As someone who watched countless episodes of Minder while growing up in the 80s and early 90s, and also as a fan of the much missed Verity Lambert, I recently decided to try and track down some other productions from Euston Films, the company where Verity did much of her best work and where some of the UK’s finest series originated.

I decided to start with Fox, a series from 1980 which I’m too young to remember but which I’ve read enough about over the years to know that I really should be checking it out.

The thirteen-part series is set in South London and concerns the actions of the Fox family, a tight-knit clan headed up by Billy Fox (Peter Vaughan) and consisting of his five sons - Kenny (Ray Winstone), Vincent (Bernard Hill), Ray (Derrick O’Connor), Joey (Larry Lamb) and Phil (Eamon Boland) along with wife Connie (Elizabeth Spriggs). That’s a cracking cast, and those are just the leads, with other characters making appearances as the episodes go on.

As the series opens, the family are making do under the watchful eye of “King” Billy, an ex-market trader and a well known face in the manor who rules the roost with a stern-but-fair hand. At some point in the past Billy was obviously a major player in town, well known to all the local gangsters, though it’s never explicitly explained how far his reach actually went.

His sons are all working hard to make a living, whether that’s in the building trade, as a boxer, a taxi driver or, in Phil’s case, as a mature student. Thanks to the number of episodes given to the series, characters are allowed to build up naturally, with all the flaws and traits growing as time passes.

While major events do occur, there’s usually some background to them so that the viewer actually cares about what’s happening and can see the ramifications and the effects on the family.

The nature of family is central to Fox. While to Billy family is the most important thing in the world, uniting people and bringing them together, to Phil it’s almost the opposite. To him it’s stifling and oppressive, his desire to escape Clapham leading to issues with his dad which play out over the eleven-hours of the series.

Of the actors it’s hard to single anyone out for particular praise. Vaughan is both tender and terrifying at the same time, Boland impressive as he shows his struggle between being an individual and staying part of the family. For me the standout performances come from Derrick O’Connor and Larry Lamb, both of whom are given some great material to work with. Watching the latter mature of the course of the series is particularly rewarding.

O’Connor was a real revelation. Having not seen him in much before I didn’t realise his range. He’s able to do both funny and dramatic at the drop of a hat and I found myself wanting more and more scenes with Ray as the series progressed. Again, the length of the series means that when events do spiral out of control for him near the end of the series it really means something.

There is one slightly odd storyline concerning Ray Winstone’s character which I’m still not sure about, but to say much more would spoil things. Coming so soon after the traumatic repercussions of his boxing match, the introduction of The Bill’s Mark Wingett as a small-time criminal makes for a strange few episodes which could almost be from another series, but it does again give O’Connor some major screentime so I should be pleased.

I’d recommend this series to anyone who’s a fan of great British drama and who is willing to spend a bit of time with some talented actors and scripts which aren’t dumbed down. TV just isn’t made on this scale in Britain anymore, and we’re the worse of for it. Writer Trevor Preston knows his characters inside out and isn’t afraid to take his time making them real. He also wrote the songs which appear in each episode and which play an important part of the narrative.

I’ve now ordered Euston Film’s Out starring Tom Bell and my old mate Derrick O’Connor, and written once more by Trevor Preston. Here’s hoping it’s as good as Fox.

Fox is available on DVD from Network.

It’s tempting to think that the topics on this blog are getting samey, what with the title of my last post shouting about yet another ex-Bond who’s going to be appearing in public and who I have tickets for. This time it’s Mr Sean Connery.

Sean will be at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse on Sunday 24 August to present a screening of Sydney Lumet’s fantastic 1965 film, The Hill. I wrote about The Hill in February 2007 on this very blog (head over to have a look if you have a spare few minutes) and I’m delighted the Filmhouse have managed to secure the presence of Big Tam himself.

I hear he’ll be doing a 15 - 20 minute interview before the screening and I doubt there’ll be questions from the audience, but I’ll try and have one handy anyway. Head over to the website to see if there are tickets left…

So with Sean in August and Roger in October, I wonder if George, Tim or Pierce can be persuaded to do any appearances in September, November or December, to round the year off in style?

Photo pinched from the Filmhouse website…

]]> http://adventuresinprimetime.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/sean-connery-in-person/feed/ Jon http://adventuresinprimetime.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/roger-moore-in-person/ http://adventuresinprimetime.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/roger-moore-in-person/#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:48:34 +0000 Jon http://adventuresinprimetime.wordpress.com/?p=119

A simple post title there for a simple enough post - Sir Roger Moore will be live at the National Theatre on October 16 2008 and I’m going to be in the audience!

Out and about to promote his new book, My Word is My Bond, Roger will be interviewed on stage before signing copies for the masses. I can’t wait.

Although Roger isn’t my favourite Bond, I can appreciate what he did for the film series when he took over from Sir Sean. He was also in one of my favourite series, Maverick, back in the 50s and he’s been in so many great/cheesy TV shows and films that he’s a genuine national treasure.

