The lovely singer and TV star Cilla Black

Back in the 1970s and 1980s I did lots of celebrity interviews for Australian radio, magazine and newspaper outlets. Sadly, I didn't keep all of them, but I recently came across this one with the Liverpudlian singer and TV star, the late Cilla Black. It was recorded in advance of a concert tour of Australia and New Zealand. Despite her fame, there was no "side" to her and it was one of my most enjoyable meetings with a celebrity. Here's the link to my uncut recording which I have loaded onto my website: Cilla Black interview

Comments on my thriller

Some of the comments about my thriller set in the BBC in a fictional Middle Eastern country. Available as a paperback and Kindle ebook from Amazon. Click on reviews for easier reading:

Also available through Smashwords as an ebook.

How true are film or television "true stories"?

I've learned through bitter experience that scepticism is required when coming across a movie or a television drama that is "based on a true story". Sadly, many are more fiction than fact, often unnecessarily so.

The full story is HERE on my website.

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Paperback, Kindle and ePub copies of God's Triangle are available HERE

Saudi Arabia's hostility to Al Jazeera

The demand by the Saudi Arabians that Al Jazeera be closed is deeply ironical  as they were unwittingly responsible for its original very successful launch.

I was managing editor of the original BBC Arabic TV channel in the mid 1990s. The Saudis objected so strongly to our output that they shut us down by taking us off the satellite that they owned. At around the same time, Qatar was trying to get Al Jazeera off the ground, but with little success. This was chiefly because they could not get the right sort of staff, but with the sudden closure of the BBC channel, they had the pick of more than 150 talented BBC-trained Arab presenters, writers, producers and technicians. So, in November 1996, the channel went on the air, staffed chiefly by ex-BBC people who had taken with them the corporation's ethos of balance, fairness and honesty. In addition, Al Jazeera was able to buy at bargain-basement rates all the documentaries and features that the BBC had not had a chance to broadcast.

I have no doubt that if the Saudis had not crushed the BBC channel (not restored by the corporation until 2008), Al Jazeera would have struggled to become the political and social force that it so quickly did.

More on this by going to my website archive. You will find the articles HERE.

How true are "true stories" on TV and at the cinema?

      Jonathan Oates, the highly-respected local history organiser and researcher at Ealing Library in London, has written to the Ealing Gazette challenging the accuracy of the current BBC1 drama Rillington Place.
      As some of you know, I have an axe to grind over the way television and cinema dramatists often use "based on a true story" to play fast and loose with the facts -- usually for no honest purpose -- and in the process, re-writing what is the accepted historical record. I recently turned my back on the prospect of a large payment when I refused to extend the film rights to my book God's Triangle because one of the producers was promoting a script that outrageously and farcically ignored the true story.
      Anyway, here is Jonathan's letter:

In the interests of balance, here is the BBC blog on the background to the series:

http://bbc.in/2hfG8K6 

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More on this topic. My bitter experience with a film maker who didn't care 

about the truth in a true story. Go HERE

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'The Mortal Maze', a modern thriller set in the Middle East

Comments & Reviews

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"Ian Richardson has written a page turning thriller that screams to be turned into a blockbuster film. It has all the ingredients and characters to make a box office success. A flawed foreign correspondent, troubled by a gambling addiction, a penchant for exotic escort girls and drinking whiskey from the bottle; his old, avenging school chum, who becomes the world's most wanted terrorist, and a duplicitous, immoral spymaster who manipulates the reporter with devastating consequences. Their personal epiphanies come far too late. To say any more would spoilt the plot." Amazon review by Malcolm Brabant.

"A fast paced novel, full of authentic journalistic references and fascinating detail about the Middle Eastern setting. Richardson weaves a complex plot with dexterity, interweaving carefully crafted characters' subplots and storylines to a thrilling climax." Full review here. Beth Pevsner, Durham University, County Durham, England.

"A labyrinthine tale with a blinder of an ending. Heart stopping stuff. I am glad you didn't tell me how it ended before I began reviewing it." - Jan Woolf, editor, London.

"Oh how I enjoyed it! I could just see it all happening. I could hear the chaos. I could smell the horror. I cried for Felicity and the children. It's been my New Year's reading pleasure. I will read it again." - Christine Bett, Ballarat, Australia.

