Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham - 3

Do you plan the ending of a series at the beginning?

Matthew: We have an over-arching idea about where we want to go, and we try to get writers on board a show right at the start. They might be coming in after the first episode has been written (and it has to be written in order to get the show off the ground) but then we get everyone in a room early on and say "Right, start taking ownership."

It's really important that writers take ownership of a show, even if it's not a show they created, and that they feel their voice is being added to the overall tapestry. And some people don't like that, some writers say "I'm not being paid to do your job for you creating the show, it's your responsibility," but most writers find it exciting, and it's an opportunity for them to really take ownership and have the freedom to tell the stories they want to tell, and shape the show.

How does your partnership as writers work?

Matthew: We don't co-write scripts. We devise shows together but we write individual episodes on our own. So we had three or four ideas that we'd come up with over a weekend, and one of them was Life on Mars, and we just divvied them up.

I got the job of writing the Life on Mars script and Ashley got the job of writing a show that we devised about people marooned on an island, with ghosts and monsters... which the BBC passed on as well!

We don't actually write together, but we do share ideas. I'll phone Ashley and we might hook up for a couple of hours over a cup of coffee and talk through an idea, what's wrong with it, how we can make it work better. So that's a big advantage of having a partnership, is that you've got a confidante, you've got someone you can phone.

You mentioned before that you liked writers to take ownership of their work on the show, but how do you feel about it when they do?

Ashley: I think we try and be flexible. We have disagreements, like when Tony Jordan wrote an episode of the first series of Life on Mars where he showed a young Sam Tyler going to a football match, and I thought it was wrong. I still think it was wrong.

But you have to give up some stuff if you want to get good writers. You can't just tell people what to do, you have to let them have some reason for doing it.

On your new show Bonekickers, you're not only the lead writers and creators, you're also executive producing. How has that affected you?

Matthew: It's a very steep learning curve.

Ashley: My God yes. Be careful what you wish for!

Matthew: Don't give writers budgets as well!

Ashley: Or responsibility. It's actually very tough.

Matthew: This year's been about us trying to work out how we balance being proper executive producers and being writers, and how we keep the writing time protected.

What's Bonekickers about?

Matthew: It's about a team of archaeologists operating in the West Country who each week get involved in a historical mystery. We always go into the period of history they're investigating, so that we see some of the context of the dig that they're working on, but there's also a modern threat. I'd describe it as a cross between CSI and the Da Vinci Code.

What's the best way to learn screenwriting?

Ashley: I think the whole subject of educating screenwriters is a very interesting one. I could talk about it all night, but I think the best way to go about screenwriting is to do it.

Matthew: On something like EastEnders you're writing, and then in three months it's on the screen, and it's not always pleasant. You look at it and you think ah I didn't really do very well there, and you try and learn from it yourself, and rewriting and rewriting.

And of course working on a show and actually getting paid to write gives you confidence, and I think you need to be confident to write well, and it just helps if you're earning a living doing that. And you meet people, and they go on and do other things and they maybe take you along with them, and so you get to see the way the industry operates - it's invaluable really. I heartily recommend trying to get onto those sort of long-running shows like Casualty or EastEnders.

What's the secret of a successful drama series?

Ashley: It has to be in the premise. It's not difficult to come up with an exciting episode one of series one, you have to work out what you're going to be doing in series three, episode six. And the great shows, the great British dramas, have never been about stories. Stories are just the delivery mechanism for the characters. I can't think of a single storyline for Minder. I can probably guess what the storylines of Minder were but what I remember is Terry and Arthur and how they interacted.

No-one ever contacts us and says I love the story with the armed robber, or the one where they're trying to stop the jewellery heist, or the one on the train. They say I like the bit where Gene does this, or the bit where Sam crashes the car or the bit where Chris falls down a hole. And it's these character moments that people want to re-live, and the banter.

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