Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Kirsty Young
Writer, producer and director best known for the TV drama Line of Duty.
Eight records
Death in Vegas featuring Liam Gallagher
This is something that I listened to a lot when it first came out during the production of Bodies which we filmed up in Leeds and it's something which I often find myself choosing to listen to when I'm on the flight to Belfast where we shoot Line of Duty and I associate it with staring out of the window of the aircraft at the lock and seeing the Harland and Wolf cranes come in.
This is a song that's meant different things to me over the years. Originally it was a song about being on the outside, being on the distant point of a triangle. And then twenty years ago this summer it was about one of those triangles concluding in my favour and I ended up with the woman who's now my wife, Elaine. And then very recently the two of us watched our daughter Molly, who's seventeen, do an absolutely brilliant cover version of this with her band.
This is the first song I recall being a favourite, and it reminds me of my childhood, of school, of home.
This is a band that reminds me so much of my time in medicine. And this is a song whose lyrics sometimes reminds me of what it was like to be a houseman. With the lights out, this is dangerous. I feel stupid and contagious.
I really enjoyed my time as a as a doctor, but uh I became very interested in the dark side of it in terms of my writing. And this is a song that I listened to a lot when I was writing Cardiac Arrest, when I was pouring those feelings into that work.
Nine While NineFavourite
When I went to university, um my horizons widened enormously and so did my musical horizons and um I discovered that I really was into music that had some kind of dark energy and this is a band that I still listen to, usually on my own, but it's still a first choice for me when I find myself in moments of solitude.
The All-Seeing Eye featuring Philip Oakey
This is a song which I think is a brilliant metaphor for the unexpected journey of a working class person. And I remember listening to this song when I was living in our first place together with Elaine and we were expecting our daughter Molly.
Generally when I listen to music I listen to it when I'm on my own. But in 1990 I went up to Leeds University to see the Sisters of Mercy. This is the standout song of that night and it was just something that I remember as being hundreds of people in a room all feeling the same things and seeing life in the same way.
The keepsakes
The book
Roger Penrose
which is a very dense and very long book about physics and you need to actually be able to go away and work through some of the maths to develop the correct understanding. So I can see myself on the beach with a stick writing equations in the sand, trying to figure out the topology of normal space.
The luxury
Well, the idea of going to an island where you're meant to survive and not taking something of utility is kind of anathema to me. So if I was forced to take something that was a luxury, I would take a telescope so that I would have something to look forward to in those long evenings where I hope there's very little light pollution.
In conversation
Presenter asks
How much is that ultimate control central to your creative vision of what you want to make on screen?
Well, I don't take it as being control, more as a position of influence. And when I first took on that role in the early two thousands, I really wanted to be the final common pathway of any discussion about the creative content of the programme. And that's a role that I've continued in with my original programming. And it's purely that I had experiences when I first started writing where I was marginalized or ignored. And it wasn't that I necessarily felt it was a blow to my ego. It was just that creative decisions were made about the programme that I could have had a significant input into. Just things that were purely about accuracy or what align meant or how a person would carry out a particular task. And now that I've got a lot of experience in that, I'm involved in all those bigger conversations about who directs it and who stars in it and how we cut the thing together and how we shoot it and what scenes stay in the final edit and which scenes we cut out.
Presenter asks
You've written very diverse work. What are you proudest of so far?
Line of duty and bodies, and to a certain extent, cardiac arrest. Also, the novels I've written. Those were all things that I felt I was telling the story and drawing the characters in the way that I wanted to. If they don't meet with success, then that's a different thing. But one of the things that's very frustrating in the job I do is if you go through a process where your work is modified or changed and then it's not successful, afterwards you you end up kicking yourself and feeling that perhaps you've been kind of led up the garden path a little bit.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 4
This is the BBC.
