We need drama people believe inÕ
STEWART LANE talks to Tony Garnett,
the producer of tonightÕs B.B.C.- 1 play.

TONY GARNETT, producer of "Cathy Come Home", tonightÕs play on BBC 1 began his career as an actor, appearing in several television plays.

In 1964 he joined the B.B.C. as a script editor, assisting in the work in the work on the Wednesday play series. With director Kenneth Loach he was responsible for Nell DunnÕs realistic "Up the Junction."

Now he is involved, as producer, in six forthcoming television dramas, of which "Cathy Come Home" is the first, and which has been written by Jeremy Sandford, the husband of Nell Dunn.

The play shows what might happen to an ordinary, decent young couple as a consequence of the housing shortage.

From tonightÕs play we went on to discuss the role of the TV producer and TonyÕs own attitude toward his work.

What I asked him, was the relationship of the producer to the play?

Creative

He grinned: "I carry the can."

The writer, he made it clear, was considered most important as far as he was concerned. "His is the primary creative act.

ÔÔIf thereÕs anything right with a play, then itÕs to the credit of the writer, director, actors, cameramen, and so on. If thereÕs anything wrong, then itÕs my responsibility.

"What I have to do as a producer is to create an artistic and creative team, a collective, and I am the link between them and the corporation.

ÔÔObviously, organisation, the question of time. The amount of money we can spend come into it. But the producer musnÕt give a prescription to the writer: there has to a dialectic between us.

ÔÔAll the same, if my name as producer is going on the programme it has to be something I think is worth doing."

Autonomy

If a production group worked with this kind of autonomy, what were the possibilities. I wondered, of units setting up independently and selling the finished product to the television organisations?

"There was probably about 100 or so people involved in ÔCathy Come HomeÕ: the capital investment required to create something like this is enormous, It would be very dicey.

"WhatÕs happening in the States, and beginning to happen here, is that films for the cinema are being made partly on the financial basis of being seen ultimately on television. In that sense the cinema and television arc beginning to come together."

It was sometimes said that thereÕs insufficient talent available to keep television supplied with good material. Did he agree?

ÔÔFar too much energy and talent is wasted in turning out triviality and rubbish, hiding behind the ratings and that word Ôentertainment.Õ As a result, a lot of people end up despising themselves and the people and the people they are supposed to be serving.

"We need more drama that is serious, in the sense that people can believe in it. ItÕs a wicked statement to say that this countryÕs short of talent: itÕs a question of having enough people caring for it and bringing along."

Television drama seemed to be going in for more outside locations, actual backgrounds; was this trend to continue?

Tony felt that televisionÕs economics and administrative conventions tended to keep productions in the studio, and this affected content.

Taking people out of their environment can, in fact, lead to false statements, despite the fact that drama is manifestly about the conflict in relationships between individuals.ÕÕ

As a medium, television had been likened to journalism. Was the increasing use of film in drama an extension of this analogy?

Snobbish

"ThereÕs something snobbish about labelling somebodyÕs view of reality, of the present, as journalism." On the other hand, ÔartÕ is a word that is corrupted and corrupting. I think life is more important than art is a word that is corrupted and corrupting. I think life is more important than art, and that art should arise from life.

"If, however, a piece of drama is only concerned with surface comment then it fails as drama: in that sense itÕs ÔjournalisticÕ.

Another favourite phrase used about television was that it was constantly "pushing against frontiers." What was TonyÕs view of this:

"Saying what we believe in, without fear or favour, without regard to pressure groups, is an other mark of respect to our audience.

"When I say to people that I canÕt do what I donÕt believe in, they sometimes reply that this means IÕ mot a ÔproÕ. I say ÔNoÕ means IÕm not a whore."

"Television, because it is in a sense a microcosm of the society in which it exists, and because it is such a powerful medium, reflects the conflicts within our society.

"There are those, who, for various reasons, want to preserve the social, cultural and political status quo. But there are always people ø and they exist in the arts as much as elsewhere ø who want to question, who want to change, who want things to be discussed.

"I know which group I am in."

Standards

What, finally, was his view of television output as a whole? Did it achieve the standards he would like to see operating?

ÔÔI am offended when I see human life going for nothing, sexual titillation which doesnÕt arise out of any genuine feeling but is just there, and itÕs the nightly drip, drip , drip of mendacity which I find offensive

"Most of the programmes which have caused uproar (I think that here, we both had "Up the Junction" in mind) have not been offensive at all, and I honestly do not think that many of the people who make noises are really representative.

"If anybody seriously believes that people like myself, writers and directors, put in four letter words, sex and violence, in order to be sensationalÉ.well, they really donÕt know us."

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