Lion TV’s Richard Bradley

An All3Media company, Lion TV has established a global reputation for creating innovative, entertaining and thought-provoking television in partnerships with broadcasters and streamers such as Netflix, National Geographic, BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV, Sky, ARTE, ZDF, Discovery and more. Richard Bradley, Lion’s co-founder and chief creative officer, tells TV Real about new premium factual projects.

TV REAL: What type of projects does Lion TV want to offer in the premium factual space?
BRADLEY: One of the things that we are enjoying is how to take what in the past was called specialist factual and reinvent the storytelling in that world, so it doesn’t feel so top-down. We’ve always been interested in the grammar of how you tell these stories. We’ve had some success. We did a big Netflix project, Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb. That was an archaeology project, but we wanted it to feel like a cinematic experience, to give the audience the sense that they were at a ringside seat as something was being discovered, and in that case, 2,500 years coming out of the ground. We also felt it was fresh because that was a team of entirely Egyptian archaeologists telling their story without a host or presenter. They were taking ownership of their story. And that, we felt, gave it a real authenticity. But we also felt that it changed the way we can tell those sorts of stories.

Following that, we’ve been doing a number of archaeology and history projects in the same way, and we think it’s an exciting way to do it. You’re telling these stories as unfolding narratives. You are taking the audience with you, and it feels much more immersive and exciting. People used to think those stories could be dry and dusty. So bringing that drama back to those sorts of stories is something we’re really excited about.

TV REAL: Are you using the same approach for your program about Pompeii?
BRADLEY: [Yes], we’ve worked in Pompeii over many years and learned that they were doing the biggest dig in a generation. They’re doing it because parts of the streets were crumbling and needed restoring. They’re trying to tidy up a part, so they are excavating an entire block of Pompeii. Pompeii’s got a grid structure, a bit like New York. They call it insula, which is an island, and they’re excavating an insula. So when we heard this was happening, we thought, how exciting! Through our team, we managed to get access to the wonderful Elena Mortelliti and Marco Gangarossa. They are a terrific team. They worked with us on a project called Saving Venice, which won an award in the States. They secured the access. We’ve been in Pompeii for the last nine months and will be there for a few more months. It’s really exciting, and the heart of it is the Italian archaeologists. Again, you wouldn’t think this, but it’s very rare for them in international television to be at the heart of their own story. The archaeologists live locally—one in Naples and one nearby. It’s always been their dream to dig in Pompeii. They’re amazing characters, and the show is for the BBC and ARTE, and All3Media International is currently talking to potential American partners. It’s over three hours, and it’s an amazing unfolding story.

We had no idea what we were going to find. Within about two weeks, we had uncovered three skeletons, which they initially thought were a man, a woman and a little child. Now, they think it’s two women and a child who took refuge early on during the eruption and were probably crushed to death in a bakery. They found this amazing bakery, which is next door to a laundry. So you get a sense of daily life. What’s really interesting are the piles and piles of tiles. They are roof tiles. Workmen were reroofing this place, and suddenly, the eruption happened, and they all scattered. They found their tools; they were interrupted mid-job. Then, of course, they also discovered the fresco of a pizza.

TV REAL: The pizza fresco, yes!
BRADLEY: Whether it is a pizza or not, it looks like it’s a thin focaccia bread with lots of fruit on it. But that’s the very exciting thing about digging and excavating somewhere like Pompeii. You’ve got the background human tragedy of what happened, but you’ve also got an amazing window into how they lived; everything from a burnt bed—they think somebody probably knocked over a lamp in the hurry and the bed burned—to frescoes, to the plumbing and their water pipes that look like something you buy at your local hardware store.

TV REAL: What other projects are you working on?
BRADLEY: We’re doing a project in Mosul, Iraq. Archaeologists are putting back together some of the pieces that were destroyed by ISIS. But in the process, they’ve discovered a network of tunnels underneath [used] to smuggle out treasures. In the process, they uncovered the foundations of an incredible palace. That’s another really exciting project. We’re working on other projects with Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ in the archaeology space.

I think there’s an appetite by the global audience for some of these stories, but told in a way that feels fresh and different.

We’re also doing a project [exploring the] Caribbean with Liz Bonnin. It’s not blue-chip natural history, but it’s about putting people and natural history together and thinking about how we interact with our environments and precious ecosystems. There is amazing stuff happening in blue-chip, high-end natural history where you just see the animal behavior. But it struck us that, actually, that’s not the way a lot of us encounter [nature]. There’s a whole world where people are working to either conserve or engage with their environment. It’s a four-part series for BBC Two. Liz has Trinidadian heritage, and she meets some of the local heroes, the islanders who are engaged with preserving some white-fronted capuchin monkeys or with a group of islanders who are farming reef coral. I didn’t even know this was possible, but they’re breaking off pieces of coral and reseeding the coral beds that have been damaged to generate new coral reefs. It’s an inspiring series about what you can do. The Caribbean is a really important ecosystem but actually one that’s very fragile. There’s so much pressure on it from tourism. But this is a wonderful, inspiring series about how people are doing what they can to preserve and support their environments. And again, we’re thinking about not doing the standard specialist factual but with different storytelling.

We are continuing to do projects like Inside the Tower of London, taking a historical institution but looking at it as a living institution. We’re doing another series of that for Channel 5.

And then we’re returning to the fray with Mary Beard. I can’t tell you that much, but I can tell you we are working with her again on a big Roman project. We’re taking her back to Italy. She’s just published a new book on the emperors, and we’re taking some of the content from that, and it’s really exciting.

TV REAL: What is it like working with Mary? On-screen, she is the essence of enthusiasm and knowledge, but she doesn’t talk down to viewers; she connects with us.
BRADLEY: I can say Mary is one of the greatest people to work with that one can imagine. She will always know more than you do. So she will always be the fount of knowledge. But she wants to communicate her knowledge to a broad audience in a way that doesn’t patronize or dumb down. She finds smart ways to convey her knowledge and passion for the ancient world and what it can tell us about ourselves. And she does it unlike anybody else. She’s got an ability to be conversational and talk about complex stuff in a language that you understand.

She makes you feel smarter. She is also really good at tapping into the inner historian in you. She asks, How do we know that? Why might they have done that? What might it have been like to have come face to face with an emperor? She’s very good at asking the questions you might ask and getting you to think broadly about the past. What I really admire now, seeing her in action as a lecturer as well, is that she’s got an amazing ability to communicate with young people and people of all ages, actually.

Going around Italy with her is a bit like going around with a rock star! She’s a warm person. It’s her life’s work. She’s the most complete feminist I’ve ever met. She’s spent a lifetime working in very male-dominated environments, so she’s also always asking, What would it be like to be a woman here? I remember when we were in a tenement in Rome, and I was imagining what it must have been like to be a worker from the docks because this is where a lot of them lived. And she said, Yeah, that must be bad. But imagine what it must have been like for a woman. Imagine what it might be like to be pregnant and expecting a baby here. She’s always getting you to think about that.