I read his diaries written on the set of Live and Let Die a few years back and they are superb - if the new book is as funny it’ll be worth the trip alone.

I was also lucky enough to tour the Forbidden City in Beijing in 2001, and decided to use one of those pre-recorded cassette thingies with the voice of a tour guide pointing out areas of interest. I was stunned to discover that the English language version was by none other than Roger himself! I had the joy of a 2 hour visit to the Forbidden City with James Bond!

I’ll tell him that fascinating fact on the day. Maybe.

If you’re going, drop me a line and I’ll see you at the bar for a swift Dry Martini before the show…for Queen and Country.

A post on the Guardian Film blog on Friday, itself linking off to another site that looks at 8 Aesthetically Awesome Abandoned Movie Theatres in America, reminded me of a website I stumbled across a year or two back that did something similar for Scotland’s cinemas of yesteryear.

The Scottish Cinemas and Theatres Project is ”dedicated to recording and archiving our historic cinema architectural heritage, and to act as a information resource for people interested in that often overlooked part of our social history.”, and it does it in fine style.

My first visit led to me spending an hour or more sifting through the photos of long gone cinemas, some of which are today pubs, theatres or simply gone, to be replaced by new houses or shops. There’s something quite sad about the fact that these places, the centrepoint of so many nights out and long awaited weekend trips to the pictures to see the latest movie from the Hollywood dream factory, are now just another part of history.

If you have a few minutes spare, please take a trip over to the site to see if there’s anywhere you remember visiting. Personally I remember well the ABC (at one time the 123) on Lothian Road, now the rather soulless Odeon, and the old Odeon on South Clerk Street.

I particularly remember going to the old Odeon on the evening of the premiere of the Sean Connery thriller, Entrapment. The street was cordoned off outside to allow the crowds to gather, and as each limo pulled up with celebrities for the red carpet, the students living in the flat next door to the cinema kept playing the James Bond theme on their hi-fi, waiting for Connery to arrive.

Catherine Zeta-Jones and husband Michael Douglas pulled up, waved at the audience and promptly vanished inside the cinema. A few moments later Connery arrived - to the strains of the Bond theme from those neighbours - and took a few minutes to greet the crowds. He then went inside the Odeon, grabbed Zeta-Jones and took her back outside for more photos. Good lad.

If anyone has any other memories, please leave them in the comments section below, otherwise head over to the Cinemas and Theatre Project site for a look-see.

In the third and final part of my exclusive series of interviews with the team behind the new BBC interactive sci-fi series Meta4orce, I speak to the Animation and Interactive team.

Jonathan Melville: Can you tell me a bit about your backgrounds?

John Denton (Creative Director): I’ve been working in the digital design field throughout my career, and the last 7 years of that has been here at Bloc.

Ron Ganbar (Animation Supervisor): I’ve been working in post production since 1996, on everything from commercials to feature films. Over the last couple of years I’ve worked on some high-end feature films such as Sunshine and Elizabeth - the Golden Age and also on animation shorts.

What has it been like working on the series? Is there a buzz surrounding it?

Ron Ganbar (Animation Supervisor): It’s been a lot of hard work! I knew that Alex Norris (who I worked with many times before) was starting to work on this exciting BBC Two series and I was booked to head up the animation team.

It was a daunting task as the time frame and budget we had were both tight, but we found a way of tackling the script and since then it was challenge after challenge, but I’m extremely happy with the results. Alex kept pushing us and we kept delivering as much as we could.

John Denton (Creative Director): Meta4orce has been a very different experience for us here at Bloc. We have had to work very closely with both the writer and the director in order to make sure the interactive experience is intrinsically interwoven with the story.

In terms of buzz – absolutely! We were all super-chuffed to get this job. I almost think if we’d known too much about what we were actually planning to achieve we might have all bricked it from the start as it turned to be a gargantuan task. Sometimes it really is better to just not know!

How did the animators decide on the look of the series?

Ron Ganbar (Animation Supervisor): We had a very good secret weapon on our side – Bloc’s ace art director/illustrator Tom Jennings. He came up with the overall look of the series and our job was to bring that style to life.

Alex Norris (Director/Producer/Editor): Looking at the range of skills and software we could make use of we quickly decided on a mixture of 3D environments and 2D characters. The challenge then was to mesh the two together convincingly. We had to do a lot of work on the lighting and texturing of each scene to make the two elements work together, and the result is a very distinctive, rich visual style.

The world that we’ve created feels much more realistic and believable than it would do in a standard 2D cartoon. But it also retains the look and feel of a graphic novel, as opposed to something like the 3D cut scenes that you now get as standard in any game.

With those cut scenes you’re just seeing computers do their stuff - it doesn’t feel like there’s any life behind them. With Meta4orce it still feels like a human being created and illustrated these characters and I think they’re all the more engaging as a result.

Kevin Richter (3D Artist): We had to try various things before we settled on something we were happy with and that worked well in the production pipeline. One of the 3D areas that had to be figured out was the look of the water - we went through various different procedures and combinations of elements and colours before settling on the water we have now.

