Politics & Power Quote by Christopher Eccleston

Eccleston is smuggling a quiet manifesto into what sounds like industry shop talk. When he says he “cares more about telly,” he’s not just ranking mediums; he’s staking a claim about class, access, and where cultural power actually sits in Britain. Television “made” him an actor: a pointed reminder that for many working actors, TV isn’t a consolation prize beneath film prestige, it’s the engine that pays, trains, and legitimizes. There’s gratitude in that line, but also defiance against the idea that seriousness arrives only with cinema or the stage.

The phrase “immediate response” is the key. It nods to the feedback loop of broadcast culture: overnight ratings, next-day headlines, water-cooler arguments, the sensation that a performance can land directly in living rooms rather than trickle through curated audiences. Eccleston is describing TV as a public square, not a boutique.

Then he raises the stakes: television can “address the political or cultural fabric of your country.” That’s the subtext of responsibility. He’s arguing for TV drama as civic intervention, a medium built for stories that travel fast and wide enough to shape consensus, needle institutions, or make a marginalized experience suddenly legible. It’s also a subtle critique of arts ecosystems that reward exclusivity: telly’s virtue is that it can’t help but be social. When it’s good, it’s not just entertainment; it’s a national conversation with casting.