Book adaptations have been something of a goldmine for BBC drama recently, with Poldark, War & Peace and Wolf Hall all attracting viewers and critical plaudits. But books are also proving fruitful for the corporation’s channel aimed at children, CBBC, notably the best-selling author Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather novels, Jill Murphy’s much-loved The Worst Witch, and Hank Zipzer, now a series co-created by Henry Winkler – aka The Fonz.
Yet as CBBC controller Cheryl Taylor says, adapting a book for TV comes with challenges and needs to be handled with care. “If a character is popular already it’s obviously struck a chord so it’s a good incentive for making a good drama. In a very crowded marketplace it means you’ve already got a bit of a platform because people know about it,” she says. “When a much-loved book comes to TV it can backfire if you create something that’s below par and the opposite of what people imagined in their minds – people can get angry, it’s a real responsibility.”
So what makes a successful adaptation? Taylor says a good relationship with the book’s author is key as often there is a “big leap” in translating the concept to the small screen. “Whether it’s Jill Murphy or Jacqueline Wilson they understand that when a story moves over to TV it becomes something a bit different” but things work “as long as we keep it sacrosanct to the values of the ‘mother’ brand”.
However, because “television eats up stories”, as Taylor puts it, often characters are added or expanded to give the TV version more people to play with. For example in the Victorian series Hetty Feather, the role of the boys in the foundling hospital Hetty lives in was enhanced. And Hank Zipzer (a US book) was transferred to the UK to appeal to British TV audiences.
Speaking ahead of a CBBC Live event in Birmingham next week called Awesome Authors – which aims to encourage children to read and create stories while meeting celebrated children’s writers such as Wilson, David Baddiel and Liz (Tom Gates) Pichon – Taylor says: “As a public service broadcaster we’re so keen to get children to pick up these books and get reading. Either they tune in because they loved the book or the other way round, they watch the TV series and then want to read the books and that’s great if we can inspire that and get children reading.”
“It works both ways,” she adds, pointing to hit werewolf drama Wolfblood, which has spawned a series of books, but “we don’t look at things in terms of commercial potential. What interests us is, does the character still have resonance and whether it will make a good drama.”
The total UK book licensing business is worth an estimated £8bn a year, although how much of that came from children’s intellectual property is not known. However, an indication of the benefits for both the written source material and a TV show that draws on it comes from one of the BBC’s most successful children’s adaptations, Horrible Histories. Its author Terry Deary has sold over 25m books while the show’s co-producer Lion TV made £429,606 profit in the year to 31 December 2015. The rights are held by publishing company Scholastic, which describes Horrible Histories as one of the “jewels” in its crown and last year saw revenues in its children’s publishing and distribution group rise 7% to $958.7m.
Before Horrible Histories began on CBBC in 2009, a foreign channel tried an animated version. But it struck gold when Lion and CBBC turned it into a sketch show format – with Deary’s approval – written by top comedy writers such as Steve Punt. The series has used up all Deary’s original books but now has a team of writers and historical experts creating new stories, plus there are lucrative live theatre shows.
Timing can be key to an adaptation’s success. So far CBBC’s Hetty Feather has been based around the first of Wilson’s trilogy. The other two books follow Hetty’s life outside the inhospitable foundling hospital as a maid in service and beyond. Previously the production team were not sure how the series would work if Hetty left the hospital, but ”then the fascination with Downton Abbey started”, Taylor explains, “so we’ve had those conversations” about adapting the other books. Although they are “not resolved … we’re definitely talking about it”.
John McVay, chief executive of producers’ alliance Pact, says one big barrier to TV adaptations is that, although there are a lot of good children’s books, “there are so few British broadcasters a kids’ programme can go to because they really only have the BBC.” He adds: “I find it bizarre that Channel 4 in particular do not see it as an opportunity to develop audiences.”
Regulator Ofcom’s decision to ban junk food advertising around children’s programmes 10 years ago led to a “massive decline” as “commercial public service broadcasters abandoned” them, McVay says. Although there are now tax breaks for quality UK kids’ shows he hopes channels will do more.
“Where are the Byker Groves or those kind of dramas that say something about those kind of experiences? Kids deserve a range of programming,” he says, arguing that YouTube setting up its own children’s channel shows “that a generation of kids are hungry for great stuff”. Netflix’s focus on family viewing means it is also looking for original content and it has co-produced the TV adaptation of SA Wakefield’s Bottersnikes and Gumbles books with the BBC and Australia’s Seven Network.
With comedians such as David Walliams and Julian Clary now writing children’s fiction, the pool of good books to adapt is expanding.
Taylor highlights Blue Peter’s Dream Big competition, where viewers had to create a story to be made into an animation which would be shown to Steven Spielberg, who has directed the latest film adaptation of another great book, Roald Dahl’s The BFG.
She hopes such competitions and CBBC Live events may inspire children to become authors. And perhaps one day they may end up having their own work adapted for television.