How traditional is the animation used here?

Ron Ganbar (Animation Supervisor): The animation style we developed for this show is far from traditional. We wanted to leave a lot of room for the editing process, something that is rarely done in animation.

We essentially treated it like a live action show where you go and shoot something from a few different angles and shot sizes and then you get it all together in the edit – making full use of all the possibilities. We found ways of manipulating the software we used and the rigs we built to enable us to do this.

The opening sequence with Big Ben submerged in water is very striking – how long did it take to plan the sequence?

Ron Ganbar (Animation Supervisor): That sequence took a while - easily over a month. After all, we needed to build the whole of central London and submerge it in water - including finding the right look for the water and adding all those cars moving around in the end. A lot of love was put into this shot!!

Kevin Richter (3D Artist): The storyboards for this sequence were one of the very first things I saw of the production, so it was always going to be one of the most important elements - especially as it’s the grand opening shot of the entire series.

The basic idea was there from the beginning, with the camera pulling back and revealing flooded London, but what we had to figure out was how much to show, what we could show, how much had to be modelled and, most importantly, how good the shot would look.

The London we ended up with for the series was basically built up around this opening shot. If I factor in the building of all the elements, setting up the shot and then animating the camera move and the vehicle movements, it was more than a month’s work to create that shot.

Are the animated characters looks based on the actors?

Alex Norris (Director/Producer/Editor): No – they’d been fully illustrated before the actors had even been cast. They are, however, very loosely based on some famous faces – but we’ll leave it up to you to try and work out who’s who.

What is the typical turnaround time for an episode?

Alex Norris (Director/Producer/Editor): The first episode took almost three months to complete. This was basically the ‘pilot’ for us, where we worked everything out and decided on the look and sound of the whole project. Once we had everything set up we were then able to complete the other episodes in roughly a month each – although the speedboat chase in episode three gave us some very, very late nights.

Ron Ganbar (Animation Supervisor): Roughly a month per episode. Working on films it often takes that long to do one shot - we had to be quick!

Have you learnt any lessons while making the series?

Alex Norris (Director/Producer/Editor): You have to learn to be very, very patient working with animation. It’s a VERY slow process. Like watching paint dry – and often the wrong paint!!

But it’s also magic – at some point these drawings come to life and are suddenly believable as characters with attitudes and emotions. It’s a very rewarding process seeing it all come together. You just need some serious mood suppressants to get you through the early stages!!

Ron Ganbar (Animation Supervisor): Anything can be done!

John Denton (Creative Director): Next time around I think we would plan it so that some of the gameplay elements actually replace certain sequences in the animation, rather than sitting on top of them – but obviously this show has to work on-air as well as online.

How long do the games take to create?

John Denton (Creative Director): Pulling out eight high quality webgames in the timeframe we’ve had has been a huge challenge. Also, because we’ve been keen to make this a product with very ambitious production values we’ve made all the games fairly high-end in terms of tech.

Out of the final eight, five of those games were produced with Papervision 3D engines. The others all feature physics modelling and stacks of cool effects. We all play games and have been sure to make the games play at least as well as they look, if not better!

How do you test the games?

John Denton (Creative Director): Playtesting. It’s the only way. Basic engines are tested out to see if the core experience is likely to be any fun at all and from there the game gets it’s first build. Once there is a basic game in place it’s mainly about balancing and re-balancing to make sure that the experience is an appropriate challenge for the target audience.

In this case we were lucky as the target demographic is pretty game-savvy, so things like the adoption of 3D gameplay worlds was not a concern.

Iain Lobb (Interactive Developer): Balancing the games, so that they’re accessible - but not too easy - was one of the hardest challenges of this project. When we produce a mini-game for a videogames publisher, we can make some decent assumptions about the level of “game literacy” of the audience.

With this project it’s much harder, because you’re going to have a mix of hardcore gamers and people who never play videogames, and everything in between.

What are your plans and hopes for the future of Meta4orce?

Iain Lobb (Interactive Developer): I’d love to see this project go viral, and be seen by a large audience online. I think it deserves it.

Thanks to Alex Norris, John Denton, Ron Ganbar, Kevin Richter and Iain Lobb for taking the time to answer these questions!

Part One of my interview is with series writer Peter Milligan

Part Two is with series Executive Producer Rick Palmer and director Alex Norris

For more information on Meta4orce and to watch - and live! - the series, visit the official BBC website. Watch the Meta4orce trailer on YouTube:

The second part of my three-part series of interviews looking at the creation of new BBC animated drama Meta4orce continues as Executive Producer Rick Palmer and Director, Producer and Editor Alex Norris take time out to discuss the programme and their hopes its future.

Jonathan Melville: Can you tell me a bit about your background?

Rick Palmer (Executive Producer): My background is in online. In the late 90’s I set up and ran the largest independent film site in the UK, Reelscreen.com, which I sold to Future Publishing PLC in late 1999. Subsequent to that I founded BLOC Media as a digital agency working for clients in the entertainment industry and more recently the company has started to develop cross-platform formats such as Meta4orce.

