Ronan Bennett- IFTA TV Showrunner Masterclass

IFTA was delighted to present a special TV Showrunner Masterclass with Ronan Bennett, BAFTA-winning writer and showrunner whose credits include Top Boy, The Day of the Jackal, MobLand and Gunpowder.

This masterclass was moderated by IFTA & BAFTA-winning Director & Screenwriter Neasa Hardiman, whose credits include TV dramas Happy Valley, Untamed, Jessica Jones and her debut feature Sea Fever. It took place on Thursday, 08th October at the Radisson Blu Hotel Dublin.

IFTA members got a rare behind-the-scenes look at the creative process behind leading major television productions across scriptwriting and showrunning. Ronan gave unique insights into the development of the acclaimed crime drama Top Boy, alongside his work on The Day of the Jackal, Gunpowder and MobLand.

Drawing on his extensive international career, Ronan shared fascinating insights and entertaining anecdotes for the audience, discussing the role of the showrunner, exploring the creative vision, collaboration and storytelling behind bringing a successful television series to life.

Discussing the origins of Top Boy, Bennett recalled an encounter with a young boy selling drugs near his home in Hackney, London, which prompted him to investigate the world that would inspire the series.

“One day, I happened to notice a kid in my local supermarket. He wasn't more than 12, and he might only have been 10, and he was selling drugs. I watched him for a while. I went up to try to talk to him afterwards. He thought, first of all, that I was a cop. I said I was a writer. He wanted money.

“I've never seen that kid ever again since, and I can only hope that he's not in jail or worse, or dead. But I was intrigued enough then to ask a very good friend of mine, who's a Jamaican London guy called Jerry, and he introduced me to people who worked on the road, as they called it. That was the start of it.”

Bennett subsequently recorded conversations with young people involved in the drug trade, drawing on their experiences to develop the characters, dialogue and world of Top Boy.

“What you should do is listen to people rather than talk. My friend Jerry put me in touch with people who worked on the road, who sold drugs, and I sat down, explained what I was doing, and asked them if they'd let me record them, and they all agreed.

“I didn't go straight into ‘Tell me about the drugs.’ I asked them about school. I asked them about clothes, music. I just wanted to get a picture of their lives, and then I would get into what the mechanics were of being on the street.”

His research also extended to the show's distinctive dialogue, with Bennett explaining how the actors contributed to the authenticity of the language.

“I would do the best version that I can, put that on a page. Then I would take it to my friend Jerry, who would show it to his nephews to make it age-specific and age-correct. Then I would rewrite that, and then it would go to the actors, and they would rehearse it. I would get notes from the rehearsal and incorporate that.

“Finally, there would be what the actors did on the day, and I always said to improvise, but you have to keep the meaning and the nuance of what's there. Kane Robinson, who plays Sully in Top Boy, changed one line on the spot. They were talking about the need to kill somebody, and my version was probably something like, ‘You need to kill him.’ And Kane saw the line and just said, ‘Bag him up.’ It was just better.”

Throughout the masterclass, Bennett challenged the idea that a showrunner's responsibility is to exercise complete creative control, instead emphasising the importance of defending a vision while remaining open to collaboration.

“You are all voices in a room, and unless you're very unfortunate, everybody involved - the commissioners, the producers, everybody — is trying to make the best version of what's on the page that they can.

“If there's a disagreement, it's not about control. It's about being a voice in the room and being able to hold your ground and explain. If you have a vision, you have to be able to defend it, and that means literally defending it in a room. You've got to be articulate enough and brave enough and convinced enough and passionate enough about your own vision to convince other people.

“But I would say again, also listen, because people do come up with good ideas. I'll take a good idea from anybody.”

Reflecting on his approach to storytelling across different genres, Bennett emphasised that character and relationships remain his starting point.

“For me, it's always the character. It is always the character, and usually, not so much in The Day of the Jackal, but in pretty much everything else I've done, I ask myself, what's the key relationship in this story?

“There's a lot of action in most of my stuff, and it moves along. William Goldman said something like, write every scene as if it's a bad party you don't want to go to - arrive late, leave early. I think that's not bad advice.”

Ronan is the creator and showrunner of the acclaimed crime drama Top Boy (starring Ashley Walters and Kane Robinson), which ran for five seasons. His recent credits include The Day of the Jackal (starring Eddie Redmayne) and Paramount+ original series MobLand (starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren), created and written by Ronan and directed by Guy Ritchie. His other television credits include the BBC historical drama Gunpowder (starring Kit Harington), while his film work includes Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard) and Face (starring Robert Carlyle). Ronan is also an award-winning novelist, with works including The Catastrophist, Havoc in Its Third Year and Zugzwang, bringing a breadth of experience to his work as a storyteller and showrunner.

This masterclass is supported by Screen Ireland through the Screen Stakeholders Funding Scheme.