Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Screenwriter known for groundbreaking 'Queer as Folk', regenerating 'Doctor Who', and award-winning dramas including 'A Very English Scandal'.
On the island
Eight records
Julie Covington, Charlotte Cornwell and Rula Lenska
This is from Rock Follies. It's amongst many. There's a time in the 70s, 76, 77 when television drama was rock follies… These were astonishing days.
Jascha Heifetz and Emanuel Bay
I think if you listen to it, it sums up the whole spirit of our English scandal. It kind of gallops…
Growing up in that Swansea house, I can remember a little record player and I can remember I think this is the very first record I ever owned.
Gloria in Excelsis DeoFavourite
At the pinnacle of the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre… they brought together the whole choir, the whole orchestra, the dance company and the youth theatre on one massive residential course and staged Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
Next is a woman who's kept me company my entire life… She once wrote to me and invited me around for tea. And I was so terrified I didn't go.
This is when I was out there in those clubs breathing in that smoke and the light and the fumes and the heat and the desire. This is the greatest club track of all, I think.
I was standing in the wings and they hit the descant on this song… and it was so beautiful and so enormous… just thinking, this is bliss.
This was played at our wedding… As we walked down the aisle, the music cut out… because our friends were laughing so much out loud because he'd finally trapped me into this marriage.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:10Is [your imagination] something that you have to feed?
I think it's always being fed by the world around you. You meet someone interesting, there's a drama. I hope it never dries up.
Presenter asks
5:41What were the biggest challenges in bringing [A Very English Scandal] to our screens?
It was fascinating because Norman Scott's still alive, and the children of Jeremy Thorpe are still alive, so there were real people involved in this… You did feel a proper responsibility to be fair… The story had always been told by straight men. And it was always a very mysterious story… I came along, read it, and I met Norman Scott. And I think I just… oh, I get this completely.
Presenter asks
7:00So, what was it that you got [about the Thorpe/Scott story] that previous writers didn't?
I think the passions of them and the secrets, the closetedness, I get that… I literally walked into his house, shook his hand, and I went, Oh, I've met you a hundred times. You're my friend Peter. You're my friend Phil. You're my friend Frank. I just know gay men like that. I just get the temperament of it.
The keepsakes
The book
René Goscinny
My mum used to buy Asterique's books in French ... I read this every year ... You can see everything I've ever written in this book.
The luxury
A box of ball Pentel pens (black)
That artist in me wants to take a box of ball pentel pens, black ... I just love them. I'm never without one.
Presenter asks
7:52Why is it important to you to take pride in that particular distinction [as a gay writer] and not just say, 'Well, I'm a writer, these are dramas'?
Since I left Doctor Who, I kind of said then I'm going to write gay stories from now on… It's my joy, it's what I think about… It's unexplored territory… There are things that we've felt, things that we've said, emotions in our hearts that have not been put on screen yet or on the page or into fiction.
Presenter asks
8:26And apart from your own identity and connection with that, as a writer, why [do you focus on gay stories]?
Well, it's unexplored territory… We've always been there behind the scenes… But now, as an out society, we're less than 50 years old, really, and that's nothing… And there are things that we've felt, things that we've said, emotions in our hearts that have not been put on screen yet… And also, there are things that we feel and say and do that are identical to other people. And that needs saying as well.
Presenter asks
33:44After leaving Doctor Who, you moved with your partner Andrew to America, but your plans there were put on hold when he became ill. What happened?
Yes, he started having a lot of headaches… he started having hallucinations of an Edwardian lady smiling at him sarcastically… He went for a scan and they said that's glioblastoma multiforme… And they gave him eighteen months to live, and he lived for the next eight years.
“Writing is an act of loss every time.”
“I knew I belonged here, actually.”
“What I love about Kate Bush is her mystery. I don't understand half those songs. I've sung them all my life. I could put on any of her albums and know every single word. And I don't quite know what I'm singing about a lot of the time.”
“I did internet searches for hallucinations and for images and eidetic images and things like that. If I'd searched for the word seizure, I would have got to his diagnosis in seconds, straight away. I think it delayed the whole thing by a couple of months.”
“Those eight years that I cared for him were our happiest years.”
“How lucky was I? He would be in every good man I'll ever write now.”