Presenter
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
Presenter
For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
Presenter
My castaway this week is the writer, producer, and director Jed Mercurio. Three words, line of duty. In no way does it represent the breadth of his work, but it's certainly a shorthand for the depth. If you've watched any of the past four series of the drama centering on police corruption, then you'll be more than familiar with my guest's ability to turn out deftly breathtaking plots, gut-churning subversions, and sofa-gripping conclusions. He's tasted success before. Cardiac Arrest, The Grimlies, and Bodies are some of his other big TV hits.
Presenter
If the narrative arc of his own life was anywhere near predictable, then by rights he shouldn't be doing any of it. He's a fully trained doctor and pilot, and as a kid had his heart set on being an astronaut. But his, like all good storylines, involves its share of unexpected twists and turns. He says, TV is a fantastic home for people who want to write creatively. It requires persistence. You have to be hungry and able to deal with rejection. If you care about your work and your talent, then you will succeed. Welcome, Jed Mercurio. You are a a member of a rare species. You are, as I say, you're a writer, director, and producer. Sometimes director, but always writer and producer on the shows that you do. In America, they call it the show runner for obvious reasons. How much is that ultimate control central to your creative vision of what you want to make on screen?
Jed Mercurio
Well, I don't take it as being control, more as a position of influence. And when I first took on that role in the early two thousands, I really wanted to be the final common pathway of any discussion about the creative content of the programme. And that's a role that I've continued in with my original programming. And it's purely that I had experiences when I first started writing where I was marginalized or ignored. And it wasn't that I necessarily felt it was a blow to my ego. It was just that creative decisions were made about the programme that I could have had a significant input into. Just things that were purely about accuracy or what align meant or how a person would carry out a particular task. And now that I've got a lot of experience in that, I'm involved in all those bigger conversations about who directs it and who stars in it and how we cut the thing together and how we shoot it and what scenes stay in the final edit and which scenes we cut out.
Presenter
So you're telling me you're not megalomaniacal, then?
Jed Mercurio
I don't believe I am, no. I mean obviously that's something that that any megalomaniac would deny.
Presenter
Yes.
Jed Mercurio
But I do believe in the principle of collaboration and the the way in which I work with cast and with directors and with my fellow producers is is always to be part of a conversation rather than to impose a particular view on anyone.
Presenter
You've written comedy, you've written The Grimleys for I T V. You've also written science fiction, you've written children's books, a novel about JFK, a graphic novel, you've adapted um D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover for T V very diverse work. What are you proudest of so far?
Jed Mercurio
Line of duty and bodies, and to a certain extent, cardiac arrest. Also, the novels I've written. Those were all things that I felt I was telling the story and drawing the characters in the way that I wanted to. If they don't meet with success, then that's a different thing. But one of the things that's very frustrating in the job I do is if you go through a process where your work is modified or changed and then it's not successful, afterwards you you end up kicking yourself and feeling that perhaps you've been kind of led up the garden path a little bit.
Presenter
Let's have some music, Jed Mercurio. Let's have your first. Tell me about this. Why have you chosen it?
Jed Mercurio
This is something that I listened to a lot when it first came out during the production of Bodies which we filmed up in Leeds and it's something which I often find myself choosing to listen to when I'm on the flight to Belfast where we shoot Line of Duty and I associate it with staring out of the window of the aircraft at the lock and seeing the Harland and Wolf cranes come in. And this is Death in Vegas with guest vocals by Liam Gallagher, Scorpio Rising.
Speaker 4
If I don't go crazy, I'll lose my mind. I saw the light there falling, but now I'm blind.
Speaker 4
I am seeing one of them film stars on Indian beaches. Light and gold, touchy faces. Allison.
Presenter
That was Scorpio Rising from Death in Vegas featuring Liam Gallagher. So Chad Mercurio, let's talk for a moment then about this fictional unit, AC12, anti-corruption unit.
Presenter
This was line of duty. It was based around this fictional unit. And yet watching it, there was so much authenticity to the whole thing, and even the way the the desks were laid out, the sort of ugly uniforms that people wore. How much cooperation did you have in creation wi with real police officers working in real police forces?