How did the idea for Meta4orce come about?

Rick Palmer: The BBC approached us with the idea to create a new Teen Detective Drama for BBC Switch, but the actual format, story and world were left to us to develop.

We really wanted to bring some comic book sensibility to the story and John, our Creative Director and Assistant Producer on the show, was pretty adamant the story be set in the future so that we could have some fun with technology and the world around them.

We then approached one of our all time favourite comic book writers about the series and were over the moon when he agreed to get involved.

How similar is it producing an interactive series to a traditional TV series?

Rick Palmer: I’ve no experience producing traditional TV so wouldn’t presume to answer this, however from many years of experience developing highly successful online formats for companies including CBBC and PlayStation, I would suggest that the addition of a fully interactive version of the show adds significantly to the overall work involved.

What has it been like working on the series? Is there a buzz surrounding it?

Rick Palmer: Meta4orce has been a fantastic series to work on and a significant commission for BLOC Media. Getting the chance to work with such a highly respected comic book writer, as well as an amazing animation and interactive team has made the series a joy to work on.

And the feedback from TV and web viewers and the client has made the project really worthwhile.

Is interactivity a “must-have” these days?

Rick Palmer: Whilst there is clearly still a lot of demand for standard TV formats, interactivity is certainly the new buzzword in the industry right now. And as a digital business, this is good news for us!

Do you have overall control of the online games as well as the series itself?

Rick Palmer: Absolutely. This is one of the reasons why BLOC Media was approached from the outset. We’ve been working with the games industry for the best part of a decade and in that time have made some really popular online games.

Did you always know what your timeslot was going to be?

Rick Palmer: Roughly, although our actual timeslot changes each week, we always knew we were making a series for Saturday afternoon on BBC Two.

The BBC Switch audience is a younger one – did you have to tone down any ideas for the timeslot?

Rick Palmer: There was clearly some self-censorship required when defining the overall world and the storyline detail, plus the final mini-series also needed to be cleared by the BBC to make sure it was on the money for the target audience… but for the most part this didn’t have an effect on the output.

How successful does a series like this have to be for the BBC to recommission it?

Rick Palmer: You’ll have to ask the Beeb!

Is Meta4orce being looked upon as a prototype for future BBC series?

Rick Palmer: Certainly 360 programming is a mantra at the BBC right now, so from a multi-platform perspective I would say absolutely… whether they want to make any more graphic novel inspired interactive cartoon series for teens is another question…

How important is the BBC iplayer is in the future success of series such as Meta4orce?

Rick Palmer: iPlayer is an invaluable part of the mix for BBC programs and it has been a real thrill to see Meta4orce in the line-up, jostling for attention with the big boys. However, as we are essentially an interactive series, the best place to view Meta4orce online is at the official website where the full interactive experience can be enjoyed.

Do you see the series spinning off into other media – audio or books perhaps?

Rick Palmer: Absolutely. I’d love to see Meta4orce the comic series. And as for Meta4orce The Movie… Well, put it this way, we’ve already registered the domain…

What can you tell us about your plans and hopes for the future of Meta4orce?

Rick Palmer: Meta4orce has the potential to become incredibly successful. As a company we will be pushing hard for a series commission and are already in talks with companies worldwide about the format.

Next up is the Director, Producer and Editor of Meta4orce, Alex Norris.

Jonathan Melville: Can you tell me a bit about your background?

Alex Norris (Director/Producer/Editor): My background is in directing promos and TV commercials. Through my promo work I started directing animation a couple of years ago.

The exciting thing about animation is that you can do anything – if the script says “flying saucers blow up London” then that’s what’s going to happen. It’s quite a buzz to get a script that says “the hovercraft skims across the waters of drowned London” and know that you can actually do it.

Unless you’re shooting a Bond movie you just don’t get to do these kind of things in British film / tv.

How early did you get involved with Meta4orce?

Alex Norris: Bloc had been developing the project for a few months before I joined. They’d already decided on a graphic style for the characters and Peter (Milligan) had written the first outline of the story.

From the outset my main mission was to work with Peter to try and help expand the story – flesh out the characters’ backgrounds and make this much more than just a straightforward murder case.

Had you worked in animation before?

Alex Norris: Yes, in promos etc, but not on this scale. Our biggest challenge was coming up with an animation style that was achievable on our budget but still had real style. I think what we’ve hit on is something very unique and distinctive – a graphic novel come to life basically.

Which comes first – the animation or the voice recording of the actors?

Alex Norris: The voiceover (VO) recordings come first – the animators then work to that performance in terms of lip synch, character movements and so on. After the first stage of animation is complete we then get the actors back in to re-do the final voiceovers.

How did you go about casting for the characters?

Alex Norris: We did a casting session for a couple of the roles but for most of the parts we knew who we wanted to work with – and were very happy that they agreed to come along for the ride.

Do the actors rehearse together?

Alex Norris: No, sadly. There isn’t the time or the money to get them all in a room together for long enough.

