You often use the same actors is your work. Is it a Bleasdale mafia? 鈥淭he interesting thing is that it just doesn鈥檛 stay some dreadful mafia closed shop because there are people you work with and you work with them on one thing and you think 鈥楧ear God, I want to work with you鈥欌 鈥淚 wanted Lindsey Duncan on GBH and she鈥檚 such a wonderful woman and such a fantastic actor that you think 鈥楾he next thing I write I want to work for her.鈥 GBH is out on DVD now
鈥淚鈥檓 really pleased that the DVD came out. The great thing with DVDs is your work is all there. Whereas before if my work was ever shown it was shown in books. The written word is never as good as the written word helped and assisted wonderfully by actors. And I鈥檝e been so well blessed with the actors I鈥檝e worked with in the last 30 years. Scully though isn't on DVD 鈥淚t bewilders me. I can just about work a manual typewriter but I do know that the internet has a huge black market in Scully. 鈥淚 have asked people to put it out because I do know that people absolutely loved it. And so they should, because the central performances from Andrew Schofield and Ray Kingsley were extraordinary.鈥 Andrew Schofield was a great find
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鈥淭he point is I couldn鈥檛 find a Scully. 鈥淚 had the opportunity to do a Play for Today on the 麻豆社, Scully鈥檚 New Years Eve. And my wife and I were sat watching the television one night and Willy Russell鈥檚, I think first ever, Play for Today came on and there was a lad in that and I thought 鈥楧ear God, that鈥檚 Scully.鈥 And it was Andrew Schofield. "I met him and we actually did a programme together in the school I was working at, Halewood Grange.
 | | The Monocled Mutineer |
"He was only 15. I had no idea what he was like. I went over to Kirkby and picked him up.
"We went through all the stuff and then we were coming back from Halewood to Kirkby and we hit the worst storm on Gods Earth. There was thunder, lightning and rain battering the car. "I鈥檓 going along the M57 and I actually said to Andrew 鈥榊ou know I can鈥檛 see a thing鈥 and Andrew said 鈥楤uddy Holly鈥檚 pilots last words鈥, and that was a 15 year old kid. And I thought 鈥楬ello鈥." You did have a spell as a footballer? 鈥淚 had a brief and rather dismal career at Skelmersdale United and Warrington Town and then I found probably the best team I ever played for in my life, Mickey Finn鈥檚 showbiz team. 鈥淚 will always love and adore football for many reasons apart from the fact that it is the beautiful game.鈥 And GBH is something you're proud of "I think whatever the qualities of GBH, the performances were extraordinary. To have actors of the quality of Julie Walters, Robert Lindsay, Michael Palin, Lindsey Duncan, Drew Schofield and Tom Georgeson. They all had big, big parts.
 | | The cast of Boys from the Blackstuff |
"One of the things I know I got right, and I wrote this between 1987 and 1990, was the rise of fundamentalism. And I know people said it was about the Militant in Liverpool but that was just a microcosm of what I though the world was going to be like. "You only have to look now at the events of this century. Where we have a cowboy fundamentalist in the White House and a Christian fundamentalist in Downing Street and we鈥檝e got lunatic suicidal Muslim terrorists who basically only want to go to heaven and meet 77 virgins. "And in the middle of it all are people like you and me and everyone else who鈥檚 walking the streets and wondering what鈥檚 gone wrong. "I am supposed to be a political animal and a political best, I never voted till I was 38. I never went on a march. "But in the February of 2003 I marched against the war in Iraq because I knew it was the wrong war, at the wrong time, with the wrong ally, with the wrong enemy and the wrong place. And look what鈥檚 come to pass." | 
