Tony Garnett

Think these refugees are a problem?

You ain’t seen nothing yet! The gathering storm’s building.

The sufferings so far are mere hints of what is to come as it gathers momentum. The precipitating cause of each mini disaster may seem to be political – a civil war here, a spontaneous uprising there – but underneath you find land degradation, toxic poisoning, rising sea levels and “natural” disasters exacerbated by human action.

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BECTU Freelancers’ Fair 2016: Political Drama

Asked at BECTU how to get political drama made. With painful difficulty was my reply.

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‘The BBC Made Me’

The BBC did not make me. It influenced me.

Some executives gave me opportunities, for which I remain grateful. Others tried to muzzle me, stop me from working. In any case, which BBC do you mean? I’ve known at least three.

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Cathy Come Home – 50 years on

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Cathy Come Home. Cathy Come Home let everybody off the hook. It didn’t put the boot in where it should have done. Earlier this year I wrote a piece for the PCS Union explaining why I believe this.

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Arnold Wesker, Jim Allen and Perdition

The controversy over accusations of anti-semitism in political parties coincides with the death of Arnold Wesker. There is a connection.

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Junior doctors are the new miners of 1984

Ominous noises from the Tories. They see the doctors as the miners in 84-85. So, a high stakes fight to the death. Whose death will it be?

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Off-Cut: Attachments

As the internet gained momentum I made plans to work on it, thinking everyone would be as excited as I was. The only way to learn to do it, is to do it.

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Tory sale of council houses and Labour’s PFI. A connection? Sure!

Show they’re just two wings of same party. But they don’t want you to know that.

Callaghan’s Labour government in the ‘70s favourably discussed plans for the sale of council houses but lost to Thatcher before it became settled policy; the Tories thought through the wizard idea of the Private Finance Initiative. A no brainer. Build new hospitals and keep the debt off the government books.

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Villa Winning!?!

Crisis at Villa Park!!
Trashing of tradition. Fans in severe distress.
Who is to blame?

This emotionally disorientating behaviour began with the appointment of Steve Bruce as manager, though collusion right up to the boardroom is suspected.

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The inspiration behind ‘The Spongers’

I see that Elizabeth Windsor is 90. I congratulate her.

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Football is about family

I wrote this seeing my granddaughter in an Aston Villa shirt. Aila’s three. I wish Barry Hines had read it. He would have understood. Why do so many of us give pain to our children? We knowingly condemn them to suffer, year after year. Then watch this pain with pride. Are you one of the guilty parents?

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Nurturing creativity in filmmaking

Management was one of the biggest con tricks of the Twentieth Century. It was a useless and exploitative artefact, turning a simple job into a “profession”, with its own jargon and meaningless qualifications.

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Steve Hilton Today

Steve Hilton’s defence of capitalism on Today was the mirror image of those Stalinists defending socialism in my youth. He should read Adam Smith:

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices”. – Wealth of Nations, 1776

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Tracking Changes – BFI Interview 2014

BFI Retrospective, Interviews, Tony Garnett

‘I’ve never got locked up in the idea of “art cinema”. That’s masturbation.’ Never mincing his words, producer Tony Garnett reflects back over his groundbreaking work in television and film, as a two-month celebration of his career – from Cathy Come Home to This Life – plays at BFI Southbank.

Chris Fennell
Updated: 27 January 2014

Born in a working-class suburb in Birmingham, Tony Garnett was one of the first of a generation of revolutionary TV creatives who sought to address serious social and political issues in their influential BBC dramas of the 1960s and 70s.

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CBEEBIES

Sitting with my granddaughter, 3, happily watching Bing. What, never heard of him? Well, you’re not a parent, a grandparent or around 3, are you? I never miss Bing.

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@yanisvaroufakis – find your answer to Europe vote.

Read him in today’s @guardian. Brilliant. Read “The Global Minotaur” plus “And the Weak /suffer What They Must?. And weep”.
But wait? Democracy in Europe for sure, but what do you think about democracy in Britain?
Probably the same as Gandhi thought when asked what he thought of Western Civilisation. “I think it would be a good idea”.

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On Performance

Although performances have been my life, or at least my profession, I have no answers. The idea of performance is slippery and mysterious to me.

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The Aneurin Bevan Memorial Lecture, 2060

New technology wonder – just arrived, from the future. How do they do that? Here it is:

SICK TO DEATH

The founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, died one hundred years ago.

Under him, after a long struggle, at last Britain had a health service free for all at the point of delivery. It was 1948, just after WW2, and it was a miracle.

The second struggle was seriously engaged around 2020.

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Biography

Tony Garnett was born in Birmingham and read psychology at University College, London where he spent most of his time acting in the Drama Society and on TV. Describing himself as a Jack of all trades, helping to make dramatic fiction for the screen, Tony has had a prestigious and varied career as an actor, script editor, screenwriter, director and producer. He has spent his life telling other people’s stories. Now,

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