Unmissable show?
I stumbled across this programme called Aquarius. It’s quite gripping. It’s a very good examination of the whole Charles Manson phenomenon. It’s set in the mid-to-late 60s and is about Manson pre-notoriety, when he was just a little hustler, blackmailing people here and there, but gradually building this cult of personality around him. David Duchovny is a detective off solving felonies and misdemeanours, and you’re waiting for their paths to cross.
Earliest TV memory?
Sitting on my dad’s knee, watching The Virginian. I always remember a scene where Doug McClure brought his horse to water, and the horse drank, and I remember turning to my dad and saying: “Is that real?” Inexplicably my dad said: “Erm, yes.” So I had this great confusion over whether I was watching this documentary and that was what America was really like, or whether I was watching a drama. It’s something that has stuck with me, a moment where I questioned reality and got a very misleading answer from my father!
Bring back…
I’d love to see Ever Decreasing Circles again. Richard Briers was amazing, and it was so funny and tender and occasionally very dark. It’s a blueprint for how brilliant television can be.
Pitch us a TV show…
Ghost Bin Men. It’s set in Staten Island, where the garbage runs are controlled by the mafia. We’ve got these ghosts – let’s make them teenage, callow ghosts – and they would take on the mafia. An in-joke would be that they would meet characters that have been killed in The Sopranos. If money was an issue we could set it in Harpenden or something. Here’s another pitch: a procedural drama that follows a shadowy unit who investigate allotment vandalism. It could be set in the 70s, where the big historical event in the background – like Charles Manson in Aquarius – would be the trashing of the Blue Peter garden!
We’re Doomed! The Dad’s Army Story is on 22 December, 9pm, BBC2
