Television dramas as memory screens

Within this article I am focus upon the construction of both social and personal memories within the television drama, drawing upon Landsberg’s notion of prosthetic memory and King’s identification of ‘afterwardsness’ as ways of comprehending the construction of memory and the past within texts. The examples are The Long Walk to Finchley (Tony Saint, BBC 4, 2008) and Life on Mars (2007-8). Both dramas share a number of concerns yet each has a very different context within British television. The relationship between viewers’ adopting memories from the dramas and incorporating these into their own sets of memories, including my own memories of the dramas is considered. Equally, the negotiation of the media and public discourses as memory screens with which we interact is a primary concern.