Jed Mercurio
Initially we got very little actually and we we certainly formed the view that uh police cooperation was PR led. Um I don't take the view obviously that police officers should stop investigating crimes and contribute to television fiction, but other programmes set in the police force were getting cooperation and we felt rather singled out that we weren't. And the the first episode featured a police counterterrorism operation in which an innocent man was accidentally shot. And the script was read by the Metropolitan Police, who declined to cooperate with the series, claiming that they would never shoot an innocent person.
Presenter
And so did you get cooperation sort of under the desk, as it were?
Jed Mercurio
That's exactly what happened. We had a number of conversations with officers who met with us anonymously and were able to give us an overview on certain procedures. But that then developed later on. Once we got past Series One, we then got cooperation from a police advisor who was actually someone who got in touch with me via Facebook. And since then, we've been very fortunate that people within the force have understood that we're not a police bashing show and we do care very much about getting procedure right.
Presenter
Uh but the cooperation, if if we can call it that, is is still sort of unofficial. You know, you're you're not sitting down over lunch with DTIs and and their PR people and chatting.
Jed Mercurio
Police corruption is a sensitive subject. It's something that sometimes involves covert operations which people don't want to disclose. And the other thing is it's about the PR exercise. The the the police are sensitive to stories about corruption and as you could imagine uh serving officers who are decent and honest are embarrassed by colleagues who aren't.
Presenter
And are people I'm I'm talking about commissioners and people at the top you know, you are a goose that is constantly laying golden eggs. Are you sort of borne high on a sedan chair as you walk through production offices these days?
Jed Mercurio
No, I don't think there's anyone really who works in television, who does the job I do, who is guaranteed to be successful. And you still have to have a very respectful relationship with broadcasters and commissioners. But there is a certain element still where you may find yourself being forced to be quite deferential to someone within television who perhaps doesn't see things as clearly or as accurately as the programme maker does.
Presenter
How does that sit with you?
Jed Mercurio
Um, I attempt to avoid those situations. I think it's the it goes back to an expression that I remember from my flying days, which is that the superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations requiring his superior ability.
Presenter
Second disc, Jed Mercurio, tell me about this, what are we gonna hear?
Jed Mercurio
This is a song that's meant different things to me over the years. Originally it was a song about being on the outside, being on the distant point of a triangle. And then twenty years ago this summer it was about one of those triangles concluding in my favour and I ended up with the woman who's now my wife, Elaine.
Jed Mercurio
And then very recently the two of us watched our daughter Molly, who's seventeen, do an absolutely brilliant cover version of this with her band. This is Chris Isaac Wicked Game.
Speaker 3
What a wicked game to play To make me feel this way What a wicked thing to do
Speaker 3
Let me dream of you
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 4
What a wicked thing to say
Speaker 4
You never felt this way.
Speaker 4
What a wicked thing to do
Speaker 4
Make me dream of you
Presenter
Yeah. Uh
Speaker 4
Ah
Presenter
That was Chris Isaac and Wicked Games. So Jed Mercurio, let's look back for a moment. You were born in 1966, your father, Lou, and your mother, Gina. Your dad had spent time in the beginning when he'd first come to the country working as a miner, and your mum sometimes worked as a machinist in a clothing factory. They had come to Britain after the Second World War, one from the north, one from the south of Italy. How conscious were you of that Italian heritage?
Jed Mercurio
I was completely conscious of it and also the fact that my parents were economic migrants, the fact that they'd grown up during the Second World War in a devastated country and they'd moved in search of a better life. And that was something I was certainly very conscious of and very grateful for. But because we were in a very working class environment, Cannock in Staffordshire, there was a real lack of diversity in terms of the nationalities and so I think that they were very keen that their children wouldn't stand out as being different and therefore they endeavoured to be as anglicised as possible and so by the time I grew up, I'm the younger brother, they very rarely spoke Italian in the house. There was just that desire and pressure to fit in.
Presenter
And what about understanding your parents? Because you're of an age, you know, you have children who are growing now.
