A St. Patrick's Day Debut
A Brit Among the Hawkeyes
Hello world: here I am, on St. Patrick’s Day 2025, with my extremely Irish surname, and many years under my belt in Britannia, not Hibernia (Ireland personified, as depicted). But for me, using Dave Allen memes or Father Ted references are second nature. And I do take the credit for “the credits” on a BAFTA-winning dramedy TV series set in the Republic of Ireland a couple of years back. Intrigued yet…? If so: glad to hear it, and please keep reading!
I’m a writer, multimedia producer, actor, and poet, recently relocated to the Great Plains after many years in South London – land of pie & mash shops and Cockney geezers (though not “Cockney” in strictest sense, which is that of an East Ender). I have landed here on Substack after a little bit of prodding from the
, the odd published article about TV culture, and roughly thirty years of writing for science fiction, fantasy, and TV fanzines and blogs. I hope to have semi-regular postings, probably roughly once a fortnight/bi-weekly, if all goes well. With that in mind, you can read more about me and the type of things you will probably read about in future postings, below.The reference to genre fanzines a couple of sentences ago may very well explain my avatar. I found Doctor Who on Iowa Public Television late one night at roughly 10 years old. I spent so much time among fan groups for so many years, that in 2014, I noticed that Iowa had, in fact, had Doctor Who on the same local television channel longer than anywhere else in the world – even in the show’s native Great Britain. I pitched and wrote an article about it, explaining how pledge-funded public-service broadcasting works in the USA to the non-American audience, for the UK-based newspaper-magazine, the New Statesman, and titled it, “Why does Iowa like Doctor Who so much?” (1500 words). If Doctor Who was not so beloved in Iowa and its surroundings, local viewers would not be voluntarily paying for it for so many decades – and continue to do so to this very day. Last year, Iowa PBS viewers celebrated 50 years of Doctor Who on the network. A mere few weeks into 2025, Tom “The Long-Scarf Doctor” Baker celebrated his 91st birthday in January, as his stories from the 1970s continue to air on the network on Saturday nights. Doctor Who re-appeared as a newly produced TV series in 2005, and these new episodes also aired on Iowa PBS during the last 2 decades. I think this sufficiently proves that Iowa has the best Whovians, Whoovers, and Wholigans of every age, media type, and era.
Bearing in mind my long years of experience around British television fandom and then, in British television production, you’ll get some idea of my frames of reference, and what you may expect to read about here. I’m an Anglo, back on what we refer to on Great Plains as “The Back 40.” In the words of the signature tune (that’s “theme song” to Americans) of the Animaniacs: “and now you know the plot” (bad pun 100% intended).
As for my career: I am most often an Archival Producer on documentaries, which means that I get existing archival elements such as footage, photos, and audio recordings, and re-use them in new factual media. This involves a lot of research on topics, editorial and writing decisions on what material to re-use, finding out who owns copyrights and intellectual property (IP), getting materials in their correct physical and digital specifications, liaising with internal executives, producers, and video editors in various production companies, and negotiating re-use license fees with the materials’ owners. I am a member and the current Communications Chair of the Archival Producers Alliance - an organization that has sprung up in the last couple of years due to the proliferation of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in media, and the resulting potential for its misuse and abuse. We as the APA published an open letter (for which I was a signatory), concerned about the use of GenAI in documentary/factual/journalism productions in the Hollywood Reporter. I helped the APA draft a set of guidelines on how to use Gen AI in this field responsibly, and we published these guidelines in September, 2024.
This brings me to my somewhat separate, but related career title: Clearances Coordinator (or Manager), and back to our St. Patrick’s Day theme, and the BAFTA mentioned in my first paragraph. When I am working on a brand new scripted narrative production, the procedure for the re-use of third-party IP differs extensively from documentary productions. My expertise led to the important feature film clip clearances needed to resolve the entire 10-part series mystery-narrative on the first season of the Apple TV+ drama set in Ireland, Bad Sisters, which won the Best TV Drama BAFTA, 2023. I can’t be much more specific than that, because: Super Big Major Spoilers™ if you haven’t seen the series, or its ending. But if you liked that ending, I certainly toot my own Irish-Celtic flute here: I made those feature film clips happen for the story.
I hope I have been sufficiently entertaining for you here in this introductory post, for you to join me on this journey. You can expect lots of Anglicisms, too many references to pop culture and the arts, some life and career matters, and hopefully: some welcome distractions. I certainly welcome comments and questions, and maybe the odd IRL meetup! You can email me on angloback40 -at- gmail -dot- com, and of course, you can subscribe below. Till next time: do enjoy your cup of Barry’s Tea or pint of Guinness, as you prefer. I’m off to make my Mary Berry’s Irish stew…!
Welcome, Lea, to the IWC. We need your voice and your skills. I look forward to many more interesting posts from you.
Welcome, neighbor!