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Extracts ot Tony speech
2000
The following are extracts from an interview with Tony Garnett,
co-founder and Chairman of World Productions, in August 2000.
Fiction is the nearest you can get, through the imagination
of a writer, to knowing what it is like to be anotherÖ
"Iím curious about what itís like being someone else. Thatís one of the
things that keeps me going in this business. Itís a very privileged job I have,
because Iím allowed to do that. Fiction is the nearest you can get, through the
imagination of a writer, to knowing what it is like to be another. And that assuages
our loneliness as human beings. Iím also interested in stories, because we need
stories in order to make sense of our lives."
"But there are all sorts of ways to do it, and Iím not imposing one particular
style on the company. In fact Iíve experimented with other thingsÖI was involved
in the first two series of ëBallykissangelí, which is very different from ëThis
Lifeí or ëThe Copsí or the new show, ëAttachmentsí.
Ballykissangel Öis a classic Hollywood form. In Hollywood
itís known as a ëfish out of waterí
"Ballykissangel was thought up by Kieran Prendiville, and it was more or
less a one-liner which I just knew was good, because itís a classic Hollywood
form. In Hollywood itís known as a ëfish out of waterí, and when (Kieran) pitched
this idea of a young priest from an urban parish being sent to a small village
in Ireland, I knew it had possibilities".
So thereís a variety of things being done in the shop nowÖ
"Now Iím quite keen that it should be a place where producers can do good
work that they believe in, and not just reflect my taste or my sensibility. I
donít want clones of me.
So thereís a variety of stuff being done in the shop now
although for many years it pursued what I was interested
in. And the furrow Iíve been ploughing most of my life is
a sort of distilled naturalism, where we try to find out
what life is really like for people in the real world, and
dramatise it".
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