Presenter
When you think of Italy and you think of them, what do you make of that experience as a professional observer and understander of people?
Jed Mercurio
Yeah, I think that's a very perceptive question because you're completely right that my perspective as a kid is going to be grossly inferior to what it is as an adult with a family of my own. I actually really admire what my parents achieved, that they went on a journey where they had no idea what to expect. They uprooted and moved to a foreign country and they worked really hard. There was such a strong work ethic, and it was about creating a brighter future for their children than they'd experienced.
Presenter
Do you ever think about writing that?
Jed Mercurio
Actually, I very rarely write about families.
Presenter
Why do you think that is?
Jed Mercurio
I think probably because my most powerful primary experiences have been in the workplace, whereas my family life was was was quite ordinary, my experience was not that unusual or dramatic or remarkable.
Presenter
Yes, there wasn't drama in that. Wh when you were a kid, what were the things that that interested you and excited you as a as a little boy?
Jed Mercurio
From really as early as I can remember, I was interested in science. I was interested in how things worked. And my dad was someone who probably, if he'd had greater educational opportunities, would have become an engineer. I always remember the bonnet of the car being up at the weekends and the toolkit coming out. And he would do DIY around the house. And I was always fascinated by that. And I've still kind of retained some of that knowledge. I can still fix things that go wrong around the house. And then as I became more academic as a teenager, I became very serious about science. But what I really wanted to be was some kind of explorer. And I really admired the astronauts and that idea of going into space. And in a kind of escapist fantasy, I thought the thing that I would most want to do in life would be to become some kind of astronaut.
Presenter
Let's have some more music, Jed Marcurio. We're on your third. Tell me a little bit about this.
Jed Mercurio
This is the first song I recall being a favourite, and it reminds me of my childhood, of school, of home.
Jed Mercurio
Uh it's Blondie hanging on the telephone.
Speaker 4
I'm in the fumble, just a war across the horse.
Speaker 4
If you don't answer, I'll just ring it on the wall. I know he's there, but I just try to crawl.
Speaker 4
We'll be hanging on the telephone.
Speaker 4
We hanging on the chip far
Speaker 4
I heard your mother, now she's going out the door.
Speaker 4
Teacher, go to work or just go to the store. All those things she said, I told you to ignore.
Speaker 4
Oh, why can't we talk now?
Presenter
That was Blondie Anne hanging on the telephone, and during that, Chedmerke, you and I were swapping stories of what it was like to be a teenager in the seventies with one phone in the house that could only be used very occasionally. And as we know then, your parents had come to Britain for this stable life. You were one of two boys. What was their expectation for their sons?
Jed Mercurio
They'd grown up in a in a war-torn country. The opportunities were very small and jeopardy was part of their lives. And so the idea of academic pursuits leading to a stable, secure, professional life was definitely something that was encouraged.
Presenter
And at that time then, Dixon of Dot Green, Zed Carrs, a little later, Shoestring, The Sweeney, what were you watching and enjoying?
Jed Mercurio
The first cop show that I really remember enjoying was Hill Street Blues. I just really fell for the way that that was so different from the standard episodic drama, and that it had elements of comedy, that it was thought provoking. It made me see the potential of television. Before that I'd been as a kid a huge Star Trek fan.
Presenter
You are regarded now, of course, as one of the very best writers and creators working in television at the moment. I mean, you've talked about science, but I don't get any sense when you were going through senior school that you were fostering your own creativity. I mean, how did you get on in English? Did you do well? Were you regarded as a good writer of stories?
Jed Mercurio
Oh yeah, I mean it was something that I could obviously do, but the educational environment I was in was one where if you had technical ability and and an interest in science, that was quite rightly nurtured and encouraged. Also to a certain extent I just couldn't see how an ability to be creative could possibly lead to any kind of career. It felt that people who worked in the media, who worked in the arts, came from such a different background to me that I didn't think there was any way I would be able to A fit in and B get on in that world. And so the idea of studying science and looking at something which was a stable profession where you could have gainful employment, that was much more the overriding ambition.
