Welcome to a special extended Flowers Towers news fix.

I know it's only my second newsletter but I've decided to break the format for this one and concentrate on one project that has been a dream of mine for the last 10 years.....

Thames View

Thames View is a new BBC3 animated comedy created by me based on my childhood in East London

My long form animation debut, Thames View for BBC3 aired recently. Thames View is an animated sitcom set in 1990’s East London following the lives of the chaotic Potts family.

Joyce Potts’ birthday present has been stolen, so her husband Big Jim enlists the help of his fearsome mother-in-law Edna to track it down on the Thames View Estate.

* Production Company: Temper Temper TV / Nest Productions

* Starring: Tom Davis (King Gary), Roisin Conaty (GameFace), Joe Wilkinson (The Cockfields), Alan Ford (Snatch), Laura Smyth (Baby Reindeer)

* Created by: Rob Flowers

* Writers: Dan Lewis, Stu Mather

* Director: Zac Ella

* Producers: Stu Mather, Dan Lewis

* Animation: Plus 3K Studios

* BBC: Gregor Sharp

Development Process

Early concept art featuring the as-yet unnamed family

Thames View as a show had a long development process followed by super quick production on the pilot. I first had the idea to make something about my childhood relationship with my dad and how it centred around Sunday League football about 10 years ago. After some thought and development I decided that this was a little limited in its possibilities but that the council estate I grew up on in East London, Thames View Estate, could be a great setting for a very British animated sitcom.

First pitch deck I created for Thames View. Click to scroll through

The first thing I did was to develop all the character designs and think about the overall setting. The 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. I concentrated on the details in their designs, both in terms of their physical characteristics but also things like what clothes they would wear, what their hobbies are and how they talk.

I made a series of moodboards for each character to communicate their personality, interests and clothing

I also thought a lot about the tone and mood of the show. We're used to seeing East London 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.

Temper Temper

Me and Dan (Stu is taking the picture) on our Thames View writing bootcamp

At this point I needed some help moving the project forward and making Thames View a real thing. Luckily one of my best friends, Dan Lewis, has been working in TV for 20 plus years and had started his own production company, Temper Temper, with Stu Mather. They loved the idea and wanted to work on it together to develop the show. We worked on a script and pitched it to the BBC, who were interested in it but wanted to see more ideas from us for a 10-15 minute pilot.

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 everything in. 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. We got the green light on the pilot the day before Christmas Eve and had to deliver in March.

Double Busy

A small selection of the many backgrounds I drew for the pilot

With such a short turn around and small budget for the pilot I had to draw everything myself (with some very much appreciated help from Jacob Wolf and Jess Thompson-Gray) - all the character turnarounds, backgrounds and props. It was a mammoth task but I managed to get it all done without completely losing my mind.

Some of the props and other details I designed

With such a ridiculous workload, I couldn't direct the episode. Luckily my best mate, Zac Ella, is an amazing director and stepped in to help out. Zac understood how to take the script and make it work for the format we had. He added so much to the show through his eye for detail, especially when I was completely snowed under trying to draw everything!

Animation studio Plus 3K put in an incredible effort to make the show in the time we had.

The finished script / me and Alan Ford at the voice record / L - R Stu, Alan, me Dan and Zac / WIPs

In terms of voice cast It was beyond my wildest dreams that we managed to get Tom Davis, Joe WIlkinson, Roisin Conaty and Laura Smyth on board for the show. We cast the show in about a week and everyone we approached was our first choice, which is quite unheard of. I was pretty nervous about working with them as they’re such amazing actors, comedians and writers but they all brought such incredible new dimensions to the characters in a way I could never imagine. Plus, they were all so nice!

The only character I knew who I wanted to voice was Edna. From day one I wanted Alan Ford and had my heart set on it. The day he confirmed he wanted to do it was honestly one of the best days of my working life. Alan did not disappoint on the day of recording. Jason Forbes, Luke Kempner and Ambreen Razia did an amazing job with all the other characters too.

We did it!

After an incredibly intense, stressful production run we performed a minor miracle and managed to get the pilot delivered on time to the BBC and it aired on 11th April. I did a whole load of special illustrations for the iPlayer homepage and character intros. There's some fun little Easter Eggs in the images of the family, little nods to character traits and plot lines we hope to explore if we go to series.

What now?

The response to Thames View has been so exciting to see. Fingers crossed we'll be able to make more as there's so much more to discover "on the View"!

So many big thank yous are due to all the amazing people who worked on the show but the biggest one is due to my amazing, funny, odd family who are an endless well of inspiration for the show.

I leave you with one last slide show of them and stay tuned for more Thames View!