Preserving the Legend: Scoring My Mum Tracy Beaker and thoughts about my own family history

My Mum Tracy Beaker has been CBBC’s biggest ever launch, racking up over 2.1 million streams on iPlayer in the first weekend alone and setting social media reaction on fire in early 2021.

I have to confess the world of Tracy Beaker – Jacqueline Wilson’s feisty ‘problem child’ –  had escaped me.  I was born too early for it to hit my childhood viewing or reading.  All the same, I knew Tracy was an essential part of the cultural landscape for my children.  Blimey, hadn’t Stormzy even quoted the theme tune?

So when long-time collaborator, producer/director John McKay (Compact Pictures) invited me to come aboard this new chapter for CBBC –  My Mum Tracy Beaker – it was a great thrill and opportunity to be part of the canon, but I needed to bone up quickly – I immediately devoured the previous series over several days.

John saw the new series as a love story between mother and daughter, seen through the eyes of Tracy’s daughter Jess.  Along the way, it examines ideas of home and stability, and more sombre questions of mental health, parenting and childhood trauma – something which resonated, of which more later.

It was clear the bond between Tracy and Jess needed an emotional thread, a simple, tender and honest musical idea to return to. After a few false starts, I presented a slightly hymnal, almost folk piano sketch which I performed to John on the on a Zoom call and it seemed to hit the spot – aspects of sanctuary and tenderness. With his encouragement I found it blooming into an expansive second section under my fingers, before returning to the spare, opening mood and a gentle resolution; John could hear this forming a Heart and Home theme and it became a central element of the score.

The script was shouting for other musical reactions, so even before they were shooting – under Covid restrictions, of course – I started to present other character sketches to John and CBBC exec Spencer Campbell in Zoom meetings.  John and I often work like this – it’s very much a dialogue in the early stages, trying things out, writing away from the picture, trying to capture the spirit of the story in character sketches and subtextual layers.  On occasion, a musical approach might trigger a bold editing idea or even a new sequence – always exciting.

First was a potential title theme for Tracy in her groove, on top of her world: confident, cheeky, with a hard-won toughness but not without emotional depths. I heard rhythms of reggae and ska, the dubby sounds of a diverse, contemporary Britain, with eclectic instruments for the melody: banjo, melodica and the Arabic oud.  A toy piano – and elsewhere mandolin – consciously evoked Tracy Beaker Returns in a nostalgic nod to Joby Talbot’s delightful earlier work. The fresh, swaggering theme found a perfect home in the opening sequence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEFm6-NeEEI&t=16s

To reflect Tracy’s hair-trigger rage when threatened or challenged, and perhaps work as a main title theme, I created a kind of 80s-pop stomp-and-clap with a playground-type chant.  I went through several versions improving it or so I thought, making it punchier, busier, ever more aggressive, but John kept returning to the demo for its simplicity and sense of fun. I think they even dubbed the demo into the final film, despite our slicker later mixes

For me, the character of our narrator Jess – precocious, bookish, perhaps as wilful as her mother – called for something naïve yet spirited which we found useful for bridging passages, to suggest time passing and things changing.  Here it melts into luxurious loungecore as they arrive at Sean’s swanky pile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZagVoggk6Q

Much as I made every play to bag the theme tune, it was perhaps inevitable that nothing could displace the original Keisha White song Someday, so long and affectionately associated with the Beaker universe.  EP Spencer approached the original producer/co-writer Brian Harris who soon brought us several new versions with a fresh vocal from Keisha: a cool, dark R&B mix edit became our end-title music, and the fabulous disco-tastic arrangement got a star appearance in the wedding scene.

The score was mixed by my long-serving engineer Steve Parr. Given the geographical and Covid constraints, we were forced to mix remotely. In a successful first experiment, we had Steve operate my computer workstation here in Newcastle from his facility in London, while I simultaneously streamed the full-resolution audio back to him. We kept in contact via a continuous WhatsApp call on our phones – it worked a dream and saved loads in time and travel costs.

The Heart and Home theme runs through the story whenever Tracy chases a dream of stability for her and Jess, something Tracy wasn’t lucky enough to experience consistently in her own upbringing.  There’s something bittersweet about it that seems to make it work on both happy and more melancholy scenes.

It wasn’t until I was in sight of the finishing line, polishing the closing cue with more mandolin and starting to relax, that I had a small epiphany: so much of the story in fact had deep echoes in my own family history, echoes now triggering a wave of unexpectedly powerful emotion in me.  At once I recognised again the many parallels between Tracy’s story and that of my own, dear late mother, whose upbringing had brought its own challenges and struggles throughout her life.  While their personalities could not have been more different, I realised what I had been writing for Tracy B, I had also been writing for her.

