TV writer Stephen Poliakoff has complained that Jewish people are underrepresented, saying "very few Jews in British drama".

Mr Poliakoff, whose father was Jewish and Russian-born, was speaking at the BFI and Radio Times Television Festival on Saturday and said the number of Jewish characters on the UK small screeen had declined since the death of Jewish playwright Jack Rosenthal in 2004.

"There are very few Jews in British drama. Since the death of the great Jack Rosenthal we haven't had a lot of Jewish characters portrayed," he said.

"It's not often remarked on, there are statistically not many Jewish people in this country in relation to the population but nevertheless it is striking how few Jewish characters there are in British drama and also they are often portrayed in orthodox settings whereas there is a whole other strand of Jewish immigrant wanting to assimilate and still proud of their culture and it's rarely dramatised in British stories.”

Mr Poliakoff was promoting Summer Of Rockets, his new six-part drama based on his own childhood that he wrote and directed. Set in 1958, it draws on his experience in a boarding school and his father's experience of antisemitism.

"Antisemitism does recur through this piece and there is an important plot development that involves it and I wanted it to be subtle initially," he said.

"Obviously antisemitism is a huge issue at the moment and a terribly worrying one, I never thought it would come back in my lifetime in the way that it has.

"The terrible thing about the antisemitism in the 50s was it was so close to the revelation of the Holocaust and powerful people that were in parliament or important and supposedly knowledgeable were parading their antisemitism in all sorts of ways in the 50s and that is extraordinary.

"Given the knowledge that they had of what had happened, it is shocking now and it's shocking then."