"The Mortal Maze is entertaining, fast paced with well drawn believable characters, and is well worth a few hours of anyone's time. In fact, it's something of a page turner and difficult to put down; I read it in two sittings. Written by an author not unfamiliar with the troubles and tribulations of TV journalism in foreign lands, it has a genuine feel for the sometimes problematic relationships between journalists and diplomats as well as the demands of the editors back home and the realities on the ground. I had to smile at the groans from the journalist 'hero' and his irrepressible cameraman when HQ in London sends in the self important 'heavyweight' as the story develops in significance. I look forward to a follow up." - Ben A. Amazon review.

"I thoroughly enjoyed this well researched & very well constructed fast moving topical thriller. It is full of twists & turns & had me gripped from the start to the climactic finish. I would love to see it made into a film!" - anon, Amazon Customer

"A well-plotted novel packed with incident and featuring sharply drawn relationships between some convincing characters, this lively and topical thriller fairly zips along from the start, gathering pace until the dramatic finale. The author makes the most of his journalistic background without overdoing the use of an insider's knowledge of technical detail and jargon." - T. Luard, Amazon review.

"A terrific fast-paced read! I was well and truly hooked from the start. I loved the feisty characters and loved loathing one or two of the BBC high-ups. A great insight into what goes on behind the news in dangerous territory. I recommend." - Carole Bentley, Amazon review.

"Excellent thriller: rattling good yarn. Works on several levels; critique of hypocritical foreign policy, skewering of BBC bureaucracy, portrait of Middle Eastern country, deft characterisation." - Amazon review by Stephen Jessel, Paris.

"The Mortal Maze was part of my holiday reading - and a very good part it was! I particularly enjoyed the frictions and conflicts between the resident members of the BBC's news bureau team and the special correspondent followed by the relief manager who were flown in to work at the bureau. I also very much enjoyed the way the relationships between the members of the bureau team itself were portrayed. As well as these, I found Ian Richardson's storylines were most compelling... though some were more than a little sad." - Amazon review by Peter Udell, London.

"Fast moving and thoroughly enjoyable. An excellent insight into the way news works, some of the unpleasant people who work in it and the strong professional rivalries. Plausible plot - who are the Government spooks in the broadcast organisations? I was so hooked that I got through the last 20 minutes according to Kindle in 12 minutes because I wanted to find out what happened." - Amazon review by JRExelby.

 Buy The Mortal Maze here

Ciggies on the screen

Last night my wife and I watched a 1967 black-and-white BBC interview with actor Maggie Smith. It was reasonably interesting, but what really caught our attention immediately was that both she and her interviewer were happily smoking cigarettes on screen. Can you imagine that happening now? Of course not. Indeed, all BBC premises are now no-smoking areas and special permission has to be gained to light up a cigarette if one is required and artistically justified for a drama being shot in a studio.

The Maggie Smith interview took me back to the wonderful film Good Night, and Good Luck about the broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Murrow not only smoked during his program -- it was in the 1950s -- but it was sponsored by a cigarette company. Again, can you imagine, say, David Dimbleby puffing away on a cigarette during a live BBC television program? It would be out of the question.

When I worked as a journalist for BBC World Service, smoking was permitted in the newsroom for most of the years I was there. World Service news bulletins were then read at a rather leisurely pace to aid audibility on the shortwave transmissions. This allowed several of the tobacco-addicted newsreaders to smoke during a bulletin. They would inhale deeply between news items and breath out as they read each story. It was an astonishing sight, although many of my colleagues didn't seem to think so at the time.

Finally, on a thinly-related matter, there was once a music hall comedian born Vernon Watson. He wanted to have a more distinctive name, but couldn't think of a suitable one until one day he spotted a No Smoking sign. From them on, he was Nosmo King!

TV events: The BBC's addiction to fictional figures - UPDATE

For reasons best known to the BBC, it merrily trots out all sorts of figures that just can't be substantiated. It happens all the time, frequently claiming financial and business losses that seem to have been calculated by holding up a wet finger in the wind. You know the sort of thing: A strike is staged or there is a shutdown for some other reason and we are told that there are "losses amounting to [insert any figure you like here]". Sure there are losses caused by shutdowns, but just because a can of beans, a jacket, a book, a dining table or a book of stamps is not sold today doesn't mean it won't be sold tomorrow and, therefore, is not a "loss".

