by DAVID ROLINSON
Dirty Business (2026),1 a docudrama about sewage pollution by private water companies and the failures of the Environment Agency, cites sources and provides corroborating information through the use of on-screen captions. For example, when a whistleblower alleges that huge profits have been made whilst using “cuts as a smokescreen” for inaction, the information is cited via an on-screen caption led by an asterisk: the information comes from the “2015-2023 Funding Totals for Environment & Business, The Environment Agency” and that information was accessed due to a “Freedom of Information Request”. Through devices such as these “television footnotes”,2 Dirty Business provides a reminder of the importance of “captioning”, which, as Derek Paget observed, “consists in direct address to an audience whether in the form of speech in voice-over, or of on-screen graphical patterns of words (still and rolling), or of both these things simultaneously”.3 Paget argued that captions have various functions, serving to “set the scene, put the audience in touch with ‘out-of-story’ events and characters, negotiate representation codes, guard against legal repercussions and pitch claims for authenticity of varying kinds”.4 The caption is a form of “label”, or “signpost”, providing “weight” or the “anchoring of images”.5
It is unusual for a docudrama to use on-screen captions during scenes to provide such footnotes. However, a more familiar form of captioning appeared at the start of Dirty Business. The episode begins with two successive captions. The first one states that “This drama is based on real events, extensive interviews and research”. The second states that “Some dialogue, characters and scenes – including some depictions of pollution – have been recreated for the purposes of dramatisation”.6 Such opening captions are disclaimers, which, as Paget argued, are a “specialised kind” of caption.7 This article explores a wide range of docudramas to discuss what disclaimers do and how they do this: for example, when a disclaimer warns that a docudrama is “based on a true story”, what does this claim mean and how does the visual presentation of that claim reinforce it? The article builds on the discussion of disclaimers in my new book, An Adventure in Space and Time (2026), reproducing some of that discussion but substantially extending it and providing many more examples.8
Dirty Business, wr./dr. Joseph Bullman, tx. Channel 4, 23-25 February 2026. The images in this article come from episode 3, tx. Channel 4, 25 February 2026. ↩
This phrase will be discussed later in this article. It comes from Leslie Woodhead, ‘The Guardian Lecture’, in Alan Rosenthal (editor), Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), p. 109. ↩
Derek Paget, ‘Disclaimers, Denials and Direct Address: Captioning in Docudrama’, in John Izod and Richard Kilborn, with Matthew Hibberd (editors), From Grierson to the Docu-Soap: Breaking the Boundaries (Luton: University of Luton Press, 2000), p. 199. ↩
Derek Paget, No Other Way to Tell It: Docudrama on Film and Television (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011), p. 103. Second Edition. ↩
Paget, ‘Disclaimers, Denials and Direct Address’, p. 199. Paget is replying to phrases from (respectively) John Willis, ‘Tainted by the Fiction Faction’, Guardian Media Supplement, 16 November 1998, p. 9 and John Tagg, The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories (London: Macmillan, 1988). ↩
The final sentence in this disclaimer will be discussed later in this article. ↩
Paget, No Other Way to Tell It, p. 103. Second Edition. Paget referred to the disclaimer as a “specialised kind of opening or closing caption”, but this article focuses on opening captions. ↩
David Rolinson, An Adventure in Space and Time (Edinburgh: Obverse, 2026). Some of the discussion in this article, and that book, also returns to David Rolinson, ‘British Docudrama: New Directions in Reflexivity’, in Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann and Derek Paget (editors), Docudrama on European Television: A Selective Survey. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 199-227. ↩
Sleepers arrived on our screens with perfect timing. Or at least that’s how it must have appeared to many viewers. When the first episode aired on BBC2 in April 1991, the Cold War was almost over.
The 10-disc DVD release by Network of the complete series of Wycliffe is a cause for rejoicing, particularly when a Radio Times survey of TV’s 50 top-rated Detective series (July 2018) unforgivably did not even include it. This only confirmed my conviction that it is the most underrated British cop series, maintaining, once it hit its stride, an extraordinarily high standard of acting, directing, and writing over around 40 episodes. The interplay of the main characters was constantly evolving and shrewdly developed; the guest performances (from the likes of such redoubtable actors as Bill Nighy, Pam Ferris, Susan Fleetwood, John McEnery, Dominic Guard, Geoffrey Bayldon, Susan Penhaligon and many others) were often remarkable; the scripts were a model of economy and ingenious plotting; and the Cornish setting always heightened the drama without ever dominating it. Even Nigel Hess’s theme tune was one of his best (and every police drama, from Z-Cars and Maigret onwards, should have a good and distinctive theme tune.) A typical 50-minute episode contained more nuance, subtlety and surprise of narrative and characterisation than Broadchurch managed for me in three series.