Leading television producer shares career insights with Exeter students and staff
Professor Jane Milling, Emeritus Professor Don Boyd, John Yorke and Professor Will Higbee. Photo by Leah Sidney
One of the country’s most revered television producers has revealed some of the secrets to great storytelling during a two-day visit to the University of Exeter.
John Yorke, who has helped bring to the screen critically acclaimed series such as Wolf Hall, Life on Mars and Shameless, held an exclusive masterclass with students, helping them to develop their own scripts.
Mr Yorke also took to the stage for a live conversation with Exeter Honorary Professor and film-maker Don Boyd to discuss how narratives are constructed, how they function, and why they resonate with audiences.
The invitation, organised by the University’s Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS), is part of its commitment to supporting and nurturing the creative industries in the South West.
A former Head of Drama for Channel 4 and the BBC, and a Tutor at the National Film and Television School, Mr Yorke is widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s foremost experts on story. He has spent many years analysing how and why stories work, and his book, Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them, is the country’s best-selling on the topic.
And this was the focus of his screenwriting workshop with around 20 students, drawn from three Departments in the Faculty: English & Creative Writing; Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies; and Communications, Drama and Film. Together, they worked through some creative ideas to help the students begin to write short scripts, with Mr Yorke critiquing them. One of the scripts was then selected as a winner, and it will be directed this month with a student cast and crew.
Professor Boyd also took part in a session with final-year students during which he watched and critiqued some of their dissertation films. He said they were of an “extremely high standard, innovative and well executed”, and mirrored societal anxieties. Many of them are on the eXeFilm YouTube channel – the film distribution platform run by University staff and students.
Dr Tomi Adesina, Lecturer in Creative Writing (Scriptwriting), said: “It was brilliant having John Yorke here at Exeter working hands-on with our Film, English and Creative Writing & Liberal Arts Students on the art of storytelling and screenwriting. The quality of stories and plots that emerged from the workshop is a testament to the exciting ideas our students are consciously developing and looking to build in the near future.”
Mr Yorke was also the star attraction of the Creative Dialogues event – the latest in a long-running series in which University alumni and leading names in the creative industries reflect upon their careers. Past guests have included Stephen Fry, Charles Dance, Simon Mayo, Mark Cousins, Kamila Shamsie, Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue.
In conversation with Scottish director Don Boyd – who initiated the Creative Dialogue series – Mr Yorke explored how narratives function and are constructed, and why, from literature and popular entertainment to politics and religion, they resonate with audiences in local and global contexts.
He said: “Story is a question and an answer dramatised, which gives you the human knowledge that, ideally, you want to pass on. If you were in a tribe, 2,000 years ago, and living next to a jungle, you could sit and rationally explain why it’s probably better not to go in there, or you could simply say ‘There be dragons’.
“I started by reading screenwriting books and being frustrated by them because they told you what should happen and on which page, but not ‘why?’. And if you are a student, the ‘why’ is everything.”
As former Head of Channel 4 Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama, from EastEnders to Shameless, Life on Mars and Wolf Hall. He created the BBC Writers Academy in 2005, and its success rate is second to none – in the last three years alone, graduates have received over 20 green lights.
Professor Will Higbee, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Business Engagement and Innovation, introduced the event. He said: “We are nurturing the next generation of creatives here at Exeter, so it was a pleasure and a privilege to welcome John Yorke for what was an inspirational two-day visit.
“The Creative Dialogues event offered us a fascinating insight into John’s approach to the creative process as both writer and producer, while the following day’s workshop enabled our students from film and creative writing to learn from John’s incredible expertise as one of the world’s leading experts in narrative and apply it to their own creative practice.”