This takes me on to the nonsense frequently repeated by the BBC and other media organisations about audiences for events such as royal weddings, American presidential inaugurations, and major sports.

Take the current claim in news bulletins that the opening of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow was watched by "up to (or more than) a billion people". How could that be? It's impossible.

Over the years, several ex-BBC editors, including myself, have challenged the "wet finger" calculation of figures, with no apparent effect. Among the most vociferous objectors is a former BBC senior manager and colleague, Graham Mytton, who is an internationally-recognised expert on audience figures. I am taking the liberty to quote from a Facebook entry he made earlier today about a BBC claim that the Commonwealth Games had an audience of more than one billion:

Why does the BBC put out this impossible and self evidently risible rubbish? There are two billion people in the Commonwealth. Most of them will have been asleep last night (it was 2.30 a.m. in India). Is it remotely conceivable that half of them were watching last night? No global TV programme has yet reached a billion, not even the Olympics, although they have come close. Why does the BBC throw away its usual caution and acclaimed authority for accuracy when it comes to global TV audiences? Every time it does this. The Royal Wedding, the Oscars, the World Cup and so on. When I worked at the BBC, one had to have a source. There is no source for this rubbish. Why? Because it is not true. Simple.

Does it matter that the audience figures are inflated? Will anyone care? Well, they should care because the BBC has built up over several decades an international reputation for accuracy. This should apply to every aspect of a story. If it plays fast and loose with figures for such things as business losses and audience figures, what else is considered too good to check?

UPDATE:  On the same subject, this article is worth reading. It denounces the extraordinary claims for the TV audiences for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton:
http://bit.ly/GarbageAudienceFigures

Sub-titles -- the good and the bad and those that are just not there

UPDATE: Wonderful new live sub-titling error on a BBC weather forecast: “Miss Dan Fogg could be found in Scotland yesterday morning."
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My wife and I are not deaf, but we have to admit that at our advanced years our hearing is not perfect. The top frequencies don't register very well and consequently we sometimes have to wear our hearing aids at lectures or while watching TV.

We are immensely grateful to the BBC and the main British commercial channels for routinely offering sub-titles. We've never had trouble with sub-titles, having loved watching foreign-language movies in our younger days in Australia. What surprises us is the number of British films that are being offered on DVD without sub-titles. It is now the fashion with television and feature film dramas to have the actors speak "naturally", i.e. not producing and projecting their voices as was the practice in days gone by. All very well, but the directors and producers must accept that there are now more old people than youngsters in Britain and with age comes hearing problems. Therefore, sub-titles are important for a great many people who buy or rent DVDs. Without sub-titles, many DVDs are of little or no use to many potential buyers. So, how about it guys and gals: spend a little more time and money making sure that your DVDs have sub-titles. It will make many of your customers happy and may well result in increased sales.

Going back to the sub-titles offered with programmes transmitted on mainstream television channels in Britain, there is sometimes fun to be had watching the automated sub-titling on live shows. This is usually done with voice recognition software with its inevitable dangers. A friend of mine recently spotted these three amusing mis-translations in just an hour or two of watching a live television programme:

--- A shrug of carriage = Nigel Farage
--- Gaultier a brat on strike = Gaultier Breton stripe
--- Richard had a habitation below the knee = ... an amputation...

But my favourite of recent times concerns the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.
His name came up on the TV news screens one day as "So gay lover of". This is additionally amusing in the light of Russia's difficulty coping with homosexuality.

When does a film become "period" in Australia?

A long-standing mate who runs a TV production company in Australia is passing through London this week and we caught up for lunch today. In addition to selling his programmes, he is looking for small-budget films to make. I gently suggested that he might be interested in Blind Mike, a music-laden screenplay that I had written, inspired by Grantley Dee, the famous Australian pop singer  and the world's first blind DJ. He couldn't remember Grantley and in any case, "we don't have a market for period films". "What do you mean 'period films'?" I responded with some astonishment, "this was in the 1960s!"  "But that was last century, mate!" he said dismissively.