Twins Paul and Michael Clarkson have dreamed of making a creepy drama in their home town for decades. Now, they’ve done it … with a little help from Ian McKellen
e always knew we wanted to tell a story in our home town,” says Paul Clarkson, the co-creator of BBC Three’s new eight-part drama Red Rose, alongside his twin Michael. “We were asked: ‘What concepts do you have?’ And Michael went: ‘Something like Scream or The Ring, but set in Bolton.’”
“We were growing up watching horror, saying: ‘Bloody hell, can you imagine this happening in our house?’” says Michael. “Like in The Ring when you get the call: ‘Seven days …’ People would be like: ‘What? Who do you want? Sorry?’” Ian McKellen said: there’s something in the waters in Bolton. Danny Boyle’s used it, I have used it, now you two areTheir first break came when they saw that Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials novels might be dramatised and, with just aof song parodies to their name – albeit one where the clips have up to 28m views – they simply wrote and demanded to be involved. “We sent a letter to Jane Tranter, the producer, detailing why we should work on it,” says Paul. “Raised Catholic, tick.
“Also, you have the moors surrounding it, hills and forests, but then you’ve got council estates, industrial buildings, beautiful Victorian buildings, crumbling ruins; new things, old things, everything is in a mix.”Photograph: Vishal Sharmer/BBC/Eleven Film One strong theme in Red Rose is absent parents: the central friendship between Rochelle and Wren is coloured by both of them compensating for a missing mother or father. Rochelle’s single dad often has to trust her to look after her younger twin sisters. “There’s a lot about our relationship with our mother in this,” says Michael. “She had a very difficult time of things growing up. In order to deal with that, she turned to drink. She was an amazing human, but she died when we were 17.
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