How did that happen?
I blame Ruby Wax. And Joanna Lumley. It was one those ‘quirks of fate’ accidents. I was brought in at the next-to-last minute to direct location films for Ruby. First up – Ruby breaks into Joanna’s house in a ‘Through the Keyhole’ spoof. Simple for me. I like spoof, I know the rules and how to bend them rather well. I did a very good job. Too good – maybe. Janet Street-Porter (then head of the department) told me that 10,000 viewers had contacted the BBC to complain. They believed that Ruby really had broken into Joanna’s house. And what horrified them was that as Joanna did a lot of charity work it was wrong of Ruby to break into her house. Well, for the record, the window was open and that’s how we got in. So nothing was actually broken. Right.
And as surely as tick follows tock I became magnetically attracted to ‘difficult’ shows. The Day Today. People complained that we had said Princess Margaret was involved in a cull of staff on the Sandringham Estate. There was also footage – a bit blurry, I agree – of Prime Minister John Major and the Queen in a kick and scratch fisticuffs shock. A war was provoked on the border between between Hong Kong and Australia – or some other countries, I can’t really remember. There was a whole bunch of other stuff as well. It’s on DVD if you want to check it out.
This attracted Lee Evans and his debut TV show – ‘The World of Lee Evans’, a series of comedy stories for Channel 4, which led to Peter Kay’s Comedy Lab pilot, and his debut series – ‘That Peter Kay Thing’. So, suddenly I was well into comedy. Not really by design, or intention, but because one thing led to another and I was able to use my filmmaking skills on really interesting original projects with not quite enough money.
A series for BBC Scotland, a seris and a documentary with the lovely, charming and unfailingly courteous Rob Brydon and a block of Moving Wallpaper all followed. Each has its own challenges and successes.
Where did my skills come from? I like to think I was born, you know – a natural. But the truth is more prosaic. I worked my way up though the cutting room to be a film editor. I did high-end commercials for the Scott brothers, Andy Morahan, Barry Kinsman and Rocky Morton & Annabel Jankel the creators of Max Headroom and other big names. It was great. A new project, with new ideas, new demands every week.
Then, bizarrely, I decided that I wanted to direct and managed to get a job as producer/director on Channel 4’s youth current affairs show ‘Network Seven’. It was groundbreaking, innovative and created a bit of trouble – ah, you’re ahead of me. You think there’s a pattern. Well, maybe. But hear me out. This isn’t the whole story.
One of the most formative thing that I did was three years on the arts and entertainment listing show ’01 for London’.
Now, as you can tell from the title, it was based and shown only in London, so you probably won’t be aware of it, and I could make up wildly exaggerated claims that are dramatic, yet strangely plausible. But I won’t.
The most important thing for me was that every shooting day – and I did three every week – I had to shoot four classy, comprehensible, stylish five-minute items. That is four items a day – 20 mins of cut screen time. In a normal 10 hour day. On location. In London. All over London.
From Classical music at the Barbican, to dodgy rock in Kentish Town. From big plays at The National to something brave and experimental at The Bush or The Kings Head. From Michael Clarke showing his arse in a shed in Kings Cross to the Cholomondleys and the Featherstonehaughs on the wrong side of London. Helmut Newton talking about his pornography at Hamiltons gallery to London Zoo and dressing women up in fake fur for fashion. Art. Fashions. Shopping. It was everything. Two hours for each item, no matter how complex or important – the clock started ticking as soon as we pulled up on the double yellow lines in front of The Royal Court or we would be late for drinks with David Bowie on the other side of town. Two hours from never having seen the piece I was filming before, and only having the sketchiest research notes – the name of the piece and the list of interviewees – to piling back in the mini bus for the next sign of madness.
It was better than film school. Much better. Harder, faster, tougher – and they paid me! But after three years I got bored. It became too easy, the irritation of poor research and tricky traffic cutting my shooting time because too much. I wanted more. Then Ruby Wax phoned….
I have done more stuff, but I’m guessing that you’ll already have looked me up on Imdb. There are clips and showreels on this site. Just click on the navigation menu above.