Thanks to a recommendation from my good friend Ben, I’d snapped up a ticket online a number of weeks ago and had been eagerly awaiting this event, held at the Crown Hotel in Harrogate, UK. David Simon, creator, and George Pelecanos,  leading writer of the wonderful TV series, The Wire, did not disappoint. The session was led by Laura Lippman, and the discussion ran over a wide range of Wire related topics, really too many to remember in any detail without a recording.

They began by discussing whether The Wire was a novel for TV. Both David and George felt that they could see how, in many ways, it was. There are recognisable chapters within the whole and while there is a central narrative, there are also a number of sub-plots and other scenes which do not necessarily drive that narrative.  In many ways TV has an advantage as characters can be placed in within realistic scenes. Dialogue can be spoken in the exact way intended – no further description is required. One of the few positives for a novel is that an author can reveal what a character is actually thinking. This led to David explaining how much he disliked voice-overs, and how very few films benefited from this technique.

He described how the series had first become a possibility when a gap had appeared in the HBO schedules, and how he’d needed to work quickly in order to get it accepted. While each of the five series had ultimately covered separate aspects of Baltimore, David explained how this had only begun to emerge towards the end of the second. He felt that if this had been the pitch right at the start, HBO would never have commissioned the programme.

George went on to explain how he was initially against exploring the political scene in Baltimore, mainly as he felt it to be subject matter for a different series. Although he had eventually agreed with the idea, he was never comfortable writing dialogue for the City Hall scenes. While he preferred his street scene dialogue to remain untouched, he was often happy for his political scenes to be rewritten by those who knew that arena. They both recognised how City Hall had its own speech patterns and vocabulary. Covering the politics of Baltimore also led to disagreements with the real administration there. David related how, despite his warnings that the piece would be ‘dark’, the city’s Mayor had originally been enthusiastic about the fiming. Come the second series, however, he blocked permits a week before shooting was to begin. He eventually relented when he realised that the programme could be shot in, say, Philadelphia (and it would get the money) while the story would still be about Baltimore.

David mentioned here that many had pointed to similarities between this actual Mayor and Mayor Tommy Carcetti in the series. While he sees parallels, particularly in their political career path, David did not base that or any other character on real members of Baltimore society. As an aside, he related how he’d had a gentle dig at an ex-editor of the Baltimore Sun (David’s former employer) by giving a minor character his surname.

Laura brought up how, out of the 900 or so speaking parts, a small fraction of those were female, and even fewer ‘lived’ independently of male characters. David outlined how although The Wire deals with a number of modern problems and issues, it cannot possibly be a vehicle for all of them.

The three also spent some time explaining how music was so important in The Wire. How separate tracks were felt to be more appropriate than a single soundtrack. How the music for the montage at the end of each series (designed to illustrate the passing of time) was often debated at length. Sometimes the lyrics of a song mirrored the images too closely while at other times although one verse would be appropriate, other parts were not. As we all know, Tom Waits’ Down in the Hole was the theme throughout the 5 series. David revealed how at one point he had preferred Get Behind The Mule from Waits’ album The Mule Variations. He particularly liked the refrain: ‘Got to get behind the Mule / In the morning and plow’. However, other parts of the song simply didn’t fit. Asked about tracks used in particular scenes, David quoted something he’d heard Martin Scorsese say when commenting on why he’d used the Ronettes’ Be My Baby for a particularly violent scene in his film Mean Streets: ‘When you’re beating the shit out of a guy you don’t get to choose your soundtrack (I paraphrase).’ For the same reason, this was why David chose The Lion Sleeps Tonight to be the track playing on McNulty’s car radio when he’s stuck in a traffic jam while trying to follow Stringer Bell.

A notable question from the floor concerned the use of British actors. David revealed how Dominic West (McNulty) had struggled with some Baltimore words and expressions at the outset but had ultimately become virtually word perfect, how he had not even realised that Idris Elba (Stringer Bell) was English during auditions and that Aidan Gillan (Mayor Tommy Carcetti) had found the Baltimore pronunciation of the word ‘school’ especially difficult. This was a particular problem during shooting of the fourth series which concentrated on the school system.

Afterwards I queued with many others to have my copy of David’s book Homicide signed. He was kind enough to write his favourite Wire line. He wrote: ‘… bad time for y’all …’ He said he preferred the humorous lines to dramatic ones. I told him I liked Slim Charles’ words (to Avon Barksdale about their drug war) – ‘Once you in it, you in it. If it’s a lie, then we fight on that lie.’ He confirmed my thoughts that this was a comment on US (and British) foreign policy at the time and added that this was true of the whole third series, including the destruction of the towers.

A great day. Thanks to all.

Tags: Crown Hotel, David Simon, George Pelecanos, Harrogate, The Wire