Presenter
Uh you've mentioned it once, and I mentioned it in the introduction, this idea of wanting to be a an astronaut. Was it a genuine ambition at the time?
Jed Mercurio
Yeah, actually it was. I had mates who were equally into science and we certainly talked about the space programme. But I was the only one who thought that there was any way that it might be something that I could do for a living.
Presenter
Let's have some more music, Jed. Tell me about this. We're on your fourth.
Jed Mercurio
This is a band that reminds me so much of my time in medicine. And this is a song whose lyrics sometimes reminds me of what it was like to be a houseman. With the lights out, this is dangerous. I feel stupid and contagious. It's Nirvana, smells like Teen Spirit.
Presenter
That was Nirvana and smells like teen spirit. You were telling me during that, Jed Mercury, that you even had the T-shirts. So your first big T V success then, we should remind people, was cardiac arrest. It ran for three seasons on BBC One in the mid nineties. And as we know then, it was home turf for you. You'd left school, you studied at the University of Birmingham Medical School, you'd gone on to be a junior hospital doctor. Presumably you'd chosen to study medicine because it did give you exactly what you were saying your parents had set up the family for, which is a very solid footing in something that is a guaranteed profession and a guaranteed income for a young, bright, working class lad.
Jed Mercurio
That's exactly what happened. I was in sixth form and still not quite sure what I wanted to do. And I think it was at the point where really I realized that the idea of being an astronaut was a bit of a pipe dream. And then I kind of switched onto the idea of doing something that was scientific and technical and challenging, but also something where I was in contact with people and doing something positive.
Presenter
And how did the reality of being a doctor match up to th the ideal, presumably part of that ideal, formed by what you'd seen on TV?
Jed Mercurio
Well, one of the things that happened to me when I went to medical school was that I discovered that there were people who had a much closer idea of what medicine was like because they came from medical families. Whereas my view of the world of medicine came purely from watching television and it seemed incredibly heroic and an environment that seemed also generally very positive. So when I actually did start working as a doctor, I was struck by the contrast. And to a large extent, I felt that I'd been misled by medical fiction.
Speaker 4
Right.
Presenter
When and why did you learn to be a pilot?
Jed Mercurio
When I was in medical school, I came across some information about aviation medicine. And as part of my training, I would be eligible to join the University Air Squadron and to learn to fly.
Presenter
What are you qualified to pilot then? Is it choppers or is it fixed wing?
Jed Mercurio
I actually haven't flown since I was in the military. I flew fixed wing aircraft with the RAF and achieved the preliminary flying badge and ended up doing a flying course with the Army.
Presenter
What's your relationship with adrenaline? Do you like the rush?
Jed Mercurio
I certainly did things at that age in an aeroplane that I would regard as being very stupid now. I remember there were times when I just deliberately landed as hard as possible to see how much G I could pull. There were other times when it was then about well how how high can you fly? So going up to 13,000, 14,000, then trying to beat the V and E, the never exceed velocity of the aircraft, by just going into a powered dive. And at that point where you're coming down as hard and fast as you can in a vertical dive, you can see the wings wobbling. That's a kind of crazy stuff which I would never do now. But at that time it was completely part of the mindset of being a twenty-one year old with the opportunity to do something that was incredibly exhilarating.
Presenter
Have some more music, Jed Mercurio. Tell me what we're going to hear now. This is your fifth.
Jed Mercurio
I really enjoyed my time as a as a doctor, but uh I became very interested in the dark side of it in terms of my writing. And this is a song that I listened to a lot when I was writing Cardiac Arrest, when I was pouring those feelings into that work. This is Pearl Jam Once.
Speaker 4
What's the
Speaker 4
And you hustle
Presenter
That was Pearl Jam, and once you said, Jed Mercurio, that you listened to that a lot when you were writing Cardiac Arrest. You had come to the point of being involved in the production and then writing this whole series, because you'd come across an ad when you were working as a young doctor in the British Medical Journal asking for doctors who might be able to advise or indeed contribute to this T V medical series. When it first went out, there was a poll amongst medical professionals who said that they rated it top as the most realistic medical drama of all time.
