How drama woke the sleeping lion

By Tom Hickmore

To quote the broadcaster’s blurb, Mr Bates vs The Post Office is a UK TV drama that “has got the nation talking”. In this article, I look at the scandal’s anatomy and the drama’s impact and explore how you can use video drama’s power to make an impact in your organisation.

The history

The British Post Office is a trusted national institution. In the late 90s, it had 20 million customers, processed £54 billion in benefits claims, and had nearly 67 thousand employees. But post offices were still processing their accounts and information in a Victorian fashion, including hand-written bookkeeping. The government decided it was time to computerise, put the contract to tender and unsurprisingly accepted the cheapest offer from ICL Pathway, owned by Fujitsu.

Fujitsu used a crumbly system and built on top of it. The routines and data dictionaries were not carefully assigned, which led to many wild errors. It’s been described as if the computer was asked to drop a ball in a green box, but suddenly, there was no green box. The result was a crash or random creation and assignment of data.

It didn’t take long for some very obvious accounting errors to show up in the post office branches. But when the subpostmasters who ran the branches complained to the helpline, they were told that the fault must lay with them and that they were the only person making such a complaint.

What happened next

Between 1999 and 2015, the resulting scandal saw over 900 subpostmasters prosecuted for theft, false accounting and fraud when the shortfalls were due to the Post Office’s dodgy accounting software. It has been called the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice. In 2019, the High Court ruled that the Fujitsu system was faulty, and in 2020, the government established a public inquiry. Courts began to quash convictions in 2020.

Media attention

Since the injustice was brought to public attention, there have been hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, a BBC Radio series, Panorama – a major TV current affairs show and the publication of a book, The Great Post Office Scandal. But in January 2024, some victims are still fighting to have their convictions overturned and to receive compensation. The public inquiry is ongoing, and the Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office for potential fraud offences. In other words, some 9 to 25 years after these people were wronged, many have still not been exonerated and compensated.

Enter ITV

The situation now looks set to change in short order since the broadcast of ITV’s 4-part drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Alan Bates was one of the few subpostmasters who refused to accept liability for the missing cash but nevertheless had his contract and career terminated. Refusing to believe he was the only victim of the computer system, Bates began a campaign and found others who were also victims. Of the total number of victims, 70 have died, one, Martin Griffiths, by his hand, all without receiving any compensation. (Louise Mann, the wife of another subpostmaster, killed herself, and evidence suggests two other postmasters also died by suicide).

One of the characters in the drama, Lee Castleton, was forced to declare bankruptcy and sell the family home. He and his family were ostracised by their community. Monica Dolan, yet to receive full compensation, was charged with theft of £36,000, which she believed led to both her parents having a stroke. Noel Thomas spent his 60th birthday in prison, was disqualified as a councillor, and his daughter was forced to sell her home to cover legal costs. Jess Kaur (her fictionalised character had a different name) attempted suicide and suffered a mental breakdown after theft accusations.

A dramatic reaction

The dramatization of these personal stories has woken the sleeping lion that is the British Public, and now MPs are clambering over each other to bring the situation to a head expeditiously. One newspaper headline screamed: “TV drama forces Rishi Sunak to announce new law clearing 736 convicted subpostmasters”.

The Power of Drama

Why has TV drama succeeded where other media have failed? The answer is that drama is a device that allows us to relate to an issue emotionally and interpersonally in a way that has human meaning and resonance. The scandal is transformed from a complex mess up with computers and government contracts back in the 90s to a wrong done to honest folk still suffering. This is a story that people can talk about and write to the papers about. A story which can gather momentum in social media and on news and current affairs shows. A story that is comfortable to get behind and that MPs want to be seen to be doing something about.

Using drama in the workplace

This is also how video drama can work to effect change in a large organisation. Video drama can present any issue with a human facet in a relatable, emotional and engaging way.

It’s easy to imagine an interpersonal issue such as safeguarding the subject for a drama, but even compliance directives need to be carried out by people, so the reason you’re not getting 100% compliance is likely emotional.

Drama isn’t for instructing people; it’s for getting people thinking. Drama allows people to immerse themselves instantly in an issue and see what it means in practice to them and their colleagues.

Of course, Drama for Change, as we call it, isn’t beamed into people’s living rooms, and it’s not going to storm Twitter (X) or get you invited onto a chat show. But just like the TV drama, our drama is a “story object” that provokes spontaneous reactions and discussions, supported by an in-house promotion campaign and discussion on internal platforms. Drama can be a very powerful agent of change.

The future of TV

After the success of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, I very much hope and believe this will mark a new beginning for campaigning TV drama. There are many outstanding injustices that need our attention. Which ones do you think deserve a TV drama?