0:00:01 > 0:00:03The Billy Plays were brilliant.
0:00:03 > 0:00:06It was the first thing I remember actually being filmed in Belfast.
0:00:06 > 0:00:10The atmosphere, it felt and sounded real.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13I remember them being on the TV, so I do,
0:00:13 > 0:00:15with a young Kenneth Branagh in.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17Jim Ellis was in Z Cars, you know,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20then he was in our side streets doing a film, you know.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23If you were making it today, it's only the houses that's changed
0:00:23 > 0:00:25because the people haven't.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35It struck a chord in a way that was remarkable.
0:00:37 > 0:00:42I think it was Sean O'Casey who said you must write about what you know.
0:00:42 > 0:00:44I mean, I wrote about what I know.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50There were men in the neighbourhood like Norman.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55Yeah, we did really become the actual family.
0:00:56 > 0:01:0030 years ago, this neighbourhood became famous across the nation.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05Home to Northern Ireland's most successful TV drama, the Billy Plays,
0:01:05 > 0:01:10the story told of a troubled family struggling to stay together.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12And the audiences loved it.
0:01:17 > 0:01:22The Billy Plays were a prime example of something which
0:01:22 > 0:01:26British television was doing very powerfully for about 25 years.
0:01:26 > 0:01:27I'm talking to you.
0:01:27 > 0:01:29When somebody says, "Are you Kenneth Branagh?"
0:01:29 > 0:01:33they don't say, "Oh, I saw you in that Harry Potter film,"
0:01:33 > 0:01:36or "I've seen some of your Shakespeare films."
0:01:36 > 0:01:37It's the boy wonder himself.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40They say, "You were Billy, weren't you?"
0:01:40 > 0:01:42You don't think I'm taking him, do you?
0:01:42 > 0:01:44# You know my name... #
0:01:44 > 0:01:47I think I was on the Upper Malone Road once and a car passed
0:01:47 > 0:01:48and people shouted out, "Billy."
0:01:48 > 0:01:51- Billy, let him speak. - I don't want to hear him.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54It was really what you'd call now water-cooler TV
0:01:54 > 0:01:56because everyone was talking about it.
0:01:56 > 0:01:57It was fantastic.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01You've got a bed, man. Go to bed and rest up for your wife's funeral.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04I'll bloody kill you.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08The Billy Plays caused a sensation when first televised in 1982.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12Broadcast nationally on Play For Today, here were stories
0:02:12 > 0:02:16not focusing on the Troubles, but on ordinary working-class lives,
0:02:16 > 0:02:21in particular one Belfast family, the Martins, and their neighbours.
0:02:21 > 0:02:22Viewers hadn't seen a lot of that.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25They'd seen people turning over cars in the street in Belfast,
0:02:25 > 0:02:27they'd seen fires and riots and bombs
0:02:27 > 0:02:31and we'd hade bombing in London, but we didn't know anything about
0:02:31 > 0:02:35the people who actually lived in those streets themselves at that time.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39People at that stage were used to a drama about Northern Ireland,
0:02:39 > 0:02:42usually men in balaclavas lying in ditches in Harry's Game
0:02:42 > 0:02:44and all that sort of thing.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47But here was another theme altogether about ordinary people,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50who could have been in Birmingham or Manchester
0:02:50 > 0:02:52but they happened to be in Belfast.
0:02:52 > 0:02:57That was the era of the kitchen sink drama.
0:02:57 > 0:03:03There was a desire for strong, earthy plays.
0:03:03 > 0:03:06A lot of words, good writing and passion.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12Too Late To Talk To Billy was the first in the Billy series
0:03:12 > 0:03:15written by Belfast playwright Graham Reid.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18Up until, then the voice of ordinary Protestants,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21as distinct from their politicians or paramilitaries,
0:03:21 > 0:03:24had yet to be heard by a cross-channel audience.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27These plays, fashioned from life on the Donegall Road,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30where Reid grew up, changed all that.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38I wanted to write a play about a brother and sister relationship.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42The play basically was about the street I grew up in,
0:03:42 > 0:03:43the people I knew.