Presenter
In 2002 you published the novel Bodies and you then adapted that for a T V series that starred Max Beasley as a young doctor. There were times in that where he was surrounded by other people's failings as practitioners, specifically in obstetrics, but also his own failings as a young doctor. When you were working as a young doctor, did you ever have such a set of circumstances where you thought, this is not my best self here that I'm occupying?
Jed Mercurio
I think that that's something that is quite a constant presence in the life of junior hospital doctors. You've got to remember that a lot of the time you're dealing with people who aren't fully emotionally mature themselves. I was 23, 24 when I started practicing medicine as a junior house officer. And I remember starting on a Thursday and myself and the other SHO, my first job, the guy who I answered to immediately above me, we fundamentally ran the medical emergency receiving team for three days with very little input from consultants or registrars. And it was an extraordinary experience. And I remember within the first few days being in a situation where a man in late middle age came in with quite a severe bleed on the brain and the prospect certainly didn't look very good. And I remember his wife saying to me, don't let him die is all I've got. And that's a tough thing for someone who's 23 or 24 to handle. But it's amazing how you come through it. It's amazing how you find that resilience so that you can, within a few months, you're handling that in a way.
Jed Mercurio
that eventually makes you think the way that the very cynical character played by Helen Baxendale in Cardiac Arrest thought, where at the end of the first episode she says to the idealistic younger doctor, one day you'll worry about how little this bothers you, not how much.
Presenter
Was there a part of you that thought, I don't want to become inured to this. I don't want to be the doctor for whom this is just another day at the office?
Jed Mercurio
No. Um takeoffs are optional, landings are mandatory. You've got to deal with it, you've got to get through it. I'd I'd chosen to do that job and you're in that position of responsibility. You one of the things you learn as a junior doctor, and certainly in that environment, was if you don't do it, someone else has to. And we were all operating at the the limits of our competence and our energy.
Presenter
Let's have some more music, Chet. What are we gonna hear now?
Jed Mercurio
Uh when I went to university, um my horizons widened enormously and so did my musical horizons and um I discovered that I really was into music that had some kind of dark energy and this is a band that I still listen to, usually on my own, but it's still a first choice for me when I find myself in moments of solitude. It's the Sisters of Mercy Nine while nine.
Speaker 4
Rustiponi cigarettes, lipstick on a window pane and a glass of
Speaker 4
But I can't forget, so I call your name and I
Speaker 4
Look at life for me and I
Speaker 4
Looking for life for you And I'm talking to myself again But it's so damn cold, it's just not true And I'm walking through the rain, trying to hold on
Presenter
That was Sisters of Mercy and Nine While Nine. Um so uh Jed Mercuriel, you're writing in many different voices of course. You're writing in the voices of old characters, young characters, people of colour. What is very striking as a viewer is how I think very cleverly you write for women and surround women with situations that as a woman I'm familiar with, a professional woman. How do you put yourself in those shoes?
Jed Mercurio
Well firstly thank you very much for saying that but it it's not something that I feel that I'm consciously doing because all my primary experience of working in real workplaces were very gender balanced and when I was working in the NHS the blokes and the women did exactly the same work and so it didn't feel to me like there was a way that a a female doctor would behave in comparison to a male doctor. And even when I was in the RAF, you know, that was the time when women were first being accepted as pilots. So I've always been surrounded by women who've been doing the same job as the men. And because I write a lot about workplace drama, it's always felt to me that I would be quite naturally creating a gender balanced world.
Presenter
I know that your wife is a television producer. She works in a different area of television. How did you actually meet?
Jed Mercurio
Uh we met at an awards ceremony and we got talking and um I suggested to her at the end of the conversation that maybe it would be a good idea for us to meet up again. And I then followed up with a a phone call a few days later and then it became very clear that she was under the impression that I thought we were meeting up to talk about working together, whereas I was under the impression that we were talking about a date. So I became very embarrassed and apologised profusely and hung up. But fortunately, and I remain grateful, about half an hour later Elaine phoned me and said that she would meet me for a drink.
