Clink (TV series)


Clink is a British television drama series, created by Colin McKeown, which premiered on 5Star on 18 April 2019. The cast include Alicya Eyo, Katherine Rose Morley, Christine Tremarco, and Lu Corfield, and focuses on the lives of the staff and inmates of the fictional women's prison, BPS Bridewell. The series is produced by LA Productions, in association with Kew Media Group. McKeown serves as executive producer, while the writing team is headed by Sarah Deane.
The series went into development in late 2018, in which McKeown worked closely with the LA Productions team, in particular, Justine Potter and Donna Molloy, Head of Development and Head of Production, respectively. Filming took place from January to March 2019 in Huyton, Merseyside. Commissioned for a ten-episode first series, the show marks the first-ever original drama production commissioned for 5Star.

Premise

Set in the fictional BPS Bridewell women's prison, the series focuses on the emotional heart of a community of women who are thrown together and forced to confront their own realities and, in most cases, accept the consequences of the decisions which have brought them here. From the pregnant, scared Chloe and self-harmer, Laura, to the ‘Prison Mother’, Joyce, and self-styled queen of the block, Sherri, these girls are many things - drug users, robbers, some are killers, and most of them, survivors. Presiding over the women is new Governor Dominique Darby, herself thrust into a hidden world in tragic circumstances. It's her first governorship, but is she ready to cope with such a demanding job? With pressure mounting from above and below, Dominique will do battle not just with the board who appointed her, but the inmates she's charged with protecting.

Production

Development

In September 2018, it was announced that Channel 5 was moving forward with their plans to develop several scripted drama series. The project was initiated in request from Channel 5 Commissioning Executive Sebastian Cardwell followed by a ten-part series being commissioned for 5Star.
Initially, KEW Media Group launched Clink in Cannes after signing a three-year drama co-production partnership deal with C5 in 2018.
The series was designed to appeal to a younger audience, fitting the target demographic of 5Star rather than broadcasting it on the main channel. The series creator, Colin McKeown, producer at British indie company LA Productions, serves as executive producer of Clink. The company is known for their BBC One drama series' including the long-running, Moving On, as well as their television films Reg and Care. Donna Molloy, Head of Production for LA Productions, serves as producer for the series.
Head of Development, Justine Potter, described that, being aided by charities, the people associated with the Liverpool-based drama were able to speak with former prisoner, ex-prison officers and governors, and managers of the mother-and-baby units prior to production to gather insight for character development within the series.

Writing

The writing team is headed by showrunner and scriptwriter Sarah Deane of LA Productions, while co-writers are predominantly women and include Karen Brown, Vivienne Harvey, Esther Wilson, Rebecca Manley and Helen Black. British author and screenwriter, Tony Schumacher, the only male writer of the series, had written episode three.
It was expected that the series would be compared to every other women's prison drama, however, it was never the intention to copy or imitated them. The series was intended to be as authentic as possible, which is how it was written, therefore the crew underwent much study to carefully ensure that it was accurate. Deane commented that "the show's not soapy, where you're just heightening stuff for the sake of drama, what we've had to do is actually tone down some of the real life stories that we heard because we thought people almost wouldn't believe them. You just wouldn't believe half of the stuff that we've heard." She also mentioned that "we want to smash a few stereotypes".

Filming

Pre-production of the series lasted ten months, and it took ten weeks to shoot the entire series from January to mid-March 2019. The series was produced in-house and shot exclusvely at 33 Signal Squadron Army Barracks in Huyton, Merseyside, using a Territorial Army barracks and nearby medical centre.
It was shot on 4K using three Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro cameras, while a skycam was used for overhead shots. The series was directed by Gary Williams, actresses Gillian Kearney and Jodhi May, and Anya Camilleri, while Tim Pollard served as director of photography. Williams said that "I used to be a DP myself for many years, and I’ve always been impressed by the look and skin tones that you get out of the URSA Mini Pro. I find it responds very well to light. I’ve used it before on numerous documentary projects and felt it translated well to drama." And that "Its latitude came into its own shooting with Blackmagic RAW. It meant much more freedom on a shoot that involved a lot of confined spaces that were especially difficult to light. Knowing that all of that detail was in the frame, to begin with, meant we could lift that information out from the blacks or the highlights and put it back during post." Each episode took up to seven days to film and the post production process was overseen by Patrick Hall of LA Productions and was edited at DaVinci Resolve Studio, while the visual effects were carried out at Fusion Studio.

