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best indies
Eileen Gallagher, managing director of Shed Productions, behind hit TV series like Footballers’ Wives and Bad Girls, won the Carlton International- sponsored Indie-Vidual Award at this year’s Indies.
But the prize wasn’t for the on- screen perils of characters like Chardonnay, Kyle and Tanya but for Gallagher’s tireless work as energetic chair of the Producers’ Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT).
It was given in recognition of her success in persuading Ministers to make broadcasters adopt codes of practice to gov- ern their relationship with inde- pendent producers.
At the 11th annual awards for Independent Television Production, held at BBC TV Centre and hosted by Al ‘The Pub Landlord’ Murray, RDF Media was the evening’s big winner.
RDF won the Pioneer Award for the second year running as well as the Factual Award (Faking It) and the Multi Channel Award (Banzai).
The evening’s other winners included 19 Television’s Pop Idol (the Indie Award), Home Movies/BBC’s Tomorrow La Scala (Drama Award), Endemol UK’s Big Brother (Global Indie Award) and Sunset & Vine’s Channel 4 Cricket (Sports Award).
mCultiplying choice inemagoers across the UK will have the opportunity to see a wider choice of films at their local cinemas in future thanks to a new £1 million a year initiative recently launched by the Film Council.
This new Specialised Films Print and Advertising (P&A) initiative is intended to give audiences access to a much broader selec- tion of UK and international fea- ture films via independent cine- mas across the country at a time when UK cinemas are mainly showing a small selection of large scale feature films.
Approximately 60% of screens last December were taken over by just two films (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets).
The initiative will operate by pro- viding grants to film distributors to increase both the number of prints of specialised films (such as ‘art house’, foreign language and film classics) available for showing in cinemas, and to contribute to more effective advertising campaigns to make potential audiences aware of opportunities to see them.
Research by the Film Council has shown that whilst blockbusters such as Harry Potter are often released in the UK with more than 1,000 film prints available for cine- mas, a limited number of larger specialised film releases total a maximum of around 70 prints, and the average number of prints of a foreign language specialist film
available for screening at any one time is eight.
By increasing the number of prints available, and giving a boost to film release publicity campaigns, the initiative is intended to ensure that more people across the country will be made aware of a larger choice of films and have greater oppor- tunity to see them at their local cinema.
The P&A initiative is the first in a series of initiatives by the Film Council’s new Distribution and Exhibition Fund to offer a more diverse range of films to a wider range of audiences.
The P&A initiative started accepting applications from film distributors from the end of March. And it is expected that the first films to be released with its support will arrive in cinemas from June.
obits
AF d a m F a i t h
or a rather wholesome turn-of the-Sixties chart-topping teen idol it’s odd that Adam Faith’s first two films should have both been X-certificated.
But then the colourful career of Faith, who died of a heart attack last month aged 62, was full of twists and surprises.
Born Terry Nelhams in West London, Faith had the sort of square-jawed blond good looks that seemed perfect for big screen stardom.
Yet, after Beat Girl and Never Let Go, he’d only make another half-dozen or so films, including Stardust, for which he was BAFTA- nominated as Best Supporting Actor, Foxes and McVicar.
His most enduring acting suc- cess would come in top-rated small screen sitcoms; first, in the Seventies, as the eponymous cockney cheeky chappie in Waterhouse-Hall’s Budgie for ITV; then, 20 years later, in BBC’s Love Hurts, co-starring Zoe Wanamaker.
Faith also had a mercurial side- line as a financial guru, in newspa- pers and as a partner in the ill- fated The Money Channel on cable and satellite TV whose col- lapse forced him into bankruptcy.
DTame Thora Hird
hora Hird, the daughter of a Morecambe theatre manag- er, first appeared on stage aged two months and more than ninety years later was still firmly in the public’s eye.
On screen, Dame Thora was a national treasure winning no fewer than three BAFTA Best Actress awards for her TV roles in Lost For Words (2000) as well as pair of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues, Waiting For The Telegram, (1999) and A Cream Cracker Under the Settee (1989).
The range of her television work was awesome: from hit sit- coms like Last Of The Summer Wine (as Edie Pegden), Meet The Wife and In Loving Memory to hosting the popular hymn programme, Praise Be. Not to
mention her much spoofed stair- lift commercials.
Before becoming a small screen fixture, she appeared in scores of films starting in 1942 with The Black Sheep of Whitehall and The Big Blockade, both Ealing productions.
Her credits also include The Good Companions, The Entertainer, A Kind Of Loving, Rattle Of A Simple Man and Consuming Passions.
Mother of the actress Janette Scott, Dame Thora received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998 at the British Comedy Awards. She was awarded the OBE in 1983 and the DBE ten years later.
Cwearing in
hannel Four was named as chief offender in the annu- al ‘taste’ survey conduct-
ed by the Independent Television Commission and the Broadcasting Standards Commission.
The Public’s View 2002 revealed that C4 led the way on violence, swearing and sex fol- lowed by ITV1, C5, BBC1 and BBC2.
In fact, C4’s dubious rating remains unchanged from last year while ITV1 and the BBC brace, most markedly BBC1, had both surged upwards. C5, once decried for its “football and f******”, actually dropped one per cent.
rPegal acclaim
eter Bazalgette, chairman of Endemol Entertainment UK, and David Liddiment, former director of channels at ITV, were both honoured at this year’s Royal Television Society Awards.
Bazalgette, behind pro- grammes like Changing Rooms and Ground Force, was cited for having “changed the terms of factual television.” Liddiment was described as an “eloquent and passionate champion of popular television.”
Red/BBC2’s drama, Flesh And Blood, was the evening’s only double winner snaring Best Actor (Christopher Eccleston) and Writer (Peter Bowker).
Other winners included: Clocking Off (Drama series), Out Of Control (Single Drama), Coronation St (Soap), Pop Idol Final (Entertainment Programme), Julie Walters (Actress/Murder), Phoenix Nights (Sitcom), Ricky Gervais (Comedy Performance/The Office), Susannah Constantine/Trinny Woodall (Presenter, Factual/What Not To Wear), David Modell (Newcomer, director of Young Nazi And Proud) and Jimmy Carr (On Screen Newcomer/Your Face Or Mine).
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on either side of the camera.
The son of parents who both worked at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford- upon-Avon, he originally trained as an actor, appearing in films like To Sir With Love, Up The Junction and Yanks.
Later, after training as a direc- tor, he was responsible for numer- ous award-winning TV productions like Hearts And Minds, Portrait of A Marriage, Closing Numbers, Stone Cold and Killing Me Softly.
His most recent work was a pair of acclaimed classic adap- tations – Nicholas Nickleby and Sons And Lovers, which he helped introduce wittily at a BAFTA preview in December.
LCloyd Shirley
anadian-born Lloyd Shirley, producer, executive produc- er and founder of Euston Films was responsible for classic TV series like The Sweeney, Minder, Van Der Valk and Callan. Other credits include The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes and Man At The Top.
Shirley, who has died aged 71, moved to England in 1956 and within two years of joining ABC Television was in charge of fea- tures and light entertainment. In the early Sixties he became head of drama.
tephen Whittaker
tephen Whittaker, who died of cancer earlier this year aged 55, knew all about life
Correction
In Mark Shivas’s First Person article in the last issue of ACADEMY (February 2003), it has been point- ed out to us that there were a pair of unfortunate misprints. The figure of “eight thousand pounds” quoted as lost in pre-production to the budget of Cambridge Spies because of a change in the tax laws, should have read “eight hundred thousand pounds” And in his credits at the foot of the arti- cle, the correct title was Telling Tales by Alan Bennett.
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