The BBC Switch audience is a younger one – did you have to tone down any ideas for the timeslot?

Alex Norris: The programme’s got some pretty wild stuff in it for a Saturday lunchtime slot - so yes, we had to be a bit careful. Although the show is really for teenagers who would take all that stuff in their stride, it has to be suitable for younger kids that could be watching at the same time. An obvious example would be Soma’s vampirism – we weren’t allowed to show her actually biting anyone.

Is Meta4orce being looked upon as a prototype for future BBC series?

Alex Norris: You’re going to be seeing a lot more shows that try and make use of more than one platform, for sure. The challenge is going to be finding ways to keep the drama gripping while introducing all the other elements – games, interactivity etc. At the end of the day the only thing that will never change is that the audience wants to be told a good story – and all the extras need to back that up.

What can you tell us about your plans and hopes for the future of Meta4orce?

Alex Norris: We’ve created a very dense world here – the setting of a flooded London divided into ultra rich and ultra poor, this sinister MAKO organisation, the heroes struggling with their powers and identities – all the ingredients are there for something with a big future.

What’s really exciting about it is that it’s uniquely British – apart from the good Doctor we don’t really do enough sci-fi in the UK – and it gets a bit dull when it’s all American all the time. We’ve been talking with Peter Milligan [series writer] about some possible future storylines and things get pretty crazy pretty quickly.

This is just the beginning!! Hopefully…

Rick Palmer and Alex Norris, thanks for your time!

Part One of my interview is with series writer Peter Milligan

Part Three is with the Animation and Interactive team behind Meta4orce

For more information on Meta4orce and to watch - and live! - the series, visit the official BBC website. Watch the Meta4orce trailer on YouTube:

Following my recent review of the new BBC animated detective series Meta4orce, the series production team have kindly answered some questions about the genesis and future of the series.

I’ll be publishing these in three parts, kicking-off with series writer Peter Milligan. Starting his comic career in the 80s with 2000AD, he has since gone on to work on a number of high-profile projects including The X-Men.

Jonathan Melville: How did the idea for Meta4orce come about? Did you come up with the story before deciding on the animated format?

Peter Milligan: I come from a comic book background, and wanted to draw on some of that peculiar comic book sensibility – bodies that are altered, identities changed, regular people becoming extraordinary – and ally it to a futuristic detective story.

I knew from the outset that this was going to be an animated format, but it could be that some germs of the idea had been floating around, with a view to them being used in a comic.

Was their ever any discussion of the series being live-action?

As the idea developed, and we all became excited by what we saw as the idea’s potential, there was talk about live action.

Were you given free range with the script?

Up to a point. Within the parameters of a story that the BBC agreed to, and the constraints on a story aimed at teens and to be shown in the afternoon on BBC Two, there was quite a bit of freedom for character development and plot twists.

How different is writing for animation compared to comics and films?

Not as different as you might imagine. The characters have to be three dimensional and seem to have a life outside of the story. The plot has to make sense, and hopefully surprise, and say something about your characters.

How far into the backstory of each character have you gone? Are they fully fleshed out?

The characters are completely fleshed out, with more backstory than we’ll ever possibly need.

The BBC Switch audience is a younger one – did you have to tone down any ideas for the timeslot?

Well, as we always knew what audience we’d be going for, the story was planned with that in mind. In my own head our viewer is at the top end of our age range: smart, cool, and certainly not someone you need to dumb down to. But this same viewer is also one who might have feverish nightmares if he or she witnessed a carotid artery being ripped open.

Interactive games are a big part of the web episodes – did you have to tailor your script to allow for these additions?

I was adamant that the story came first. After that there was a bit of liaising, and slight re-jigging of a few scenes to encompass some games. Though in fact, because I knew how the games would fit in from the outset, some of these seemed to naturally fall into place.

The series has shades of both X-Men and Torchwood – were you inspired by either series?

It was a general comic book sensibility and potential, rather than any one comic book, like X-Men. And I can honestly say that Torchwood was never an inspiration.

What can you tell us about your plans and hopes for the future of Meta4orce?

We have a whole new series of storylines worked out that delves much deeper into the murky machinations of Mako, and explores the lives of these fascinating, tough yet vulnerable characters.

Peter Milligan, thanks for your time.

Part Two of my interview is with Exec Producer Rick Palmer and Director Alex Norris

Part Three is with the Animation and Interactive team behind Meta4orce

For more information on Meta4orce and to watch - and live! - the series, visit the official BBC website. Watch the Meta4orce trailer on YouTube:

Partly due to the tragic death recently of one of Hollywood’s old guard, Mr Sydney Pollack, and partly because it happened to be on Film Four the other night, I’ve recently finished watching the Pollack directed Three Days of the Condor (1976) starring Robert Redford.

Redford stars as bookish (well about as bookish as Robert Redford can get - we see him hold a book, but this is Robert Redford!) Joseph Turner, a.k.a. The Condor, a CIA operative working out of a nondescript apartment block in New York.