Casting

, having previously appeared in the ITV prison drama Bad Girls from 1999 to 2003 as prisoner Denny Blood, was cast in the leading role of deputy governor Dominique Darby. Having worked with LA production in the past, Eyo has described it as a "very different" series with having similarities to Bad Girls. Of the series, she commented that "The fact that it’s a new prison drama jumped out at me," adding that "It has a very different soul and stands alone as a show." The cast include Katherine Rose Morley of the BBC miniseries Thirteen, Lu Corfield, notable for her role in the Netflix series Sex Education, Christine Tremarco and Paul Broughton. The series also features Olympic boxer, Natasha Jonas, in a supporting role and who was initially intended only to appear in a minor role, however, but Sarah Deane said that Jonas was "so good" that it was developed into a bigger role.

Cast

Main

The series is broadcast on Thursday nights on 5Star at 9:00pm. It is available for VOD streaming on My5.
Despite being shot on 4K resolution, the series is not available to view in that format, nor is it broadcast in 1080i HDTV. The series is screened in standard definition as a HD service is not yet available from 5Star.

Series

Reception

Critical reception

The series has received mixed reviews from critics and viewers alike. In an unfavourable review for Auto Straddle, a website exclusively aimed at lesbian and bisxexual women, it was stated that "Clink hopes to step into the women's prison drama gap left by Wentworth and OITNB". It went on to mention that "Whether Clink can make it that long is another matter though, with dialogue that’s 95% cliché and exposition that’s clunkier than a lock in a sock to the head." "Sadly, though, Clink’s first episode lacks any distinction of its own, yet neither does it have the operatic melodrama of Wentworth, the campiness of Bad Girls or the nuance and quality of OITNB". In a positive review for the Liverpool Echo, Pete Price said that "City-made TV prison drama is ex-CELL-ent!" of creator and executive producer, Colin McKeown, Price mentioned that "he’s created a series which bears all the hallmarks of an LA production - rawness, energy, humanity and truth."

Ratings

Promotional media

Influential, a public relations and digital marketing agency launched a social media campaign to promote the series through it's ten-week broadcast on 5Star in efforts to encourage viewers to watch the series live or on catch-up. Influential worked alongside 5Star's PR team by arranging exclusive interviews with cast and crew, and their key media targets which included national and trade journalists, and a feature on Radio City Talk. The focus was to target local media as the series was filmed in Liverpool and chats were also conducted with production members, script writers and other members of the LA Productions’ team, which their campaign stretched to Liverpool City Council and local transport. Their reporting post-campaign for PR highlights an estimated half a million people were reached by our press relations team, including coverage in the Express, the Daily Star and Digital Spy among others.
Their digital team mapped out a social media strategy, including live coverage of the launch event, video interviews and other pre-promotional content, episode teasers, GIFs, ‘behind the scenes content’ and follow-up posts to coincide with the end of each episode, to drive further engagement and conversation from fans and cast alike. The campaign content gained 600,000 impressions on social media, and 30,000 engagements on the LA Productions social channels. They set up social listening feeds to monitor for conversations around the series, posting responses and further content to connect fans of the show to the LA Productions social media channels. By using the popularity of the series they were able to increase brand awareness and build their online audience organically. This saw us gain an extra 1000 new followers for the LA Productions social channels during the course of the show's campaign.

Home media

Clink: Series One appeared for pre-order in April 2019, and was intended for DVD release via Spirit Entertainment on 2 September 2019, as listed on Amazon.co.uk. The proposed set was then pushed back until 14 October 2019; however, it has since been removed from the service, and it is unknown if or when it will become available through Amazon. it has also been removed from HMV's website, as well as eBay, and all other online stores where it had been listed for pre-order.

Streaming

In November 2019, Clink was made available to stream in the United Kingdom as part of Amazon Prime Video, however, it has since expired on the service due to licensing rights.