Presenter
Time now for your seventh choice, Jed Mercurio. What are we going to hear, and why particularly have you chosen this?
Jed Mercurio
This is a song which I think is a brilliant metaphor for the unexpected journey of a working class person. And I remember listening to this song when I was living in our first place together with Elaine and we were expecting our daughter Molly. This is The All-Seeing Eye with guest vocals by Philip Okey, lyrics by Jarvis Cocker, First Man in Space.
Speaker 4
Sing some burn up on the entry
Speaker 4
Bones that have crumbled to dust.
Speaker 4
It was rough, but I kept it together.
Speaker 4
Now I'm finding it hard to adjust.
Speaker 4
How you supposed to open these new mill cottons? Why don't they make golden nuggets no more?
Speaker 4
There was no ticker tape for civic reception How come no one wants to know what I saw?
Speaker 4
How could no one wants to know what I saw?
Speaker 4
How come no one wants to
Presenter
That was All Seeing Eye and First Man in Space. Chad Mercurio, you used once this great phrase. You talked about something called the narrative cascade of a story. So of your own life so far, what has been the critical moment from which everything else has cascaded and trickled down?
Jed Mercurio
I think that would have to be the fact that I saw that advert in the British Medical Journal. If I hadn't seen that, then I don't think I would ever have considered entering the career that I'm in now. And I really have to give credit to the people I was working with who were experienced television producers, firstly because they took a gamble on me, but also they provided me with an apprenticeship in writing for television. At first they were very careful and sympathetic about it, and I had to explain to them that I'd been through medical school. You know, I was used to learning through humiliation. They could tell me if something didn't work. Do you find it difficult sometimes? Working in the creative world?
Jed Mercurio
I think that I've become much more accustomed to it now. It was certainly true that when I first started there were occasions when completely unintentionally, because I wasn't a gushing lovy, people took things the wrong way and I I was used to a much more tough environment where you very rarely give credit where it's due. You just point out the things that aren't right. And I've discovered that that's not how you get on in the media.
Presenter
Tell me about your final choice then. We're on your eighths. What are we going to hear?
Jed Mercurio
Generally when I listen to music I listen to it when I'm on my own. But in 1990 I went up to Leeds University to see the Sisters of Mercy. This is the standout song of that night and it was just something that I remember as being hundreds of people in a room all feeling the same things and seeing life in the same way. And this is Lucretia, My Reflection by The Sisters of Mercy.
Speaker 4
I hear the songs of the city and dispossessed Get down and get undressed
Speaker 4
Yeah, baby.
Speaker 4
We got the Empire, but now I slip
Speaker 4
My reflection danced the ghost with me.
Presenter
That was Sisters of Mercy and Lucretia My Reflections. Yet it's time now to give you the books. You get the Bible, you get the complete works of Shakespeare, and what are you going to take along with them?
Jed Mercurio
I'm actually going to take The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose, which is a very dense and very long book about physics and you need to actually be able to go away and work through some of the maths to develop the correct understanding. So I can see myself on the beach with a stick writing equations in the sand, trying to figure out the topology of normal space.
Presenter
Okay. That's yours. You're allowed a luxury as well.
Jed Mercurio
Well, the idea of going to an island where you're meant to survive and not taking something of utility is kind of anathema to me. So if I was forced to take something that was a luxury, I would take a telescope so that I would have something to look forward to in those long evenings where I hope there's very little light pollution.
Presenter
Yes, I think you can be guaranteed of that, and you can certainly have that luxury. If you had to save just one of these eight tracks that you've chosen to share with us today, which one would it be?
Jed Mercurio
I would choose Sisters of Mercy nine while nine.
Presenter
It's yours. Jed Mercurio, thank you very much for letting us heal your desert island discs. Thanks very much, Kirsty.
Presenter
You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website, bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.
