Business Profile: Alexandra Fraser, of Maverick TV
Anna Blackaby speaks to Maverick Television’s Alexandra Fraser.
Despite being the creative force behind some of the nation’s favourite TV programmes, Alex Fraser refuses to conform to industry stereotypes – she is far happier tending her two pet goats at her rural Warwickshire home than supping cocktails in Soho.
After a hard day’s work at Birmingham-based Maverick Television, which makes programmes like How To Look Good Naked and Embarrassing Bodies, she goes home to her family and their menagerie of animals – three dogs golden retrievers, the two goats, who make very affectionate pets, she says, a cat, a horse and three tortoises.
Indeed Ms Fraser, who is Maverick’s creative director, wears it as a badge of honour that she has been able to build a successful career in national television without ever moving to London.
She has spent the last 15 years based in Maverick’s Digbeth office, where she has helped the company hone the particular brand of warm-hearted, self-improving programmes it has become known for.
Ms Fraser is intensely proud of Maverick’s output – she describes it as “my fourth baby” – and believes the company has hit on a winning formula which combines entertainment and education with a bold streak which is not afraid of breaking down televisual taboos.
And anyone who has ever witnessed Gok Wan’s innate knack of spreading self-confidence among any female that crosses his path, or Embarrassing Bodies’ frank willingness to tackle intimate medical problems never before aired in such detail on prime time telly, will realise this is a unique kind of programme maker.
It is a world away from so many exploitative reality shows, a fact which Ms Fraser takes great pride in.
“Embarrassing Bodies is a health show which reaches an audience that would never go to a traditional health programme and we know from feedback that people check themselves because of it,” she said.
“Every week we get letters - it’s just an extraordinary thing.
“When we set out to do it we weren’t trying to reach the educated 40-year old woman who is going to their doctor regularly, we were trying to reach an audience who think they are immortal – like an 18-year-old boy.
“With How To Look Good Naked, we are taking women who have hated their bodies for years and by the end of it, when you see these women naked on the catwalk feeling fantastic, it’s lovely.
“Every single time I get a buzz out of that.
“Even with the audience that comes to the How to Look Good Naked catwalk, there’s a camaraderie about it.
“Every other woman who’s watching the catwalk who might hate their bum or their breasts or whatever - but they start feeling better too.”
After giving up an early ambition to be a theatre critic and shunning a career as an actor because she was “painfully shy,” Ms Fraser landed herself a place on the BBC’s prestigious training scheme.
This allowed her to experience several outposts of the corporation’s vast empire, taking in the newsroom, Radio 4, drama and even a stint on Good Morning with Anne and Nick.
