Robert Jones - Party Animals and Rough Diamond

Clemency Burton Hill and Shelley Conn in Party Animals. Photo: Nick Briggs (World Productions/BBC)

On the WGGB website, Robert Jones talks about his two new BBC series: Party Animals (co-created with Ben Richards) and Rough Diamond.

I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction to Rough Diamond. It’s a prime-time Sunday night family drama and critics could have picked it apart but, on the whole, they’ve engaged with it on its own terms. The ratings have been pretty good too, in a tough slot. I thought Party Animals would get a better response from the critics. Journalists took a huge interest in it from the start and it’s the only time I’ve been interviewed for the Today programme! In fact, we were interrogated as if we were MPs ourselves. Perhaps that should have given me an inkling about what to expect, because once it aired people either seemed to love it or hate it. Again, though, the ratings have held up okay.