Jed Mercurio
This is the B
Speaker 3
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Presenter asks
How much cooperation did you have in creation with real police officers working in real police forces?
Initially we got very little actually and we we certainly formed the view that uh police cooperation was PR led. Um I don't take the view obviously that police officers should stop investigating crimes and contribute to television fiction, but other programmes set in the police force were getting cooperation and we felt rather singled out that we weren't. And the the first episode featured a police counterterrorism operation in which an innocent man was accidentally shot. And the script was read by the Metropolitan Police, who declined to cooperate with the series, claiming that they would never shoot an innocent person.
Presenter asks
Was it a genuine ambition [to be an astronaut] at the time?
Yeah, actually it was. I had mates who were equally into science and we certainly talked about the space programme. But I was the only one who thought that there was any way that it might be something that I could do for a living.
Presenter asks
How do you put yourself in the shoes of professional women characters?
Well firstly thank you very much for saying that but it it's not something that I feel that I'm consciously doing because all my primary experience of working in real workplaces were very gender balanced and when I was working in the NHS the blokes and the women did exactly the same work and so it didn't feel to me like there was a way that a a female doctor would behave in comparison to a male doctor. And even when I was in the RAF, you know, that was the time when women were first being accepted as pilots. So I've always been surrounded by women who've been doing the same job as the men. And because I write a lot about workplace drama, it's always felt to me that I would be quite naturally creating a gender balanced world.
Presenter asks
What has been the critical moment from which everything else has cascaded?
I think that would have to be the fact that I saw that advert in the British Medical Journal. If I hadn't seen that, then I don't think I would ever have considered entering the career that I'm in now. And I really have to give credit to the people I was working with who were experienced television producers, firstly because they took a gamble on me, but also they provided me with an apprenticeship in writing for television. At first they were very careful and sympathetic about it, and I had to explain to them that I'd been through medical school. You know, I was used to learning through humiliation. They could tell me if something didn't work. Do you find it difficult sometimes? Working in the creative world? I think that I've become much more accustomed to it now. It was certainly true that when I first started there were occasions when completely unintentionally, because I wasn't a gushing lovy, people took things the wrong way and I I was used to a much more tough environment where you very rarely give credit where it's due. You just point out the things that aren't right. And I've discovered that that's not how you get on in the media.
“I actually really admire what my parents achieved, that they went on a journey where they had no idea what to expect. They uprooted and moved to a foreign country and they worked really hard. There was such a strong work ethic, and it was about creating a brighter future for their children than they'd experienced.”
“I think that that's something that is quite a constant presence in the life of junior hospital doctors. You've got to remember that a lot of the time you're dealing with people who aren't fully emotionally mature themselves. I was 23, 24 when I started practicing medicine as a junior house officer. And I remember starting on a Thursday and myself and the other SHO, my first job, the guy who I answered to immediately above me, we fundamentally ran the medical emergency receiving team for three days with very little input from consultants or registrars. And it was an extraordinary experience. And I remember within the first few days being in a situation where a man in late middle age came in with quite a severe bleed on the brain and the prospect certainly didn't look very good. And I remember his wife saying to me, don't let him die is all I've got. And that's a tough thing for someone who's 23 or 24 to handle. But it's amazing how you come through it. It's amazing how you find that resilience so that you can, within a few months, you're handling that in a way … that eventually makes you think the way that the very cynical character played by Helen Baxendale in Cardiac Arrest thought, where at the end of the first episode she says to the idealistic younger doctor, one day you'll worry about how little this bothers you, not how much.”
“I think that would have to be the fact that I saw that advert in the British Medical Journal. If I hadn't seen that, then I don't think I would ever have considered entering the career that I'm in now. And I really have to give credit to the people I was working with who were experienced television producers, firstly because they took a gamble on me, but also they provided me with an apprenticeship in writing for television. At first they were very careful and sympathetic about it, and I had to explain to them that I'd been through medical school. You know, I was used to learning through humiliation. They could tell me if something didn't work.”