Think London’s just grey and boring? Rob Flowers’ BBC crime comedy pilot Thames View will change your mind

It’s Nice That: I’ve read that your first loves could be described as unusual toys and vintage action figures, how does that channel through into your character design?

Rob Flowers: I’d probably say bread was my first love but closely followed by toy and character design.

Research is a very important part of my process and finding new inspirations is crucial to creating interesting work. I'm always inspired by my own collection: an unusual face or nose shape, the way the body of a character is constructed. A huge part of being creative is generating new ideas and perspectives, so having things to look at and be inspired by is very useful.

One of my favourite toy lines is Marx, a toy company who went out of business in 1980. They had this line called ‘Marxie’ where they made these amazing wind-up toy characters of basically anything, milk bottles, petrol pumps, clocks, tubes of glue. I’ve got a small collection of them and they informed all the musical instrument characters I designed for Make Some Noise, a book by The Horne Section that I illustrated.

INT: I love how bloody British this cartoon is, from the Bobby Moore portrait in the van to the character of Jim and Chelsea’s dodgy tans. What is it about British people that make for such good animated characters?

RF: Ah thanks, our intention with the show, (I worked with the amazing Dan Lewis and Stu Mather from Temper Temper TV on developing my idea, and they wrote the script) was to make something that felt very British and was very specific, as we felt like it’s something we haven’t seen in the world of adult animation. The show is based on my family in the 1990s, I have two older sisters and all the Potts’ family characters are heavily influenced by my real family and growing up on Thames View Estate.

RF: I’ve been developing the idea for the last ten years or so, so have really concentrated on the details on their designs, both in terms of their physical characteristics but also things like what clothes they wear, what their hobbies are and how they talk. I created a 40 page “slang glossary” for each character in the show based on words me, my family and friends used in early 90s East London.

The character of Little Jim is based on me at that age – I did have a pretty sweet bowl cut. The whole family is based on my memory of what we all looked like in the early 90s, with a few bits of artistic licence. Having this to draw on really helped with making the characters feel like a real family that look related but have distinct personalities.

INT: This is London fed through a highly-saturated colour filter and filled with absurdist caricatures of Londoners, how else did you approach the Flowerification of the capital?

RF: I wanted to make sure that Thames View was a world full of colour and joy, something that is pretty on-brand for me in my other work. I tried to make sure each frame is filled with little details and easter eggs for the audience to pick out and enjoy. Building the world of Thames View has been really fun, you can learn so much about the characters by what they have in their house, what sort of furniture they have, what they have on the walls, and adding these details makes it feel more authentic.

For me, the best characters are ones rooted in reality but dialled up to the extreme. My favourite TV show ever is Only Fools and Horses. What I love about that show is each character is an exaggerated version of someone I could recognise from my real life, but presented with a real warmth and heart.

INT: The 90s setting is so specific and subverts the grey, brutalist idea of England. What did you pull from your own upbringing into this sitcom pilot?

RF: This was a very important aspect of the show for me. You’re used to seeing this place on film and television in a certain way: grey, gritty and somewhat depressing.

That was never my experience growing up, the estate was full of colour and adventure – whether that was how people dressed, their front gardens and houses, the parks and playgrounds, endless summers of playing out. It was really important to me to show another side of East London, fun, silly and magical.

INT: How did your collaboration work with director Zac Ella?

RF: Zac and Dan from Temper Temper TV are two of my best mates and to get to work on something like this with your best friends is a dream, so it was great when we brought Zac onboard to direct.

Zac is an amazing director and understands how you take a script and make it into something in a way I don’t. He added so much to the show through his eye for detail, especially when I was completely snowed under while trying to draw everything!

All the team, from my longtime collaborators on Thames View to the animation team at Plus 3K put in a ridiculous shift to make the show in the 3 months we had.

INT: Episodes of cartoon shows are usually fifteen to twenty minutes long. How do you find creating short-format stories that are filled with visual gags, innuendos and references to British culture?

RF: When we started writing ideas for the pilot we were thinking it would be 30 minutes but I actually really like the ten to fifteen minutes format, there were a lot of animated shows from the 90s that would package two fifteen minute stories in a 30 minute episode so I think it’s nice nod to that format. Maybe we could do a He-Man style ‘what we learned in this episode’ parody from Edna too?!

Me, Dan and Stu rented a house and did a sort of story boot camp where we decided the ideas for the pilot, Dan and Stu would go off and write and we’d all come back together to discuss and tweak. That took a couple of months as we wrestled with the structure and packing in everything. The biggest challenge was making sure there were lots of laughs as well as introducing all the main characters in thirteen minutes. The BBC were really supportive throughout the development process, which was amazing.

It also means the episode really motors along! One thing we spoke a lot about during the production process was layering the jokes and humour. So having the script drive the plot and it being full of great lines and then the visual gags supporting and adding to that as well.

We wanted to reference particular film and television tropes and genres in all scenes, so we were constantly talking about the mood of a scene, what can we reference and give a nod to for those who can spot it.