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And why is Mainstream TV so Far Behind?
Why has children’s television often been ahead of prime time drama when it comes to inclusion?
Why does casting a disabled character feel completely normal in one production and risky in another?
What changes between those worlds?
Where I Started
I began my career more than thirty years ago working in BBC Schools Television, on children’s educational drama.
We cast a young actor who used a wheelchair. Not because it was part of a storyline. Not as a moral lesson. Not as something to be explained.
Just as part of the gang.
Adjustments were made, because adjustments are always made when creating programmes for young people. There are licensing laws. Restrictions on working hours. School requirements. Safeguarding considerations.
The system already bends.
So making a few more adjustments for a wheelchair-using actor simply felt like part of the process.
And when that character appeared on screen, something quiet but powerful happened. Presence normalised itself.
Living Alongside Disability
Many producers in children’s television have young families. They often live alongside disability, even if they do not identify as disabled themselves.
Friends. Schools. Extended families. Communities.
When you live alongside something, instinct shifts. Access stops feeling extraordinary. It becomes part of the environment.
And when instinct shifts, inclusion feels less like a debate and more like a given.
The Language of Adult Drama
Now compare that with adult television drama.
In children’s TV, the conversation tends to begin with:
Who is this character?
In adult drama, it can begin with:
Can this work?
You hear different language. Budget. Time. Logistics. Risk. Ratings.
The shift is subtle, but important.
When conversations begin with perceived risk rather than character, the tone changes.
The Writers’ Room: Character First
I sat in the writers’ room for The Dumping Ground, the series that grew out of Tracey Beaker, to help develop a new disabled character.
There were three disabled writers present.
We were not there to tick boxes.
We were there because lived experience shapes character.
Our discussions were about personality, motivation, conflict, relationships within the ensemble.
What are their strengths?
What are their weaknesses?
How do they clash?
How do they belong?
There were no conversations about whether it was risky.
The only question was:
How do we make the best character possible?
When conversations start with character rather than risk, everything shifts.
A Sign of Progress: Dinosaur
Look at Dinosaur, a BBC Scotland and BBC Three comedy with an autistic lead played by an autistic actress.
Here, autism shapes rhythm. It shapes perspective. It informs how the world is processed.
It is not framed as an issue of the week.
This is progress. Autistic narratives are increasingly present in mainstream television.
But it raises another question.
Are some disabilities considered easier for television than others?
Practicality or Perception?
Television constantly adapts.
We work around child labour laws.
We design complex stunts.
We manage night shoots.
We coordinate animals and location challenges.
Adjustments are built into the craft.
So when disability is framed as a difficulty, is that a genuine production barrier?
Or is it a perception?
Is there an unconscious belief that certain disabilities require fewer adjustments, and therefore feel safer?
Why do some forms of difference feel creatively exciting, while others feel logistically heavy?
That tension interests me.
Shifting the Frame
Children’s television often begins from a place of normalisation. Adult drama sometimes begins from a place of caution.
But when you centre character, when you include lived experience in development, when you start from possibility rather than practicality, something changes.
The question stops being:
Can this work?
And becomes:
Who is this person?
And that is where inclusion stops feeling risky and starts feeling inevitable.