Series / The Creatives

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The Creatives was a BBC Brit Com co-written by Moray Hunter and Jack Docherty about an Edinburgh-based advertising company called The Creatives that has fallen far from its 1980s heyday. Employees include CEO Charlie Baxter (Roger Allam), creative team Lauren Marshall (Pippa Guard), Ben Gray (Docherty), and Robbie Fraser (Hunter), Charlie's PA and Ben's wife Tanya (Arabella Weir), and secretary Rhona Platt (Aislín McGuckin).

It ran for two series of six episodes each, one in 1998 and one in 2000, and is something of a Cult Classic; the complete first series can be viewed on YouTube, although the second series is hard to come by.

Provides examples of:

• The Alcoholic:
  • Charlie has been drinking heavily for years. In "Pocy Pola", he claims he's going to start going sober for one week a month as the first step to sobriety; the rest of the Creatives staff joke that he won't last a day.
  • Comedy veteran Findlay Maclean in "Pocy Pola" has been told to stop drinking by his doctors because of the risk it poses to his health. When he dies suddenly in the middle of shooting an advert for the title beverage, it emerges that he spent the day draining two-thirds of a bottle of whiskey.
• Auto Erotica: In "Come to Cummerton", Ben finally rises to the bait when Tanya pretends to be salivating over TV star Greg Jackson and goes on a jealous tirade while they are driving back to Edinburgh. Tanya is so delighted that she reclines his seat all the way and climbs on top of him.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: When Tanya and Ben go on a date to celebrate the anniversary of her first (and last) orgasm in "Jump Cut", they manage a few moments of affection with each other.
• British Brevity: Only two series of six episodes each were commissioned.
• Butt-Monkey: Ben's home life is a source of grim jokes at his expense, between Tanya flying into a jealous rage at the least provocation and two young children whose bodily fluids he seems to be forever cleaning up.
• The Casanova: Charlie regularly boasts of his prowess as a womaniser, although his attempts at seducing Rhona mostly go nowhere.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Tanya turns bright green with envy if Ben so much as acknowledges the existence of other women. At least once an episode, she either confronts Ben over his supposed affections for Rhona or issues veiled threats to the latter if she tries to steal Ben.
• Continuity Nod: As Series 1 progresses, the concept drawings from the ad campaigns from previous episodes are pinned to the walls of Ben and Robbie's office.
• Death as Comedy: In "Pocy Pola", The Creatives have hired septuagenarian comedian Findlay Maclean to pitch a bad soft drink. However, he dies with only one shot left to film, so while Lauren, Tanya, and Rhona try to prevent his wife from seeing him, Charlie, Robbie, and Ben prop him up in a chair and switch on the camera.
• Death Glare: In "Pocy Pola", Lauren loses patience with Findlay Maclean's behaviour and the associated costs, so she storms into his dressing room to read him the riot act. He takes off his glasses and gives her a glare so withering that she immediately backs down and is forced to leave the set while he is filming.
• Dodgy Toupee: Jim Haldane in "Jump Cut" wears a ridiculously obvious hairpiece. As Charlie says, "I thought the hair was real and the rest of him was fake." When the shoot for his advert drags into a second day, he shows up with a different ridiculously obvious hairpiece, creating a continuity nightmare.
• Everybody Knew Already: Everyone knows that Lauren and Robbie are having an affair, despite her insistence on secrecy, but most choose not to comment.
• Fanservice: For some, Charlie's shirtless scene in episode three.
• Le Film Artistique: Rhona's ideas for adverts are always unmarketably bad, but Charlie is talked into giving one of them a try in "Backwards Scottish Nutcase". She decides to advertise the Raj, a local Indian restaurant, with the letter R and the word "FOOD" in white Helvetica font against a black background, followed by a cryptic crossword clue to the restaurant's name, but no photos or details. She is unconcerned by the staff's insistence that a cinema advert should inspire audiences to patronise the establishment immediately after the film instead of being something they puzzle over for several weeks, and she is convinced she's made an award winner.
