So, writer-director Stephen Poliakoff has had a hissy fit with the BBC over their insistence that he needs to deliver a script before any new project is given the go-ahead. Seems the £3.7 million spent on his recent feature Glorious 39 was not a shrewd investment, having recouped less than £285,000. Rather than adopting a contrite approach, Poliakoff seems to have a serious case of entitlement, perhaps symptomatic of his gilded roots.

That said, I am not unsympathetic to Poliakoff’s situation, while — to put it mildly — not being a fan of the man’s work. Now, it’s wise to be wary of anyone suggesting that there was a golden age of any sort in any domain, but you don’t have to look too far back in the BBC’s history to discover that things were very different once. The era of Play for Today brought some startling drama to the screen, and writers such as Alan Bleasdale and Dennis Potter. The free rein they had (not the lack of g in rein: the term’s etymology is to do with slackening a rider’s hold on a horse, and is nothing to do with royalty) gave rise to the blossoming of some extraordinary talent.

But, at the same time, a lot of stuff the corporation produced was dreadful. For every Edge of Darkness there were several misfires like Triangle, a soap-on-a-boat travelling through sludgy waters under a slate sky. Doctor Who is rightly remembered for its classic episodes, but there were a lot of dismal ones in there too. And don’t get me started on It Ain’t ‘Alf Hot Mum. More control at the top doesn’t guarantee better drama — far from it — but it’s not a bad means of employing some kind of filtering. Which is what’s happening more and more. New writers are ushered in through the Writers Academy, and having been told the way the BBC likes things, are increasingly creating the scripts for long-established shows like Holby and Casualty.

You can like that or dislike it, but that’s the reality. And it has good and bad aspects. Also, comical ones. When I’d got through the door at Doctors and started submitting ideas, there was one I particularly liked that featured a ghost. My script editor liked the concept, but ran into a problem that she had to consult colleagues about: did ghosts exist within the world of Doctors? A small group of script editors and producers convened to discuss this issue, like a Church of England synod, wrestling with the issue of the afterlife in daytime medical drama. Never mind the fact that the ghost in the story was as bogus as those that featured in Scooby Doo, though was more sophisticated than a janitor with a rubber mask on to put those meddling kids off the trail. No, the spirit world of Letherbridge — the town where Doctors is set — had to be defined by committee.

That kind of stuff goes with the territory of working with institutions as big as the BBC. Poliakoff should consider himself exceptionally lucky that he’s been allowed to play with the toys there at all, and for as long as he has — but his ego and sense of entitlement are indicated by the fact that security personnel were called during his meeting with BBC drama commission controller Ben Stephenson.

If Poliakoff really is as all that as he supposes he is, then he should be able to discover his true worth on the free market. Find out who is willing to stump up the readies for him to bring one of his scripts to the screen, and how many people are then prepared to watch his new insights into the milieu of troubled toffs. How about doing a new project about a creative wunderkind who is cast out by those who nurtured him, and has to find his own way through a world of beastly financiers and cold commerce?