Welcome to Screen Sisters, a collection of conversations about what it means to be a woman working in television both in front of and behind the camera.
As well as recognising their contribution to the industry, the series will also examine the highs and lows of working in media, how far television has progressed, and how much further it still has to go.
This week, we're talking to executive producer Belinda Campbell, whose production company Red Planet Pictures is responsible for fan favourites including Death in Paradise and Sanditon.
When Belinda Campbell first started her career 25 years ago, she was in the EastEnders writers' room giving her input into the iconic early era of the Slater sisters.
Little Mo and Trevor? Who shot Phil? "You're not my muvva… yes I am?!" Belinda was there to oversee it all, with the job proving her first big break in the industry. Starting as a script editor, she became a series script editor, producer and series producer on the beloved soap within the space of four years.
Since then, her work trajectory has been on the rise, now working as an executive producer with Red Planet Pictures, part of the Asacha Media Group. Thanks to her, we have beloved shows including Death in Paradise and Sanditon.
The role of an executive producer is, by Belinda's own admission, pretty flexible in what it means. For some, it can simply be a big-name credit attached to a project – but for her, it means having a guiding hand in the creative decisions that make these series become what they are.
"The executive producer works with the producer to make sure the show they are literally producing is what has been developed and commissioned by the broadcasters," she explains. "That is probably the easiest way of summing it up. Exec producers might well work on more than one project at the same time, while they're developing other things alongside it, whereas a producer is just totally immersed in that one production."
As a result, it often involves a hell of a lot of spinning plates. In 2021 alone, Belinda was over Death in Paradise, two seasons of Sanditon, as well as the ITV limited series Our House, which aired in March this year.
"I'm across the social and creative side of things," she adds. "I feel that the buck stops with me for delivering the best programme possible."
Judging by the ratings all of these shows have pulled in, she's incredibly good at her job. The shows Belinda helps create as a managing director at Red Planet Pictures have amassed the kind of devoted fan bases that most boybands would dream of, let alone TV shows.
Initially axed after just one season, Sanditon fans started a viral campaign demanding the Jane Austen adaptation was brought back. Dubbing themselves the "Sanditon Sisterhood", the numerous online campaigns resulted in hundreds of thousands of calls for the show's return, with ITV eventually relenting and renewing the series. The fact it's called the "sisterhood" in itself tells you how large the particularly female fanbase was in this case.
"That phenomenal audience campaign to bring it back was really gratifying," Belinda says of the devotion to the series. "It's such a weird business this, but in 25 years I have never had the experience of lorry loads of letters on my desk saying, 'Please bring it back! Please bring it back!' All this craftwork that was done, the social media campaign, the beach art…. It was amazing. There's a sisterhood. It does make the hard work feel worth it when you get that sort of response."
There's a power to a female fanbase that Jane Austen more than most seems to tap into time and again, with Sanditon and Netflix powerhouse Bridgerton simply bringing about the latest revival of interest in the Regency era, where women were wooed and men were rakes and/or romantics.
But to Belinda, the charm of author Austen is something that is rooted in feminism, with the beloved writers' characters often bucking the norm for their time, even if by today's standards they may seem somewhat outdated.
"There is a way to read Jane Austen as being a radical feminist for her times," Belinda explains. "She was one of the first authors to put that sort of female point of view at the heart of a novel. She wrote characters who all were striving to have a more kind of interesting life. They were really active protagonists who were the architects of their lives.
"Obviously, we take it for granted now as a given, but really it was not a given at that time and most of the writers were men, and women didn't have that sort of agency. I think that's what made Sanditon such an incredibly exciting prospect for me, because it's an unfinished Jane Austen novel. How often do we find little bits of treasure? It really did feel like that, and it gave us the opportunity to actually kind of create this returning series.
"We've always tried to tread through her values as a writer, or what we perceive about it, because obviously you can read things through lots of different lenses," she adds. "But we chose to read it through the lens of somebody who was a prototype kind of feminist who aspired for women to have more. To be educated. To have choice in marriage. To marry for love. To have independence. She chose not to marry."
The female-centric focus of Sanditon, which makes the dapper young men in the cast side-players for the larger story, was something that was a deliberate move by the creative team.
"One of the things about all three seasons of Sanditon that we've now made is that clearly it's a story about women. It's a story about women and their lives, journeys, hopes, dreams and romances,” Belinda says. "There are lots of different female-themed narratives in there, which is a very rewarding thing to do."
Unfortunately, while Belinda is out creating worlds in which women can thrive on their own terms, in reality it can be a little easier said than done, particularly when a successful career like the one she has often comes with the side effect of spinning plates to balance work, life and family.
When asked if there was something she hopes could improve within the industry, the answer was simple: while there's definitely been moves in a positive direction, there needs to be more factoring in for family hours and requirements.
"I think working hours is a major issue for women, because I think it is not the most family-friendly industry in the world, particularly when you work on production," she said. "We've kind of moved away from the six day week or the 11-day fortnight, which is a good thing.
"But I think that if we could move to a world where childcare was actually part of the framework of what we do… because everything comes down to that, for working women who want to have children, it's affordable and attainable childcare.
"It's been an industry not without its problems in terms of the way women have been treated," Belinda concludes. "But I think that it is improving. I think that women feeling confident about calling out bad behaviour is a really important development, so hopefully [in] the next generation, there won't be any awful stories.
"The key to that is managing those problems in the moment and people feeling that they are able to report things and that they will be supported for doing that."
Sanditon season 2 is available on Britbox, and will air on ITV later this year.
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Freelance writer, Digital Spy
Tilly is Gold-Standard NCTJ accredited journalist with eight years of experience in entertainment journalism.
She has been heard giving her insight on the latest TV stories on BBC Radio across the country and on BBC News.
Previously working with The Sun Online, Yahoo, Metro.co.uk and Independent IE amongst others, she joined the Digital Spy team from 2021-2023 as Deputy TV Editor (Maternity cover).
With a speciality in TV drama and true crime, Tilly has been praised for her exclusive content with A-list stars ranging from Sir David Attenborough to the lawyers behind Making A Murderer.
She’s happy to report her mum now takes her seriously as a journalist as she got to interview George Clooney once.
