We took up the offer with the BBC, and that was Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't have to submit my ideas to the group. I used to turn up on the days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Since I was 12 or 13, I have been taking movie meetings finding a project right for me because I wanted to try it. Craig gave us the script - it was set in Wales, it is really British humour. I just loved it.
I'd like to do a kind of 'Sunday Night At The Palladium'-style variety show on the BBC.
I just wanted to do this all Australian film and we didn't want to give creative control to overseas 'cause whoever comes on my sets, whether you're sweeping the floor or an actor, it doesn't matter who comes up with the ideas, it's a collaboration.
I worked on 'Blue Peter' and 'Tonight' and lots of TV plays, filmed people like Rudolf Nureyev and Ted Heath, and ended up a senior cameraman with my own crew. I'd had my first short story published in 1947, and when my writing really started to take off I decided to go freelance, and eventually left the BBC in 1965.
The challenge is the culture. You have to have a vision for the BBC-it can't merely be that it's big and has a place in the market.
When I was a kid, I wrote to the BBC, and the producers sent me a huge package through the post with 'Doctor Who' scripts. I'd never even seen a script and couldn't believe that they actually wrote this stuff down. It sort of opened a door.
I've been lucky to have made a number of travel programmes with the BBC, the object being to see places off the beaten track. As a result, I've often had a guide who's been able to show me things that you wouldn't see with a tour group.
But the way that we've got it organized in our family, we try not to work at the same time, so I'm just now starting to look around. I think I'd like to do a film.
The reason I haven't got an agent is so that no one can contact me to offer me a film part. In case I'm tempted to do something I'll regret later.
I've done a show at the Largo Theater called The 'Thrilling Adventure Hour.' We read, like, radio teleplays. It's a send-up of radio dramas from the '30s and '40s. We just did a Kickstarter for that so that we can do a web series and a concert film.