BBC

No one listens-it’s easier to lock them away.
A film about four women who have been in prison.
A revised version of a film previously called ‘Five Women’.

Producer: Tony Garnett,
Director: Roy Battersby,
Writer: Tony Parker

Deserted by her husband, Pauline struggles to look after her four children, including one with Down’s syndrome, on state benefits. But with the Queen’s Silver Jubilee approaching, things are about to get even tougher.

Producer: Tony Garnett,
Director: Roland Joffe,
Writer: Jim Allen

Details

BBC, Days of Hope, Screen

Mini-Series (4 X Episodes)

Producer: Tony Garnett,
Director: Ken Loach,
Writer: Jim Allen

Off-Cut: The Golden Vision

The Golden Vision, Unpublished Writing

Neville Smith was a Scouse actor we had worked with often. He was a fanatical Evertonian. He wrote a screenplay, The Golden Vision, imagining a fan who, one Saturday morning took a call from the manager.

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BBC, Screen, Steven

Play for Today

Producer: Tony Garnett,
Director: Brian Parker,
Devised By: Brian Parker

Details

BBC, Screen

The Wednesday Play

Producer: James McTaggart,
Director: Gareth Davies,
Writer: Dennis Potter,
Story Editors: Tony Garnett, Roger Smith

Details

BBC, Drums Along the Avon, Screen

The Wednesday Play

A fable

Producer: Tony Garnett,
Director: James MacTaggart,
Writer: Charles Wood

Off-Cut: Five Women

Some Women, Unpublished Writing

Tony Parker was a small, unthreatening man who listened. He once told me that he’d never met anyone who bored him. I was always trying to avoid bores. He fascinated me, not least because of his methods. He would listen to his subjects for countless hours over long periods, patiently, sympathetically and without judgement, rather like a therapist would. He then distilled this material into a readable length, preserving the words and meaning of the speakers.

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BBC, Screen, The Enemy Within

Play for Today

Producer: Tony Garnett,
Director: Les Blair,
Devised By: Les Blair

Grace Wyndham Goldie Article 1967

BBC, Cathy Come Home, Screen

Sunday Telegraph 08/01/67

STOP MIXING TV FACT AND FICTION
by Grace Wyndham Goldie

ON Wednesday the B.B.C. Is going to repeat Jeremy Sand-ford’s tear-jerker “ Cathy Come Home,” about the plight of those who cannot find anywhere to live. This is a disturbing decision. As a once-for-all experiment in television dramatic presentation it was all right. Most of those who had reservations about its validity, and I was one of them, considered it an effective piece of television. But the decision to repeat it indicates that it may be an early example of n new and dangerous trend in television drama. read more…

The Birth of the Goalie of the 2001 F.A. Cup Final

BBC, Five Minute Films, Screen

Five Minute Films BBC Series: Episode 5/5

Producer: Tony Garnett,
Director: Mike Leigh,
Writer: Mike Leigh

Off-Cut: The Parachute

The Parachute, Unpublished Writing

When I called David Mercer to ask him if he had something he was burning to write, he just said he had an image of a man on the end of a parachute. That’s all he knew. I called his agent, Peggy Ramsay, and put through a commissioning form. That was allowed in those days. As a producer I could commission a screenplay about anything from anyone. Producers were allowed some discretionary judgement.

Some months later a screenplay arrived.

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BBC, Screen, Some Women

Details

BBC, Screen, The Big Flame

The Wednesday Play

The time could be the immediate future. There is a smell of battle in the air; the possibility of violence. On one side 10,000 men are threatening unofficial strike; on the other is the combined weight of the Government, their employers, and their Trade Unions. This film was shot on location in Liverpool.

Producer: Tony Garnett,
Director: Ken Loach,
Writer: Jim Allen

Old Chums

BBC, Five Minute Films, Screen

Five Minute Films BBC Series Episode 3/5

Producer
Director
Writer

Tony Garnett
Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh

Off-Cut: Arturo Ui

The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, Unpublished Writing

A love hate relationship with Bertold Brecht had frustrated me for years. In the end I decided that his ideas might work in the theatre, but were of little use to me.

I had read Stanislavsky’s An Actor Prepares in my teens and had almost lived at Sadler’s Wells Theatre when the Russians played there in 1958. This was the most credible acting I’d ever seen in a theatre. In contrast I’d never seen a Brecht which enthused me,

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