0:03:44 > 0:03:49There is no single character you can pick out and say that was so and so.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53Just my desire to write about the life I had known,
0:03:53 > 0:03:55the people I grew up with.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00How those little families operated in those small houses.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05This is Donegall Road, where I was brought up,
0:04:05 > 0:04:10spent most of my teenage years on the street corner there with the lads.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13Watching the world go by. Criticising most of it.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17And this is where the Billy Plays were set,
0:04:17 > 0:04:20Coolderry Street, gone now, part of the city hospital.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25Part of the landscape of my past.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32There was a time when I would have known
0:04:32 > 0:04:36every single person in the street and now the street's no longer there.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39The neighbouring streets, I'd be lucky if I knew one person.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46The very first draft of the very first Billy Play
0:04:46 > 0:04:48was much more about the Troubles and I realised
0:04:48 > 0:04:53when I came to redraft it that that is not where my heart was.
0:04:53 > 0:04:58My heart was with the Martin family, who represent, not my family directly,
0:04:58 > 0:05:00but the sort of people I grew up with.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05There was this huge central character, Norman Martin,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08the sort of man who opened the front door,
0:05:08 > 0:05:10everybody else in the street scattered.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13What came through the play was that Norman was trying to deal with
0:05:13 > 0:05:18the fact that his wife was dying of cancer, had been unfaithful to him
0:05:18 > 0:05:20and he couldn't cope.
0:05:20 > 0:05:25His response to emotion was with his fists.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28- I'm trying to explain. - Don't you tell me...
0:05:28 > 0:05:32Billy and his father are more alike than either would acknowledge or admit.
0:05:32 > 0:05:40Norman is the archetypal Belfast hard man and the question was
0:05:40 > 0:05:46would the man who played the affable Bert Lynch, was he capable
0:05:46 > 0:05:52of playing this much darker, much more satanic, violent figure?
0:05:52 > 0:05:57I was brought up amongst kind of hard men, even my father.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01He was a shipyard worker and if he got into any scrapes
0:06:01 > 0:06:05there was no doubt my father could handle himself.
0:06:05 > 0:06:11And Chris Parr said, "But can you handle yourself?"
0:06:11 > 0:06:14And I stuck my fist under his chin
0:06:14 > 0:06:19and he remembers it to this day and I said, "What do you think?"
0:06:19 > 0:06:23We said, "All right, Jimmy, you've got the part."
0:06:23 > 0:06:27There's too many people in this house trying to tell me what to do.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31Jimmy Ellis was part of my childhood as a Belfast cop in Z Cars
0:06:31 > 0:06:35but I didn't know about his theatre background and the great reputation
0:06:35 > 0:06:41he had, so to see someone as big as that rampaging around like King Lear
0:06:41 > 0:06:45in a small house in Belfast was just brilliant.
0:06:45 > 0:06:46Don't you question me, boy.
0:06:49 > 0:06:53We looked hard to find a Billy and an Ian, so we put adverts
0:06:53 > 0:06:59in the right papers and Ken Branagh and Colum Convey answered those.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04I was an actor just coming out of drama school at RADA
0:07:04 > 0:07:07where I was about to enter my last term
0:07:07 > 0:07:11and I saw an ad in The Stage newspaper, young actor required,
0:07:11 > 0:07:1716 to 20, must be able to do authentic working-class Belfast accent, it said,
0:07:17 > 0:07:21please send photo and CV to a room in BBC Television Centre.
0:07:21 > 0:07:27I thought, I'm going to get a chance here to be in the very first,
0:07:27 > 0:07:33the very first television drama set in Belfast
0:07:33 > 0:07:39about a working-class Belfast family and populated by the real McCoy.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43Colum Convey, who I knew at drama school,
0:07:43 > 0:07:45he'd just left, I think he was a term or two ahead of me,
0:07:45 > 0:07:49and we were good mates and we were to play best friends
0:07:49 > 0:07:53and I thought this feels like the writing is on some sort of wall here.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55What was he on at me for?