So Mum, this one’s for you.

Barbara Jean Sargent (née Jones) 1930 – 2003

Katy Wins Two BAFTA Childrens Awards

I am so thrilled that KATY, adapted for CBBC from Jacqueline Wilson’s retelling of WHAT KATY DID has won two BAFTA Children’s Awards: Chloe Lea for Best Young Performer and Tom Bidwell for Best Writer. It was also nominated for Best Drama. Well done to Spencer, John and all the team on a lovely series. For the score I was lucky enough to have Barnaby Robson of the Royal Opera play clarinet, Michael Cox of the London Sinfonietta on flute and Nicholas Holland on cello. Arthur Dick performed the heavy metal guitars and banjo, mandolin, omnichord, piano, accordion, acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and Juno 6 were me. Much of the score derived from a single acoustic demo I wrote in response to the script.

Sky scores high with Ratburger

Sky One enjoyed its highest ratings ever among 5-14 year olds, and the highest overall for five years with the Christmas Eve treat Ratburger, adapted by Kevin Cecil and David Walliams from the latter’s book. Starring Sheridan Smith, Walliams himself and newcomer Talia Barnett, it tells the story of young Zoe who, bullied at school, befriends a dancing rat she names Armitage. However, the evil Burt (Walliams) has plans to turn Armitage into one of his revolting burgers and a series of disappearances adds to the mystery. Plans are in place for a digital release of the soundtrack soon.

Kevin Scores World Cup Winning Goal in Tina and Bobby

England’s original footballing jetset-couple Tina and Bobby Moore airs on Friday nights in January 2017 in ITV’s 3×60 primetime three-parter. It stars Michelle Keegan as Tina, Lorne McFadyen as Bobby. Directed by John McKay and produced by Spencer Campbell from a script by Lauren Klee.

Ordinary Lies Returns to BBC1

Red Productions’ highly successful ensemble series returns to our screens with an completely new cast and setting, the secret lives of the staff at a South Wales warehouse.

Written by Danny Brocklehurst, directed by Misha Manson-Smith (No Offence) and Jon Wright (Robot Overlords).

Sweet Dreams for Avon

Kevin has scored the new Avon Dreams fragrance commercial for Leagas Delaney with a delicate, haunting song co-written with vocalist Helen Hamilton formerly of London band Death Rattle. Directed by Kathi Prosser via The Sweet Shop, it first airs from February 1st across Eastern Europe and South Africa and then online worldwide.

Click here to watch

The Right Time for Patek Philippe

The world’s finest handmade watches deserve music of equal distinction; Kevin’s beautiful, timeless composition ‘Tick Tock’ emphasises the emotions in Patek Philippe’s new Global Generations film. Tender scenes of a parent and child in a variety of cultures – London, Geneva, Tokyo, Shanghai and New York – demonstrate “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”

Click here to watch

‘Eclectronica’ Score for hit show Ordinary Lies

This new six-part series from writer Danny Brocklehurst (Shameless, The Driver) has been getting excellent reviews and a passionate response from millions of viewers. Directed by John McKay and Juliet May, and produced for Red Productions by Tom Sherry, it examines the lives – and lies – of the staff at a used car-dealership somewhere in the north of England. A superb cast of familiar faces including Max Beesley, Jo Joyner, Sally Lindsay, Mackenzie Crook, Jason Manford and Michelle Keegan feature in these modern morality tales. Kevin performed much of the highly-original score himself, which combines mandolin, ukelele, bouzouki, autoharp, boomwhackers and banjo with synthetic textures in what he calls ‘eclectronica’.

Double BAFTA Nomination for The Wrong Mans

Best Scripted Comedy

The Wrong Mans Series Two has been nominated for two BAFTAs. Not only have Mathew and James have been recognised in the Comedy Writer category, but the series has received a nomination for Best Scripted Comedy. Congratulations to director/producer Jim Field Smith and all the talented contributors involved.

Bumper BBC Christmas

There’s no escaping Kevin’s music this Christmas.

The Wrong Mans returns for two new sixty-minute episodes at 9pm on BBC2 on December 22nd and 23rd. Sam and Phil find themselves trapped on a witness protection scheme near the Texas border and need all their ingenuity to get back home. The score was recorded and mixed at Kevin’s home studio with Steve Parr engineering.

Steve Pemberton (The League of Gentlemen, Happy Valley) has adapted E F Benson’s much-loved Mapp & Lucia books for BBC1, airing on 29th, 30th and 31st December at 9pm. Kevin wrote the major character themes before even seeing a frame of film. The orchestra was recorded over three days at Angel Studios with Gary Thomas and Steve Price, and mixed at Kevin’s home studio by Steve Parr. There are plans afoot for an orchestral suite from the score.