Reindeer case. Richard Gadd’s drama about being stalked opens with the declaration “this is a true story”. In the drama, the woman alleged to have stalked him is sent to prison. In reality, that never happened. Legal action followed.

I asked a lawyer with decades of experience in “legalling” - giving the green light to dramas, novels and assorted other artistic endeavours - how easy it was to bring a case. The first step is to find out what is said, and whether it is incorrect. You might not be able to stop the programme, but you can express concerns in advance of broadcast. Once the broadcast has gone ahead, and if you consider that serious harm has been done to your reputation, you can sue for defamation. 

Some have succeeded in winning damages. One recent example is the university executive who sued over his “weasel-like” portrayal in the Steve Coogan film, The Lost King. But taking legal action is costly, stressful and may not get the outcome desired. 

There is one game-changer when it comes to a person’s portrayal. Once the person is dead, you can say what you like. Let’s imagine, for example, a writer had the idea of turning the last years of the Salmond-Sturgeon political partnership into a television drama. Something along the lines of The Deal, Peter Morgan’s take on the Blair-Brown rivalry. Both former First Ministers might be portrayed in the (for now imaginary) drama, but only Sturgeon would have the right to sue. An exception would be if an action was started before the subject’s death.

Instead of getting the law involved, why not let artists tell stories as they wish and allow audiences to decide what’s right, wrong or fair? 

As Richard Osman put it on a recent episode of The Rest is Entertainment podcast: “Whatever story you're telling … you are always manipulating people's emotions. You're always manipulating the order of events and making sure that things happen in the exact order that's going to give an audience the most satisfaction.”

It would be a dull old world without stories. Everybody tells them, some more truthfully than others. Even AI hallucinates. We are not going to split from a tradition that’s as old as our planet, but we should take heed of how fast it is changing. 

So, as you sit down for that next box set inspired by real events, do remember the words of Endeavour’s DCI Fred Thursday and mind how you go.