DUB-PLATE DRAMA

What happens next? You decide, as Channel 4 launches TV's first interactive drama
· Viewers will shape story in six episodes
· Star cast includes Ms Dynamite and Shystie

Owen Gibson, media correspondent
The Guardian,
Monday September 26 2005
Television audiences have grown used to expelling Big Brothe contestants, forcing minor celebrities to eat jungle insects, and crushin the dreams of tuneless pop hopefuls. A new Channel 4 drama will take th trend to its logical conclusion, offering viewers the chance to shape an entir storyline by voting on the direction it should take and allowing them to play go with the fate of its central characters

A host of British urban music stars have been cast in the gritty six-part series which hopes to encourage its predominantly young target audience to engage with issues, including guns and drugs.

The Mercury music prize-winning singer Ms Dynamite and many of the burgeoning new wave of British grime and rap artists, including Shystie, Rodney P and So Solid Crew, all appear in Dubplate Drama, which is due to air in November.

In an effort to reflect rapidly changing media habits, the interactive series will also air on the digital channels MTV Base and E4, and will be made available to watch on Sony's new PSP device and in a cut-down version on the mobile phone network 3. The ambitiousproject, believed to be a world first, will be watched with interest by other broadcasters who for several years have been considering how to make a viewer-led drama that retains a strong sense of scripted storytelling and takes advantage of innovations in mobile phone and interactive TV technology.

Last month, in a more limited application of the idea, BBC1 screened an amalgamated edition of the hospital dramas Casualty and Holby City in which viewers were given the chance to vote on which of two characters should be saved.

As ratings decline on traditional channels, broadcasters are looking for better ways to engage viewers and promote loyalty among fickle audiences. Younger people in particular no longer seem so keen on being passive viewers.

Each episode of Dubplate Drama will end with a dilemma for the central character, Dionne, played by the critically lauded female MC Shystie. Viewers will be invited to text in their decision, with their choice influencing the action in the next episode.

Sam Conniff, the co-founder of Livity, the youth marketing agency that helped put the project together, said: "Groups of teenagers will gossip for hours about their favourite MC but not [about] pressing social issues. That's the challenge."

The series is set in the world of south London tower blocks, MC battles and rival pirate radio stations, from which the grime scene, characterised by its skeletal beats and quickfire rapping in a defiantly British accent, sprang. Its 25-year-old director, Luke Hyams, said the music was hugely popular, but because of its DIY ethos - with fans listening to pirate radio, swapping mix tapes and downloading songs from the internet - it made little impact on the mainstream.

Shystie said the motivation to make the series sprang from the paucity of television programmes reflecting black British youth culture. "We decided it would be great if we could put together a TV show dealing with our culture that kids can relate to," she said.

The series, in which Dionne also has to battle the dismissive attitude of her rival male MCs, attempts to provide a counterbalance to the idea that success in the genre is inextricably linked to guns and crime. "It's really positive, it's about showing that you don't need to get involved in the guns side of things," Shystie said.

"Black music and black culture is always shown as negative, we want to give it a positive twis