• Freudian Slip: "There's plenty of time to give you head Rhona...err give your head." Fortunately, she seems largely oblivious.
• Funny Foreigner: Arabella Weir as the Italian Tanya.
• Henpecked Husband: Poor Ben. Tanya never gives him a moment's peace, especially if she thinks he's looking at other women (the threshold for which is for them to be in his line of sight).
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Ben and Robbie.
• I Call Him "Mister Happy": In "Black", Charlie's suggestive use of the phrase "the Boss" leads a disgusted Ben to ask if that's what he calls his organ. Charlie says he's "the Boss"; his organ is "the Champ".
• Kavorka Man: Robbie somehow manages to coax Lauren into having sex with him in "Jump Cut", largely due to him looking good in a Batman costume. This appears to be a long-running fetish for Lauren who also slept with Charlie when he was dressed as Winnie the Pooh.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Rhona doesn't mince words about how the decline in the Creatives' fortunes is due to their being stuck in the past, and she believes her creative energy and progressive politics are the shot in the arm they need to join the present day. Unfortunately, her ideas are either too bizarre or too inscrutable to appeal to prospective customers of the products or businesses they have been hired to promote.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When Findlay Maclean's wife is finally allowed to see that he has died in "Pocy Pola", she laments that his doctor warned him to stop drinking. Charlie, who spiked the soft drinks Findlay had to consume on camera with vodka to make him less grumpy, is aghast, not least as he will probably face criminal charges after the autopsy. However, his despair gives way to anger when he learns that Lauren replaced the vodka with water, and the alcohol that killed Findlay was in a bottle of whiskey he'd smuggled in himself.
• Not So Above It All: Lauren.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: In "Pocy Pola", Findlay Maclean dies in the middle of shooting an advert for the title soft drink. As he is basically in the pose they need for the final shot, Charlie, Ben, and Robbie prop him up in a chair, then spin it and shake it a bit in an attempt to make him look alive while the camera is rolling.
• Retool: The second series struck a more dramatic tone than the first. Arabella Weir and Aislín McGuckin left the series, so Tanya and Rhona were written out (the former was said to be having serious marital difficulties with Ben), and although the agency's fortunes seemed to have improved, the focus shifted from Ben and Robbie's professional lives to their personal lives.
• Sexy Secretary: Rhona is hired as the agency's new secretary in "Soup Family Robinson" because she's the more attractive of the two candidates, despite Ben's reservations over Tanya's pathological jealousy and Robbie and Lauren trying to impress each other by stressing that looks don't matter.
• Straight Gay: In "Come to Cummerton", Loch Peffer actor Greg Jackson is a heartthrob who has Tanya, Rhona, and Lauren fawning all over him... until Charlie catches him exiting the shower in his trailer followed closely by camera crew member Max. Rhona persuades him to publicly out himself, scuppering the contract with the very conservative town he's been hired to promote.
• Stylistic Suck: Each episode of Series 1 ends with a premiere screening of the advert they have spent the rest of the episode filming, and the results are always comically terrible. For example, the advert for the title drink in "Pocy Pola" features bad greenscreening even before the final shot of an obviously dead Findlay Maclean (the strapline "Come alive with Pocy Pola" just makes things worse), while their Indian restaurant cinema advert in "Backwards Scottish Nutcase" features photos of two men, two women, a married couple, and an old couple, every one of them played by Robbie and Lauren in cheap costumes after the budget ran out, while the name, address, and phone number are clearly read by a different person to the rest of the narration.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: In "Pocy Pola", Charlie is trying to give up alcohol for one week a month, but mere moments into dealing with temperamental comedian Findlay Maclean, the frontman for their soft drink advert, he demands a bottle of vodka. The staff assume it's for his own consumption, so Lauren dumps it down the sink and replaces it with water, but Charlie actually uses it to spike the bottles of Pocy Pola intended for Findlay's consumption on camera, as he hopes the latter will be more agreeable while tipsy. It works, but not for the reason Charlie thinks; despite being under medical advice to stop drinking, Findlay spends the day getting drunk from a bottle of whiskey he has smuggled in.