0:07:55 > 0:07:59I'm supposed to be meeting June at half seven, but my dad can't make it
0:07:59 > 0:08:01so now I've got to go up the hospital...
0:08:01 > 0:08:04I remember thinking as soon as they started talking,
0:08:04 > 0:08:06we've found them.
0:08:06 > 0:08:08You want me to stand in for you, do you?
0:08:08 > 0:08:11Let her have a real man for one night, eh?
0:08:11 > 0:08:13They were so different from each other,
0:08:13 > 0:08:15it was just a wonderful double act.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17Look at that, huh?
0:08:17 > 0:08:19Has somebody been chalking on you?
0:08:19 > 0:08:22Chalk. What do you mean "chalk"?
0:08:22 > 0:08:25That's a stripe, son. That's sewn on.
0:08:25 > 0:08:26Not while Robbie's here, huh?
0:08:26 > 0:08:28Are you a general now then?
0:08:28 > 0:08:30'He was a really wonderful clown.'
0:08:30 > 0:08:34He'd have that poignancy and sadness, but also be very funny,
0:08:34 > 0:08:37and people loved that character of Ian the window cleaner.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41'I suppose it was the trousers more than anything else.'
0:08:41 > 0:08:45In fact, that look is ripe for a return.
0:08:45 > 0:08:47You know, those high waistband trousers
0:08:47 > 0:08:50that come down to about midway down your shin
0:08:50 > 0:08:52and high platform-soled boots.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55The walk's crucial. The walk is crucial.
0:08:56 > 0:09:01'There weren't that many out there for Lorna either, in my opinion.'
0:09:01 > 0:09:05Brid's just extraordinary to look at when she's not doing anything.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09'And you don't always know what's passing through her head.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11'That's a great quality.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14'What you are aware of is Brid's Lorna
0:09:14 > 0:09:16'as the different things that a woman is, you know.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20'She's a daughter, she's a mother, she doesn't have much chance
0:09:20 > 0:09:24'to be a...anybody's lover,'
0:09:24 > 0:09:28but she's like a painting. She just suggests these different
0:09:28 > 0:09:30archetypal female roles.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32It was a long time ago.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36People fall in love.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38It doesn't...
0:09:40 > 0:09:43It started when Dad was in England...
0:09:43 > 0:09:45'I recognised the situation.
0:09:45 > 0:09:50'A young woman who suddenly has to be mother to younger siblings.'
0:09:50 > 0:09:54She's in a house where they're straightened financially.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56There's no trouble, is there?
0:09:56 > 0:09:59'And she has to come between two very aggressive males.
0:09:59 > 0:10:02'A father and son in the same household
0:10:02 > 0:10:04'and a mother who's very, very ill in hospital.'
0:10:04 > 0:10:06How's Mum?
0:10:10 > 0:10:15It would've been a different, less interesting thing without the children.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18- We'll have the 10p.- Are you listening to what I'm saying?
0:10:18 > 0:10:21'The presence of those kids is the backbone of the script.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24I'm telling you not to hang about when there's trouble.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27All right, I heard you. There's no need to write a song about it.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30'I remember seeing hundreds of girls for first auditions
0:10:30 > 0:10:35'and gradually these two emerged as the naturals.'
0:10:35 > 0:10:37I was nine, Tracey was ten,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40in the first one. I mean, we were babies.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43And the very fact that we remembered the whole script.
0:10:43 > 0:10:44We knew everybody's lines.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47We were told off for mouthing other people's lines.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50If people forgot their lines, me and Aine would prompt them.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54And we were told off so many times for just being, you know...
0:10:54 > 0:11:00There'd be a really dramatic scene, you know, and then, "Cut! Tracey, stop mouthing Ken's lines!"