Turner’s section of the CIA are devoted to reading books, magazines and reports that are published around the globe, analysing them for anything that might pose a security threat to the USA.

Popping out of the office for lunch one afternoon, Turner returns to find his friends and colleagues all dead, murdered by Max von Sydow and his cronies. From here Turner goes on the run, at first trusting his bosses after phoning them for help, but soon realising that he’s now the prime suspect in the murder and he’s got nowhere to hide.

From the off this is a cracking thriller, New York looking as imposing and unfriendly to Turner as his own company turns out to be. Shots of the Twin Towers loom, eerily foreshadowing in the mind of any present day viewer the legacy that real-world US policy, touched upon here, would have.

Redford is a fine lead, effortlessly showing the confusion and mistrust of a man on the run. Faye Dunaway is also on great form as her character is drawn into the murky world of US intelligence.

Pollack’s direction is always alert for the interesting camera angle, his lens casting an eager eye over each new location. In fact a quick check of IMDB tells me that excluding the action during the opening credits, this film has approximately 1172 shots in 1 hour 53 minutes and 8 seconds, or an average shot duration of about 5.8 seconds - today Pollack might have used CCTV cameras to get the same effect.

I’ve been thinking about Condor for a few days now, it’s no-nonsense style and fast pace really having made an impression. I’m going to try and track down some more Pollack films over the next few months and see what else I’ve been missing.

While pottering about the flat this morning I switched on the TV to BBC2, midway through an episode of an animated sci-fi detective programme called Meta4orce. I’m very glad I did.

Screening as part of the BBC Switch strand, which seems to be the latest attempt at “Yoof TV” (anyone remember Def II many moons ago?), this caught my attention with it stark subject matter and impressive animation.

Set in the London of 2034, a now flooded city where the survivors of a natural disaster are living with increased crime, a small group of genetically engineered detectives are on their first case. My initial thought was Torchwood meets X-Men - take a look at the trailer to see what I’m talking about:

While aimed at a younger audience, Meta4orce certainly doesn’t talk down to them, with Soma, the blood reading member of the team a slightly gory concept for one o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.

The rest of the team are pretty well-rounded for the liitle time they get on screen, while the plot unfolds at a pace that’s fast but still comprehensible. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise considering the series is written by comics veteran Peter Milligan who knows a thing or two about telling stories in a compact format.

This is a smart little programme that packs a lot into its 10-minute run time. It’s a real shame that this show gets tucked away on BBC2 in the morning while it’s big cousin Torchwood is getting all the hype - it’s also a shame Captain Jack and his team weren’t relocated into a future Britain when the show started, as this might have been just what the Doctor ordered. Maybe Meta4orce is what we would have got…

If you missed the first two episodes (there are two more to come), take a trip to the Meta4orce website, to watch them again with a couple of interactive games thrown into the mix.

I’m looking forward to heading back to 2034 next week to see where the investigation leads and hope we get to see more from this world.

I’d advise you to do the same.

In late 2007 I was lucky enough to spend some time chatting with veteran television writer and producer Victor Pemberton about his time working on cult 80s series, Fraggle Rock.

While today the phrase “dance your cares away, worries for another day” could be a mantra used on Strictly Come Dancing, twenty five years ago these words introduced viewers to a world of Fraggles, Doozers and conflict resolution in the programme conceived by Jim Henson.

Henson, the creator of Sesame Street in 1969 and later the phenomenally successful Muppet Show in 1976, had a vision of an allegorical world of creatures that would reflect real world issues such as prejudice, social conflict and the environment. Heavy stuff for early afternoon on ITV…

Jonathan Melville: How did you get involved with Fraggle Rock?

Victor Pemberton: It was through a very dear friend of mine, Duncan Kenworthy, producer of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, who I’d met while working in Kuwait for American television. He’d joined forces with Jim Henson and said to me one day “we’re going to do new show, based on material shot in Canada and each country will do their own segments – can you come up with an idea for what we can do with the UK segments?”.

I said I’d have a go and I suggested various things, including setting it in a lighthouse. He sad he’d put the idea to Jim and let me know. In the meantime I had to go to Nigeria to do some TV work. I’d been busy teaching students and was knackered when one night I got a call out of the blue from Duncan who said “We’re going ahead with it and I need a 20 page synopsis”. I asked for when and he said “tomorrow morning”!

That was 1983 and there was no internet. I said “how am I going to get this to you?” and I sat up all night writing this and his secretary phoned up and I transcribed it. Two months later I got home and they said it’s going into production.

What was in the brief?

VP: It was like a jigsaw puzzle. In the synopsis the main things were the location and character. In France it was a chef, in Canada an inventor, in German it was a scientist, so we had to do something different and the lighthouse was very different. I’d seen the Canadian segments and we fitted in to it.

You were brought in to write first?

VP: For the first series I wrote all the segments and Duncan produced. If you look at the credits you’ll see there’s the American and the British. I shared credits with the US producer.

