Fenton Bailey got a kick out of this story in the London Times on Sunday. Headlined “How Brits in LA lost their cachet and settled for trashy television,” it ragged on how the Emmy nominations this year “prove that British television executives have become astonishingly good at selling Americans the shamelessly downmarket fare that we once imported from the US.”
According to Kate Coe, a producer who won a Peabody Award for the series Secret Intelligence, the BBC is now seen simply as a training ground. Naturally, she works for a Briton, Fenton Bailey, who founded World of Wonder Productions with his partner Randy Barbato. “Americans keep recruiting them because they’re so well trained, and people think the accent’s classy,” she said. “You have to be pretty sure of yourself as an American to not feel put in your place by a really great British accent.”
“The bit that made me laugh was the slightly snooty Times attitude toward Brits trashing out,” says Fenton. “Especially with those two other headlines on the page.” Those headlines, of course, were in the finest Masterpiece Theatre tradition: “Police dig up paedophile’s garden in body search” and “Lady McCartney hires Diana’s divorce lawyer.” And, yes, we’ve linked them because we know what sells.
