The early twenty-first century has seen the emergence of a new style of
television drama in Britain that adopts the professional practices and
production values of high-end American television while remaining
emphatically 'British' in content and outlook. This book analyses eight
of these dramas - Spooks, Foyle's War, Hustle, Life on Mars, Ashes to
Ashes, Downton Abbey, Sherlock and Broadchurch - which have all proved
popular with audiences and in their different ways represent the
thematic and formal paradigms of post-millennial drama.
James Chapman locates new British drama in its institutional and
economic contexts, considers their critical and popular reception, and
analyses their social politics in relation to their representations of
class, gender and nationhood. He demonstrates how contemporary drama has
mobilised both new and residual elements in re-configuring genres such
as the spy series, cop show and costume drama for the cultural tastes of
modern audiences. And it concludes that television drama has played an
integral role in both the economic and the cultural export of
'Britishness'.