Left on the shelf

THE latest ITV1 drama starring ex-EastEnders star Ross Kemp has its press launch next week. Hopefully - although nothing is certain in the world of TV schedulers - viewers will see this thriller, A Line In The Sand, based on Gerald Seymour's bestselling novel, next month.

"And about time too," TV hard man Kemp would be entitled to say.

The two-part drama was made in 2001 and has been gathering dust on the shelf somewhere in ITV Network House until now.

Movies often suffer this indignity, usually because they're bad, with distributors unwilling to spend good money on marketing and prints for what they know will be little return.

Television has a quicker turnover. Sometimes programmes are being edited right up to the last minute. But a number of ITV dramas, dating back to 2000, have become trapped in scheduling hell.

Quite why this has happened is a mystery. Some put it down to ITV's cash flow situation, something about the budget for a series only being recorded as spent once it has been broadcast. Documentaries, being cheaper to produce, help save a few pennies at a time when advertising revenue is down.

An ITV spokesperson said the dramas weren't missing, just waiting for a suitable slot. This makes them sound like an aircraft that has missed its flight slot and had to go to the back of the queue. "They will be put out when it fits into our schedule," she said.

It's not the quality of the unseen shows that's in question. Such names as Stephen Tompkinson, Ciaran Hinds and Paul Nicholls feature in the casts. The writing talent includes Lucy Gannon, who created Peak Practice, and Paula Milne, whose series The Politician's Wife was a hit.

A Line In The Sand is the latest of the missing programmes to escape on to the small screen. Although never shown in this country, the film has been available on video in America and Australia since 2002.

It was made as part of Kemp's £1.5m golden handcuffs deal with ITV after his departure from Albert Square. Other series he's made, including Ultimate Force and Without Motive, have been shown but A Line In The Sand remained unseen until now.

The fate of Blue Dove, a Lucy Gannon family drama set in the Potteries, is unclear. The series was scheduled to be shown in 2002 but has never seen the light of day, despite a cast led by Nicholls, David Calder, Ruth Gemmell, Nicky Henson and Esther Hall.

Those who saw an episode at the press launch - for the transmission that never happened - describe it as a perfectly acceptable series, a sort of Potteries version of the old BBC family drama The Brothers. ITV1 is obviously unconvinced, as there's no sign of a broadcast date. For Gannon, this follows another ITV drama Plain Jane being delayed for over a year.

She's not the only one to suffer more than once at the hands of the schedulers. At the launch of the TV adaptation of The Mayor Of Casterbridge at the end of last year, star Ciaran Hinds was pleased that the new version of Thomas Hardy's novel was being shown after several years' wait. But he despaired of Thursday The 12th, a drama he made four years ago, ever being shown.

Award-winning writer Paula Milne's mystery thriller shows a murder from different angles, seen through four members of a family with a motive to kill. Hinds plays a New Labour candidate whose future is threatened by a scandal.

Politics were the problem, the reason behind the drama being scheduled twice - and pulled twice. The 2001 screening coincided with a general election. It was put back in the schedules in 2002, billed in the listings magazines and preview tapes sent out. Then, days before, the drama was pulled again after someone at ITV realised there were local elections going on.

So far, there's no sign of a new date. Milne's thriller is so unlucky that a better title for Thursday The 12th might be Friday The 13th.

But there's one unseen-on-ITV series that dates back even further. At the launch of the last series of Grafters in 1999, I remember actor Stephen Tompkinson talking about a new show he was making with his Ballykissangel co-star Dervla Kirwan.

Six 50-minute episodes were filmed of Shades - the first production from Newcastle-based Coastal that didn't feature its founder (and Tompkinson's Grafters co-star) Robson Green. In what is billed as a touching and funny human drama, Tompkinson and Kirwan play two lost souls who, in death, have the chance to right some of the things they've left behind. These ghosts, or shades, are able to interact with strangers but not anyone who knew them when they were alive.

Perhaps schedulers thought the concept that didn't involve policemen, lawyers or doctors wouldn't be accepted by viewers. Whatever the reason, Shades remains unseen.

Also waiting for an ITV1 screening is Ready When You Are, Mr McGill - an updated remake of Jack Rosenthal's 1976 comedy-drama about the struggles of a TV extra. The impressive cast is headed by Tom Courtenay, Amanda Holden and Bafta-winner Bill Nighy.

Rosenthal has said the 90-minute film showed up the latest generation of TV executives. "The industry has gone crazy and it needs a new generation to change it into something better," he said. "Schedulers are a particular hate of mine: they just come in and change things at will."

Only the cynical would dare to think that those schedulers have found a way to gain revenge for his comments - by delaying the screening of Ready When You Are, Mr McGill.

Published: 24/04/2004