Sue Teddern - what do we know?

The Archers
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Credits for multiple TV shows, mostly just one or two episodes, but 14 of Birds of a Feather. Most recent TV work is 2012.

Some previous radio experience (nothing I’ve heard of, but that’s not unexpected). Even so, I have to assume she does a lot of other things.

“With research just a Google click away, writers need never leave the house.” Oh dear, oh dear.

And of course she does Twitter. It’s probably in the contract or something. https://twitter.com/sueteddern

Thanks to @fromthecradle for these:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?filter=programmes&q=sue+teddern

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She’s on dodgy ground talking about ‘a (well-crafted, naturally!) voice’. Much of the dialogue she has inflicted on us has been anything but. imo, of course.

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Someone who professionally (I assume, who would do it for a hobby?) Knows All About The Archers Team has said elsewhere that Sue Teddern wrote for The Archers during the 1980s; I have no idea where it gets its information so cannot vouch for this, but one wonders, if that is the case, what made her leave: did she jump or was she pushed?

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The Royal Literary Fund website says that her first ever scriptwriting credit was The Archers.

If you search for her on the BBC website you get quite a long list of credits, including some stand-alone dramas.

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She got kicked out for buggering up continuity1 - or as she claims, as part of a witch-hunt:

The first few minutes is the relevant bit. (TBH I couldn’t be arsed to listen further)

Oh - and she couldn’t remember the name of the actor who gave her an early break, just that he “played Nelson Gabriel”. Well, it’s not as if Jack May did much other work, is it?




1Which is probably why she’s been brought back
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Give me links and I’ll add them to the first post.

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Thanks. I gave up after the Archers bit, but that was sort of “nice to know”.

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This sort of bio sounds to me like the sort of “old reliable” writer that you get in at short notice because you need someone who can absolutely deliver a recordable script on time; it may not be great, but nor will it be terrible.

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David split up with Sophie in early 1986.

The then editor was male and didn’t like Guardian-reading single women from Hampstead, she claims. (Or maybe didn’t like having to have an entire week’s scripts rewritten in a hurry because of incompetence…) William Smethurst didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was about to leave the series, in May that year, for more pay in a better job (according to him); perhaps he didn’t want to leave a liability for Liz Rigbey to deal with.

I wonder why they think it is a good idea to get her back?

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What would you say last night’s was, on a scale of one to excruciating?

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Dunno, Fishers, but they were mistaken.

However, after recent developments, by which I mean O’Connor’s carryings-on and the rather odd things the HyphenatEd has been doing in their wake, the number of writers not actually starving in garrets who are likely to regard TA as a positive move must be pretty small.

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You are probably right.

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Time for That Fish to apply. “Why not take a chance on an unknown? You can hardly do worse than you have been.”

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I think that regrettably she is likely to be regarded by the editorial team as a safe pair of hands who has done a lot of work for radio.

Why do they need more script-writers? Are all the older ones who know the job planning to quit because they’ve been so messed about, or something?

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I found it very strange that they would entrust a SL so dependent on knowledge of TA history - as well as very emotional for both characters and actors - to a SW who’s brief and no apparently very successful association with the programme was so long ago as to make her to all intents and purposes a newbie.

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So did I. It seemed a strange choice.

If they want to bring back women who have been scriptwriters, how about the three that Sean O’Connor got rid of in 2014? At least they have a slightly more recent idea of what has been going on.

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That would mean suggesting that SOC had made an error.

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They took Kim Durham back. Time for them to admit to someone else’s fault, I reckon, since in that way they already have.

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Sheesh. That was bluddy awful, wasn’t it?

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I’m unimpressed. This week’s scripts smelt of the lamp in a big way: contrived, clunky.

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