One of the main writers on the Canadian version was long term Jim Henson collaborator Jim Juhl, who died recently.

VP: Jim was a great guy, very talented and heavily involved with the Muppets. I can’t claim to have known him that well but we always met at meetings and he came over from the States when I wrote the thing.

Duncan became head of international film production with Henson and he was involved in lots of new Muppet projects for them. So he came to me to ask if I wanted to change hats and produce it and I was on it for 7 years on and off.

What was turnaround like?

VP: We did one show a day. Most of the editing came at the end of the 13 episode blocks we did at a time, but I was on it for 7 years. We did 96 episodes. There was a lot of hard work.

It was a co-production with Southern Television. The head of children’s TV at the time was Anna Home and it was between Duncan, Anna and myself. We took over an old cinema in Gillingham in Kent, and it was wonderful. There was a huge banner over the top of the original Muppet theatre. The auditorium was cleared of seats, the stage was raised and extended.

Were you on set for every episode?

VP: Every episode. I never left, I had to be there all the time as it was quite a technical production and I had to learn this side of it. I watched Jim Henson and Frank Oz perform the Muppets at Elstree Studios and got the flow of the thing.

Were you involved in choosing directors?

VP: Duncan suggested and I had a say. Jeremy (I think it was Swan) was suggested as the main director. We liked to think of Fraggle Rock as not only a family for the viewers but for us as well. We always felt like a family and tried not to let our artistic tantrums run away from us – sometimes we argued or people behaved badly – but most of the time they were a lovely bunch and I’d never run any of the them down. We worked together, went out for meals and had a great time.

We had meetings everyday, it was like a mathematical plan. We’d start the day with a script readthrough every morning and everyone would throw in their problems and I had to oversee this. We ran the Fraggle sequences on VTR so we could relate to that and link the shots up. The director had to watch where everything joined up.

The hole down into Fraggle Rock was the beginning and end point for the production. Sprocket would put his head through the hole and we’d cut to the overseas material. You can see what a nightmare it was, lining everything up mathematically.

We loved making it, it didn’t seem like a days work, we loved getting into the studio and getting down to it. Every morning I’d walk into the auditorium, past wires and puppets, and suddenly I’d hear something - and of course Sprocket never talked - would look round and there was Sprocket speaking to me.

The puppeteers would know when I was coming in and would be ready. I’d ask him if he had a good night, and the paw and tail would go up. This went on every morning. Then from another door Gobo would appear from behind a door and say “good morning Victor!”. All these Fraggles saying hello. It became normal after a while!

That’s the impression you get, that a Jim Henson set is a happy set.

VP: I don’t use the word lightly, but Jim Henson was a genius. His imagination was extraordinary. I’d been to Europe several times, to Prague, to talk to puppeteers and they all revered him as a sort of god of the puppet world. That isn’t to say he wasn’t a very shrewd man, but artistically he was one of the great men of his generation.

How did you come to cast Fulton Mackay?

VP: I didn’t cast Fulton, it was down to Anna and Duncan. I went along to meet him and I’d always admired him, thought he was a terrific actor with a great personality. My initial response wasn’t enthusiastic.

I have to say I found him a little bombastic at that meeting. He’d brought along a tape recorder where he’d recorded his comments on how he saw his role, and it put our backs up a little. On the whole it went smoothly, but there were times when he was very difficult indeed. And he was quite jealous of the dog, Sprocket. This isn’t to run Fulton down – he got the show started for us and was a great lighthouse keeper and was basically very good - but when he had tantrums they were very tiresome.

He did well with some odd moments, barking like a dog – was he a trooper?

VP: When you work with Muppets it’s different from working with live actors, but you’ve got to treat them like real characters, not cloth things. At times he found that difficult, but basically he was splendid and was very popular with the viewers

Sadly he died near the start of the series - was he unwell during filming?

VP: We did a lot of location shooting down near St Mores in Cornwall and had to do a recce by helicopter to find a location. He stayed on location, as did his wife, and we had good fun. By mutual agreement we only took him on for two series

He was a Scottish lighhousekeeper – was Fraggle Rock set in Scotland?

VP: Well, like everything Muppet, locations are quite neutral and we would have gone for Scottish, Welsh or Chinese, as long as the character was right and he could interact properly. He was Scottish and we were very happy he was Scottish because we cast Scottish again with John Gordon Sinclair.

I suggested we have someone younger next time as that might appeal to the kids, but little did we know many of the viewers were adults. I suggested him, and he was terrific, a good actor is Gordon. He was great fun to work with we had a lot of laughs. The only thing he wasn’t so keen on was the publicity as he didn’t want to advertise too much he was on a childrens’ show. He was great in the location stuff and with the interaction with Sprocket, as he was quite a handful.

Moving away from the episodes, there were a lot of messages in Henson series: prejudice, the environment, having your own identity. Were you given a ‘moral of the week’ to work with?

