Pharoah is from Somerset. He studied at the University of Sussex then proceeded his education at the National Film School. He believes that much of his writing, especially Life of Mars, was influenced by a "Sussex" way of thinking; here it is encouraged to think of outside of the box, to be sceptical and to put everything in context.
He always wanted to be a writer. Just after university he listened to Radio 4, and decided to write a 30 minute radio play. He sent this to the BBC and was eventually paid for this. He always had a gift for story structure. After being told he had difficultly putting his own voice into his scripts, he was given the exercise of writing every morning for two weeks. During this time, his stories featured a recurring character, which happened to be his first childhood love. She was very spiritual and into black magic. His writing turned into a graduate film, Water's Edge, which was nominated for a BAFTA.
Pharoah then started to write about himself and is own life. He wrote a script for Eastenders, and ended up working for them for three years. Reflecting on his experiences working in soap opera production, he stated that he would constantly be writing, seven days a week. Although in this time he became better at writing with experience.
He wrote his own TV show, Where The Heart Is, which was shown on ITV. This implemented devices of social realism. After this, he worked for a production company called Quodos. Pharoah was inspired by cop shows that he used to watch, then imagined what it would be like if they were set in the 70s. This formed the basis of his TV show Life on Mars. This was also inspired by the David Bowie song of the same name. Pharoah explained how at the time he was writing the show, it was very alternative to the mainstream. In the mainstream there was either social realism within soaps or high fantasy such as Doctor Who. Life on Mars was somewhere in between the two, which made it difficult to be accepted by companies. It eight years to get the story sold; during this time the script was re-written about forty times.
Advice from Pharoah:
- go with your instincts
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