Unmissable show?
Better Call Saul. It’s very different in tone and style from Breaking Bad and yet has some continuity. It starts off incredibly slowly, but it builds, and once you get it, it’s really satisfying. It really exploits that seedy side of the legal system in America, which – as we all know – is totally corrupt. I love the way that it ironises all of that.
Earliest TV memory?
The Clangers. I don’t find them at all comforting, though. I find them quite creepy. I don’t know why: maybe something was going on in my childhood that I can’t remember! There’s something about the theme tune, the sounds.
Bring back…
Star Trek. I’m obsessed with all of the series, even Deep Space Nine. There was something benign about them, and a sort of moral code. Also, it’s total science fiction: if you’re having a shit time, you can put that on and it removes you so entirely from your world. You can get lost in it. I love the JJ Abrams reboot, but I really love the TV version. I kind of hope that maybe in another five, six years they’ll try to reboot it.
Guilty pleasure?
I was filming in South Africa, away from my family, and I’d get back at nights, and just wanted to switch off. They were showing Bear Grylls and River Monsters so I watched them back-to-back. River Monsters has a really loose concept: they’re after some Amazonian fish, and they give you a bogus thing about some kid who’s been snatched by it or something. Very entertaining.
Pitch us a TV show…
I wanted to make a show about a serial bigamist. You’ve got a guy who’s happily married and you think it’s all wonderful and then at the end of the first episode he walks into another house, and he’s got another wife. The idea came from a news story about a guy who had five different wives, and was spinning this big lie. And I thought: “God, the stress levels!” Big Love did something similar but it was all in one house, and I didn’t think it was entirely successful.
Black Sails airs Tuesday 14 July, 10pm on History
