Every writer has compressed time and procedure, and used clarifying dialogue. That's not a scandal: it's a legitimate dramatic technique.
Chris Chibnall
There's nobody you can't love once you know their story. I believe that to be, in the majority, true.
What I didn't want to come in with is 'Camelot' in all its pomp and glory. Instead we're looking at how you build a society, how you build a world that people believe in, and how hard it is.
It's a 'Doctor Who' budget. A BBC budget, although a very good one. But you know you can't do dinosaurs endlessly for 45 minutes, so there has to be a big 'other' story going on.
I think sometimes actors who have predominately done comedy get a little typecast by some people.
Drama is not a literal portrayal of events. It's a depiction, it's impressionistic.
Often what happens with the writing is that you know where you want to start and you know where you want to end, but the journey is never quite what you predict because the characters take on a life on their own.
My embarrassing confession is that my father is a 'Camelot: The Musical' obsessive. So as a child, when we were going to visit relatives on the weekend, whenever we were driving back on these three-hour drives, he would be playing the musical soundtrack on repeat, on the cassette in our car, to the extent that we begged him never to play it again.
There's something very interesting about world leaders promising hope and then carrying through on that.
I don't ever want to be gratuitous, for the sake of being gratuitous, but when it serves the stories and the characters, it's nice to be able to do that, realistically and with credibility. You don't want to do it for the sake of it, or shoe-horn it in. But, it's a good tool to have in the toolbox.
That's what I love about 'Doctor Who' - it takes you back to being the age you were when you first saw it.
We didn't want 'Camelot' to become a period drama.
I mean, I'm always happy to be compared with Scorsese!
As a programme-maker you've got a responsibility to examine your choices and how they play in the wider world.
I think when you're writing anything you should never be thinking about hardcore genre fans.
You do your best to tell your own story, in the most specific way, and then you hope that that travels well, when it's done with heart and honesty.
I'm incredibly grateful and humbled by the response 'Broadchurch' got.
Often as a writer, you get your first draft out, and then you look and think, 'Now, what have I got here.' You're really just throwing mud at the wall and then going, 'Oh, there's a pattern there.'
Born And Bred' is pure escapism, and where we film is one of the most beautiful places in the country.
The tradition, particularly in old-school British detective things, is everybody's in the drawing room or the library, and they're all gathered, and the detective walks around and tells them where they were that night, and you see the flashbacks.
Growing up as a Brit, Arthur and Merlin and Camelot, and just the idea of it, is embedded in the culture and in your soul, growing up. King Arthur is alongside Robin Hood, as those great British folk tales, myths and icons.
I think you want to be writing about the world that we live in.
The great thing about 'Camelot' is that it is an adult drama.
Doctor Who' is such a broad show. It's got the whole universe to explore.
One of your jobs as a writer is to cut out the noise. All you have is your instincts and your process.
Having made other shows, the thing with 'Doctor Who' is that you're doing everything, all at once.
But I think whenever you're bringing in a new Doctor, you have to set it up in a really great way because it's an entry point for a whole audience. Because the audience of 'Doctor Who' is everyone from eight to 108, life is continually creating new viewers.
I think 'Doctor Who' is the greatest idea television has ever had, and our job is to convince the rest of the world.
I have no issue with my boys looking up to women.
If we lose the BBC it would be a disaster for the entire country. I genuinely believe that.
In an ideal world, 'Doctor Who' makes the whole nation eight years old, with that excitement and engagement and wide-eyedness.
The range of 'Doctor Who' is, I would argue, bigger than the range of any other television program or movie franchise.
So actually, for me, 'Doctor Who,' you want it to be the show with all the emotions and all the feels, really, and that you've had a good emotional workout, from laughter to tears to fear and excitement.
At every point in 'Broadchurch' you're continually told and pulled back into the emotional cost.
I don't think any of the journalists in 'Broadchurch' are villainous. I think they're all trying to do their jobs under difficult circumstances.
I think you can tell different types of stories within a 'Doctor Who' two-parter.
I love a 'Doctor Who' cliffhanger.
That kind of 'Lord of the Flies' brutality of being 11, it's a tough time. You're trying to figure out who you are, and who your friends are, and what your alliances are, and kids fall out all the time.
Some scenes take days and weeks, and some scenes take an hour.
The mood of the country is set by its leaders and they are failing us by not setting a compassionate moral tone in a complex time.
Broadchurch' is shot through with the fear of being a parent: what's the most horrific loss you can imagine and how could you go on living afterwards?
In a wider sense, I'm terrified about my kids coming down to breakfast and saying, 'Trump said this and they've voted him president?' How do you explain to your children how to behave as a man in this world?
There is very much a sense of different versions of storytelling within our 'Camelot' - who tells those stories, who creates them, who shifts them.
The extraordinary thing in all the versions of 'Camelot' and the Arthurian legend is that it's all about the romance and the passion. It's all about great ideals compromised by falling in love with the wrong person.
I think my job is to deliver the best, most cinematic, rich, exciting, surprising and emotional version of 'Camelot.'
Doctor Who' is the best show to write for, because of the actors and the scale of imagination that it demands.
You should always think about the mainstream audience first and foremost, because frankly they are the people who are going to get the show recommissioned. There are not enough genre fans to support shows.
It is a fact of broadcasting that you've got to get the big audiences for the channel that you're on.
Torchwood''s never going to be as heavy an effects show as 'Doctor Who.'
Broadchurch' was all about shades of grey, both in characters and storytelling, and I wanted to see that through to the end.
