Greg Brenman says ‘California Avenue’ is ‘a love letter to television’

‘California Avenue’ is the new show from Hugo Blick, the mastermind behind some of TV’s most impactful dramas, including Emily Blunt starring ‘The English’, ‘The Honorable Woman’ starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Michaela Coel starring ‘Black Earth Rising’.

Unsurprisingly, “California Avenue” features an equally star-studded cast in Bill Nighy (“Love Actually), Helena Bonham Carter (“Fight Club”), Erin Doherty (“Adolescence”) and Tom Burke (currently shooting Alex Garland’s “Elden Ring”).

The series, produced by Blick’s production company Eight Rooks and Drama Republic for the BBC, is set in an English static caravan park in the summer of 1975, when Doherty’s character Lela returns home after a long absence with her 11-year-old daughter in tow. It was inspired in part by Blick’s own experiences staying with his beloved grandparents in a mobile home community.

“Set in the rural British summer of 1975, with a fantastic historical soundtrack, this is a warm and witty story about a family on the run from the past and themselves, who find themselves in a community of outsiders,” says Blick. Variety. “Whether these people live in trailers, trailers or campers, their (non)status as outcasts and misfits is universal. But like ‘The Darling Buds of May’ or ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ sometimes it’s the people who have nothing who have the most to give.”

While the series airs in Britain on the BBC, Mediawan Rights and Entourage Media are distributing the six-episode drama internationally.

Following a warmly received preview of the first episode at Canneseries last month, Greg Brenman, producer of the show and co-founder of Drama Republic, sat down with Variety to discuss how “California Avenue” got off the ground and whether it could return after its first season.

What was the genesis of ‘California Avenue’?

This show started in development at the BBC a few years ago, and I remember we had a pitch for it [the BBC’s former head of content] Charlotte Moore, who in the mid-1970s loved the idea of ​​this community of people living in a mobile home and all escaping the world somehow.

It’s a love letter to 1970s television because [as a child, Blick] spent much of his time in a caravan with two people he absolutely adored, especially his grandfather – represented to some extent, but not entirely, by Bill Nighy’s character – and watched a lot of TV.

And I think for him it was kind of a window into an entertainment industry that would stay with him and blossom many, many, many years later.

What is the performance about?

The story begins with Erin’s character, named Lela, running away from a mansion where she lives with what we’ll discover is a pretty abusive husband. We only hear him yelling and screaming at her off camera. She runs away with her 11-year-old daughter, travels at night and ends up in a mobile home community in the middle of the British countryside, and we’ll find out that she actually comes home. She ran away to live with the man in the mansion, she had a child with the man in the mansion, and she returns home where her father and mother live, the characters of Bill and Helena, and she will introduce her daughter, their granddaughter, to them for the first time.

So it’s about a broken family coming back together and healing the wounds of her departure, of Erin’s character’s departure, and it’s also a place where she meets Tom Burke’s character. He is there for his own reasons too, he is escaping some incidents in his life, and they fall in love. And then of course there is the love story of Erin reunited with her father and mother, and actually the love story of Helena and Bill, their [characters’] lasting relationship. And for the 11-year-old boy, which I think is roughly the age Hugo was in 1975, who was with this family and enjoyed the warmth of this community even though he was considered a bunch of misfits.

How did you get such an impressive cast?

Helena and Bill showed up very early. They absolutely fell in love with the material. I think one of the benefits of working with Hugo is that he attracts a lot of top talent, if you think of Maggie and Emily Blunt and Michaela, because he writes shows like no other. I think when actors of that caliber read these scripts, as they have done in the past on other shows, they find a world and a level of skill and character insight that they might not always get in other projects.

To put it bluntly, there are a lot of genre shows, right? Dead bodies and high-speed car chases, and that’s not this world. This is a world of enormous love, enormous humor, enormous emotional journeys for all four characters, and I think it’s a testament to their loyalty, but also really to the scripts that they stuck to.

Why do you think they all signed up for it?

Well, they don’t do it for the money! And when you take that out, you think: what’s left? The experience of working with the other cast, the scripts, Hugo Blick, reading something unusual, unique, special. That’s all you can hope for, isn’t it, when you aim big with modest means?

If you’re doing something that’s set in a certain time period in a certain place, do you have to think about how the show is going to travel internationally?

It’s a tricky one. I mean, I produced the movie “Billy Elliot” years and years ago, and you could ask all those questions about that project. And I think the answer is: you just have to tell a story that matters to you, that has universal emotion, that is told with the best cast, the best direction, the best scripts, the best design, and hope that it means something to a broad, global audience. Obviously with “Billy Elliot” we had no idea at the time, but it made sense and of course you realize, just like with this show, who doesn’t have disagreements with their parents? Who doesn’t want fractures to be healed? Who wouldn’t want a better understanding of the fallibility of the people who raised you? Who doesn’t want to fall in love? So all these things are universal.

Does “California Avenue” have the potential to become a recurring series?

It could definitely return. It’s not necessarily designed to return, but it’s ultimately about a group of people being in a better place at the end of it than they were at the beginning, so they all survive to tell the story.

This interview has been edited and condensed.