0:11:00 > 0:11:03Stop going on. I'm sick of it. All the rest are allowed out.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05Well you're not, and that's final.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07'Yeah, we did actually become the actual family.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10'Whoever was doing the casting must've seen'
0:11:10 > 0:11:13the magic that was going to happen. You know,
0:11:13 > 0:11:16it was, like people say, a very magical time.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21'Several people made their debuts on Too Late To Talk To Billy.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25'Graham was making his television writing debut.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29'Paul was making his television directing debut.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32'I was making my producing debut.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35'Ken was making his television acting debut,
0:11:35 > 0:11:38'and so was Colum.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41'The way I see the plays as they develop is'
0:11:41 > 0:11:44that they're about a family and the survival of the family,
0:11:44 > 0:11:48um, which is threatened, severely threatened
0:11:48 > 0:11:51when the mother dies and the father just can't cope.
0:11:51 > 0:11:53I'm away to bed.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55Would you like some tea, Dad?
0:11:55 > 0:11:58No, I don't want any of your tea.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01What came through the play was that Norman was trying
0:12:01 > 0:12:05to deal with the fact that his wife was dying of cancer,
0:12:05 > 0:12:08had been unfaithful to him and he couldn't cope.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13I knew that Norman...
0:12:13 > 0:12:17was a very complex and troubled person.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20'Norman had a problem with drink...'
0:12:20 > 0:12:23and he had a problem...
0:12:23 > 0:12:26about being, I think...
0:12:26 > 0:12:28Mr Hard Man and Mr Big.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30I was going up to see her the night.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34I did...
0:12:34 > 0:12:39Jimmy practised and prepared the physical stuff, but didn't back off from it.
0:12:39 > 0:12:41'We would choreograph moves,
0:12:41 > 0:12:44'but then there was a wildness that took over.'
0:12:44 > 0:12:46I had to see a man.
0:12:46 > 0:12:49Hurry up with that tea, Lorna.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52As a father, he was a bit of a bully, and he...
0:12:52 > 0:12:55Particularly, he regarded his son...
0:12:55 > 0:12:57as a kind of almost as a rival.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59I'm talking to you.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02Go to the hospital and talk to your wife!
0:13:02 > 0:13:05The violence is bubbling under the surface from the word go.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09From the absolute word go, you know something's going to kick off here.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12Look, I'm trying to tell you.
0:13:12 > 0:13:13I'm trying to explain!
0:13:13 > 0:13:15It's like a boxing ring.
0:13:15 > 0:13:17Once you're in that ring,
0:13:17 > 0:13:20then you keep fighting till the bell goes and it's all over.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24- Did you go up and tell her? - Billy!- Tell him to listen to me!
0:13:24 > 0:13:29My character Lorna did try to come between them, at least on one occasion,
0:13:29 > 0:13:31and in that tiny space where you just have the sofa
0:13:31 > 0:13:34and a very small space between the wall on that set.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38- I'll bloody kill you!- Billy, the kids have had enough for one night!
0:13:38 > 0:13:41When they squared up to each other, I could actually feel that violence
0:13:41 > 0:13:44and you got the feeling you could easily get hurt.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46I go out to work every day.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48Your ma never knew what it was like to have a broken peg!
0:13:48 > 0:13:53One of the things that Lorna was trying to sort of stop happening
0:13:53 > 0:13:55was the violence in the family.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57You're about 16 years too late!
0:13:57 > 0:13:59Billy, let him speak!
0:13:59 > 0:14:02I don't want to hear him! You go to bed, auld man.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06'She's the sort of glue that keeps the family together until the final flare up
0:14:06 > 0:14:08'where she's rendered obsolete, as it were,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11'and it all ends in a split in the family.'
0:14:11 > 0:14:14I'm warning you. I'm bloody warning you!
0:14:14 > 0:14:18- Why didn't you let her run off with the insurance man!- Billy!
0:14:18 > 0:14:20For Norman, the Rubicon was the infidelity
0:14:20 > 0:14:24'and he couldn't reconcile himself to the fact his wife was unfaithful'
0:14:24 > 0:14:27with the insurance man.
0:14:27 > 0:14:29He was a better bloody man than you!
