CBBC Q and A

Steven Andrew is the Head Of CBBC Drama and Acquisitions. Before that he was Controller, off peak, ITV and Controller of CiTV, where he was responsible for developing and producing over 200 hours of original children's programming.  Before joining ITV, Steven spent 24 years at the BBC, where his production credits included iconic CBBC programming such as Blue Peter, Going Live, Jackanory, and Grange Hill.

Elly Brewer is a children's and comedy writer whose credits include The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Shaun The Sheep, M.I.High, Postman Pat, and many more.

Paul Ashton is the development manager for the BBC writersroom.

What's your vision for CBBC Drama?

Steven: I do have the beginning of a vision, or a philosophy perhaps, which is about expanding the imagination of the next generation.

I think it's important for all of us who are in programme making to think about how you're going to engage with the audience. And there are two parts to it really. The first notion is thinking: have I got something that's really going to engage that audience, that's going to make those children talk about it in the playground tomorrow. But something else that I think is a real privilege when you work in children's television and storytelling, is that it's not an ephemeral experience. These memories that you create, they're going to carry on.

I suspect if I ask most of you in the audience today you'll think about things that you watched when you were young and still talk about in the pub now with your mates.

Elly: Catweazle.

Steven: Catweazle. There you go. I loved Catweazle. Belle and Sebastian, The Flashing Blade. I'd run up and down our street with a stick pretending I was on a horse for hours.

So it's not a short term experience. Expanding the imagination. Getting our audience to think about the world. Trying to give them a fresh perspective. Trying to get them to look at the world and go: perhaps not everything is always the way that it seems. And that, of course, is the stuff of great storytelling.

Then there's another bit. Anyone that's worked in marketing knows they have very elaborate ways of describing things that you're going to deliver on like "proposition" and "promise". And I thought about making the promise "unmissable storytelling" and then I thought about the headlines in some of the papers and thought I might get myself into trouble. But we are about that. We are about unmissable storytelling.

You have to think 22 channels, Disney, Nickelodeon, a lot of competition. What is it that we're going to do that's going to really engage them, and how will it be unmissable?

The last little bit of the promise I feel is really important. And there are three sentences. Three metaphors. Call them what you will but at the moment I'd say:

• as magical as freshly fallen snow,
• as thrilling as a ride in Alton Towers,
• as exciting as the anticipation of Christmas.

And why do I think these things are important? Because I think if you're going to write for children you have to get in their heads. And we may have forgotten what it was like to sit at Christmas Eve and wait for Santa Claus to come. But children are still going through that. It's the most thrilling thing in the world, and it's really easy to forget about. Or going and having a fantastic ride at Alton Towers, or waking up and seeing the whole world white.

And why do I think that's important? Because if you're going to write for this audience you've got to get inside their little heads. And these are the things that really inspire them and excite them.

There are a million and one other things that I'm sure that you could come up with. But it's thinking: if I really want this piece to be magical, is it magical? What I hope we're trying to do is to inspire the imagination of the next generation, to ensure that the memories that they carry forward into adult life will be memorable and special and magic.

What is it that's really distinct about Children's Drama?

Steven: Children's television can go anywhere. It's gloriously imaginative - or it should be, at its best. And I think we've been doing that pretty well over the last few years. You're not restricted by having to have a cop show or hospital show or a show because someone else has got one, you can go absolutely anywhere. You're only really limited by your own imaginations.

That said I think the best examples are very much rooted in the world of a child. The moment you step outside of their world then they've got to understand the rules and frame of reference and it becomes much more difficult.

It's the juxtaposition between the big, thrilling, exciting adventure and something emotionally very tangible that I think works really well. And when children's drama is good I think it offers those things.

Elly: I agree. You have to have kids as the centre. So if you've got problem solving or somebody's going to come up with a big idea, it needs to be the kids, not the adults.

Having said that you can only have kids for a limited amount of time because of the law, so you need to be able to cut to adult scenes so that you can maximise the kids' usage. You can't have the star in every scene. Also kids get sick. I've had to rewrite stuff cos a kid broke his leg. On the first series of Tracy all the kids were getting sick so you had to keep doing rewrites.

I love writing kids' stuff because I like the weird and the wonderful. And I think you can do weirder stuff writing for kids. I did a very bizarre French animation series last year called Bunnyville - I don't think it's on air yet – about two rabbit superheroes. It's actually a teen thing. Very Japanese looking backgrounds and really unusual stuff. And it was just quite odd and I loved it for that. I like Shaun the Sheep because it's weird. And I did a thing called Paradise Café about ghosts in a café, and there were long discussions about "Can the ghosts eat? What happens if they eat? Do you see the food going down? If a ghost's serving as a waitress in the café then can she see other ghosts when they come in?" and so on.

Bo And The Spirit World, which we're just filming at the moment, is about a group of kids going back into spirit time to collect tokens to save the world. And one of the kids has got this ability to send his eyes out ahead of him to see what's coming round corners and things. And we had this long debate in the conference room at the BBC on the eighth floor about can he send his eyes out through the window or is it just solid? Or if he sends his eyes through the window would they just fall to the ground? It was very strange stuff indeed. But I like that kind of stuff so that's why I like writing for kids.

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