Page 8 - 13_Bafta ACADEMY_Judi Dench_ok

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“Our sales teams want ‘quality’ audiences to whom they can sell expensive airtime for banks, airlines, new technology, cars and so on and they look to drama to provide them.”
Peter Morgan about the jurors on a high profile racial murder case has a fantastic cast (Antony Sher, Derek Jacobi, Jack Shepherd, Helen McCrory, Michael Maloney) and Pete’s direction soars. He gets great performanc- es but he also understands, in a way I never could in a million years, how to shoot and cut film, and how to use music that attacks the senses.
Another Cold Feet director, John Jones (he directed the Jimmy Nesbitt-Irish wedding episode), has handled a second ITV serial dealing with race. This is called Blood Strangers by Gwyneth Hughes in which Caroline Quentin plays a woman who discovers too late that her fourteen-year-old daughter has been involved in street prostitu- tion and John gets an astounding performance from Caroline as well as from a number of inexperi- enced Asian and young actors.
And so to Paul Greengrass. How many directors on any channel this year will also have written their own screenplay? Not many. I can only think of Charles Sturridge’s Shackleton for C4. Paul’s Bloody Sunday followed a tradition of hardhitting drama-
docs. on ITV (most recently Hillsborough and his own The Murder Of Stephen Lawrence) that goes back years. I think it’s remarkable that both commer- cial channels, ITV and Channel 4, can carry drama as strong and uncompromising as the two Bloody Sunday films.
The channel that once gave us Play For Today (Cathy Come Home, Scum, Tumbledown, etc.) has sadly retreated a safe distance without often moving far from what is safe, familiar and mainstream.
As I write this, Paul’s film has not gone out but by the time this is printed it will have and I’d be surprised if it was quietly ignored. Bloody Sunday is a film on a very big scale with a very awkward story that many will not want to accept. It’s also a very exciting piece of film-making and I’m proud to have played a small part in helping Paul and produc- er Mark Redhead to get it made.
I’ve left to last ITV’s biggest drama this winter - the nine hours of The Forsyte Saga adapted by Stephen Mallatrat and Jan McVerry with stars like Damian Lewis, Ioan Gruffudd, Rupert Graves, Gina McKee and Corin
Redgrave. It may be perverse of me to stress two other stars, Chris Menaul and David Moore. Both have big credits in their past - Chris with Prime Suspect and David with Land Of Plenty. But watch Forsyte just to see how much extra great directors can add.
Direction like this explains my whole point. I can imagine how dull things might have been in the wrong hands. And can I tell all those Doubting Thomas’s who say to me “I don’t know why you wanted to remake The Forsyte Saga. It’ll never be as good as it was”. Sorry. You’re wrong. Messrs. Menaul and Moore have made the old series seem like an ancient relic. But what’s the bet- ting that that creep in The Times will disagree?
Photos: Scenes from Othello, Blood Strangers, Bloody Sunday and The Forsyte Saga
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