• That Came Out Wrong: In "Come to Cummerton", TV actor Greg Jackson comes out as gay after completing an advert to promote the town of Cummerton. Charlie tries to assure the conservative town councillors that it shouldn't affect their campaign, only to see that the formerly innocent-sounding speech is now packed with innuendo:
  Greg: [standing in a field] Not so long ago, Cummerton was just an empty field! [standing in the rain in a shopping precinct] Now it's throbbing. Because Cummerton New Town has arrived! [looks around] I tell you, this place is right up my alley. [sitting in front of an office block with a "FOR RENT" sign] There's so many openings to be filled. And so much to do! [standing in front of a leisure centre] Why not get your kit off... and take the plunge? [at a bowling alley, stroking the ball suggestively] And blow me, if it isn't ten-pin bowling too! [rolls the ball down the lane, but slides forward while kneeling and chuckles] I always seem to end up on my knees! [at a snack bar, holding a hot dog] This is more my kind of thing. Stuffing my face with all sorts of goodies. [takes a big bite; cut to him walking away from a house at which a couple stand waving] If I ever leave Loch Peffer, I could do a lot worse than this. [standing in front of a different house] My favourite: a two-up, two-down. [standing in front of a waving crowd] Cummerton. Come out! You'll be surprised! [gives a thumbs up and grins]
• Troubled Production: In-universe, almost every advert the Creatives shoot goes off the rails somehow.
  • In "Soup Family Robinson", the client and the actor playing the father end up in a protracted battle over the latter's hat, causing the shoot to drag on for an entire day.
  • Jim Haldane in "Jump Cut" wears a comically Dodgy Toupee (which he changes halfway through shooting) and is completely incapable of getting through more than a few words of the advertising copy without stumbling, while the Creatives' plan to have him give a double thumbs up in the final shot hits a snag when he is revealed to have no thumbs. Charlie spends a whole night stitching together the usable footage a few seconds at a time, producing the advertising equivalent of Frankenstein's monster.
  • The Creatives team get so fed up of comedy veteran Findlay Maclean's behaviour in "Pocy Pola" that Charlie spikes the bottles they are using with vodka (or so he thinks; Lauren emptied the vodka out and replaced it with water, as Charlie is trying to stop drinking). Once the shoot gets going, things seem to settle down... until Findlay dies with one shot left to film. Charlie, Robbie, and Ben do their best to pretend he's still alive for the final shot.
  • Rhona's insistence that the diners in the Raj's cinema advert in "Backwards Scottish Nutcase" be Indian instead of white only serves to anger the proprietor (who is trying to advertise to Scottish diners), sparking a violent fight between the actors and the restaurant staff. After Rhona burns through most of what remains of the budget making an impenetrable avant-garde advert, they are forced to return to their original concept of a photo montage with a fistful of pocket change and Robbie and Lauren playing all of the "roles".
  • Although the promotional film in "Come to Cummerton" is filmed without incident, frontman Greg Jackson's decision to publicly come out as gay after filming wraps doesn't sit well with the conservative town councillors, especially when his speech is revealed to be full of accidental homosexual innuendo.
  • The shoot for Black Isle Whiskey in "Black" is finished on time and under budget, but on the way back to Edinburgh, crew member Max is run off the road by Tanya (though neither recognises the other) and drives into a river, and though he is able to swim to safety, the footage is lost. The Creatives team are forced to pitch the idea of an advert consisting of no sound and no picture.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Robbie the tubby and unkempt never-was ends up in a serious relationship with Lauren, who is sophisticated and pretty. Is this because actor Moray Hunter also wrote the show?
• Ultimate Job Security: In Series 1, Rhona's never going to be fired due to Charlie's rather obvious feelings for her, even though she insists on presenting ideas for every advert that are either inappropriate, impractical, or both.