VP: No, I had to think of something. They had it in the US version. Never forget it was filmed in Toronto at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Some things weren’t quite as right for our viewers as they were for US viewers. Sesame Street is a wonderful educational series without appearing to be educational, and kids still love it around the world. I worked at the Children’s Television Workshop and it’s a great industry, where the Muppets started.

The Fraggles were a kind of a way of educating children without making them feel like they were being educated. One thing we never did, and neither I nor Jim would have allowed it, was to lecture. We never did that. We’ve moved on since those years and the issues are somewhat different, children are older in their thinking, we all know what’s going on with teenagers.

Sex was never mentioned unless in very, very oblique ways. I remember I did try to introduce it into one of the shows but we couldn’t accommodate it as it just didn’t seem right, we were pushing ahead of our time I think. Today you could do that.

Did you have a typical viewer in mind?

VP: I wrote it for myself as I enjoyed it, but it was a children’s teatime slot. Since then it’s gathered momentum and appeals to adults. I was speaking to someone the other day here in Spain, she used to be a prison governor and I happened to mention I’d be doing this interview, and she asked what my involvement was and she nearly fainted because it was her favourite programme. She adored it and used to watch it in the prison! I didn’t invent it but I suppose I was one of its dads!

And how were the Uncle Travelling Matt segments filmed?

VP: Well you know that the name Travelling Matt is a joke don’t you? It’s a technical term used in filmmaking and photography. I wrote a couple of them, but we had a couple in Australia or France. We’d take some of their inserts and they’d take ours. Fraggle Rock was a jigsaw and it could be a real headache. We had to line everything up between the content filmed in Canada and the UK.

Would you have liked to have written more for the Fraggles themselves?

VP: I’d have liked to have done, but I was quite happy with what I was doing. I absolutely adored Sprocket and I loved the Doozers and the Gorgs. As I talk to you at the moment I have clockwork Doozers looking down at me from the shelf, making sure I tell the truth! I loved the Fraggle characters.

After John Gordon Sinclair things changed again.

VP: Yes, the time came for Gordon to inevitably move on. Duncan suggested Simon O’Brien. I didn’t know much about him, apart from the fact he’d played Damian on Brookside. I have to say that immediately the chemistry was there. Why did I like Simon so much? Well he was such a happy-go-lucky guy and he was a true Liverpudlian, very funny, and he teased me mercilessly. We didn’t interview him, but he was perfect.

His rapport with Sprocket was fascinating, the chemistry absolutely right. You could believe he was his dog. Remember that so many families have dogs, part of the family, and he was important to whoever was in the lighthouse.

When we came to the end of the series we hired Dover Castle for the farewell party. We held the party in the dungeons. Jim was there and Duncan, and the cast and crew had got together to put on a half hour show to say thank you to me. There was a little stage and the curtains pulled back to reveal all of them impersonating me, every one of them, including Sprocket. They had every mannerism down to a tea. It was joyous but also terribly sad.

What is the legacy of the series?

VP: Enjoy life and don’t take it too seriously. No matter how hard times are, there’s always light somewhere. The overall feeling is of joy. It was a joyous thing to do and to watch, helped enormously by those wonderful songs – they were so hummable. I don’t know how they did it.

Everyone used to wait for the opening song – don’t ask me to sing it – they used to start swaying to the music as you saw the Fraggles.

It’s a very moral show. Kids learnt how to do things and also things they shouldn’t do and they learnt respect.

Was that Jim’s view?

VP: Oh yes. Jim was a very moral man. He was a Christian Scientist, which I think is something that led to his death. I was with him in New York a week before he died. We went to a restaurant and he ordered the entire dinner on Third Avenue in his Kermit voice.

He wasn’t well, caught a cold, wouldn’t see a doctor, caught the flu, wouldn’t see a doctor, developed pneumonia and died. He was a very loving man. Brian is in charge of the empire now.

Jim’s legacy was to bring happiness to the world: when you watched Fraggle Rock you couldn’t fail to have a smile on your face.

What are your views of the proposed movie version?

VP: I think it’s a very good idea. With CGI they can do amazing things things. As long as they get a good strong story it’ll work beautifully. I’d have done the same, take them out into Outer Space. It’s very difficult in a half hour slot to maintain the same situation and set. Sustaining 90 minutes means you need a strong plot. I’d want to take them into the real world, have a few guest stars and well known names.

You can have a lot of fun with the characters, but get the story right. Grab them straight away or you’ll lose them. I hope the music will be there, with some great songs.

Writing will need to change from my day because attitudes have changed. The world has changed so dramatically since then, attitudes to religion, towards sex, have changed. You have to be aware of that otherwise the kids will just say “that’s not cool”.

They’ve got to do their own thing. There’ll be plenty of adults who remember it from when they were kids who’ll be eagerly awaiting it I’d think

I’ll be one of them

VP: Me too! I wish them the best of luck.

Victor Pemberton, thank you very much for your time!

The full audio version of this interview can be heard over at Steve Swanson’s fantastic MuppetCast website.

All photos are copyright Victor Pemberton and are from his website - go check it out.

Now, because that theme tune is probably in your head, here it is…enjoy!