0:14:29 > 0:14:32At least he appreciated her, but you couldn't take that.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34That goes beyond the point of no recall,
0:14:34 > 0:14:36when Billy throws up to him,
0:14:36 > 0:14:41"Why didn't you let her run off with the insurance man? He was a better bloody man than you."
0:14:41 > 0:14:45And that's a big attack on Norman as a man,
0:14:45 > 0:14:48and he responds in the way he does.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52Well, she loved him. She despised you, but she loved him!
0:14:52 > 0:14:54Daddy!
0:14:56 > 0:14:58CHILDREN CRY
0:14:58 > 0:15:02If you ever come in this house again I'll bloody kill you!
0:15:03 > 0:15:06Shut up, up there, you hear me?
0:15:06 > 0:15:08Shut bloody up!
0:15:10 > 0:15:13'There was something animalistic about what Graham portrayed'
0:15:13 > 0:15:16in the way he evoked these men
0:15:16 > 0:15:20of a particular working class culture, which happened to be in Belfast.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23'Violence in lieu of love is a theme in the piece'
0:15:23 > 0:15:27and how easily one can swing to the other.
0:15:33 > 0:15:35It would've been about here.
0:15:35 > 0:15:39We'd of had these backyard walls along here...
0:15:39 > 0:15:42and the houses were on two streets Kilderry and Kilbegg.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49The whole of Kilderry Street's now gone.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51Taken over by the city hospital,
0:15:51 > 0:15:54which is where my mother died,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57and where Billy's mother dies,
0:15:57 > 0:16:00in the city hospital on this site.
0:16:03 > 0:16:08I remember Graham Reid, the author, gave me a bit of advice
0:16:08 > 0:16:13that when I did eventually get around...
0:16:13 > 0:16:17to going to the hospital, it was too late.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19'She'd gone.'
0:16:26 > 0:16:29And he said...
0:16:29 > 0:16:31"That's the moment...
0:16:31 > 0:16:34"when you, you realise."
0:16:34 > 0:16:36And he said, he said,
0:16:36 > 0:16:40"You should just get down on your knees beside...
0:16:40 > 0:16:43"the corpse of your wife...
0:16:43 > 0:16:46"and howl like a dog."
0:16:49 > 0:16:51HE CRIES
0:17:00 > 0:17:02You're all right now, love.
0:17:02 > 0:17:07'I remember that was one of the more difficult things I had to do'
0:17:07 > 0:17:10in the play, was this hard man...
0:17:10 > 0:17:12howling like a dog.
0:17:16 > 0:17:18Remember me and you in make-up?
0:17:18 > 0:17:20"Can we have some make-up on?"
0:17:20 > 0:17:22"You don't need it."
0:17:22 > 0:17:24"She's wearing make-up. Why can't we have make-up?"
0:17:24 > 0:17:28And they were always doing bits of an English accent.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31"Ken, are you ready to do the take now?" And I said,
0:17:31 > 0:17:33NORTHERN IRISH ACCENT: "Shut your mouth!"
0:17:33 > 0:17:36Maybe sometimes we might've got on their nerves.
0:17:36 > 0:17:3840-years-old. Who am I kidding?
0:17:38 > 0:17:40They had this unaffected quality,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44so their contribution to the sense that the plays had of containing very good acting,
0:17:44 > 0:17:47I think, was such an important thing.
0:17:47 > 0:17:48They kept it honest and real.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52Why can't we have a nice man, Da, like Sally Johnson has?
0:17:52 > 0:17:56'I think Graham's a bit like Dickens in the way that he writes children.'
0:17:56 > 0:18:00His childhood was probably the most vivid part of his life.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04I don't mean that necessarily in a positive sense.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07It can be, as with Dickens, it could be negative as well.
0:18:07 > 0:18:12'In the end, the most important thing in the world to him
0:18:12 > 0:18:14'is children, you know?'
0:18:14 > 0:18:19They move him and concern him more than anything else.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22- If anybody said anything. - Or laughed.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24He'd ram the brush up their arses.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26THEY LAUGH
0:18:26 > 0:18:28The production team created
0:18:28 > 0:18:31the Martin family home within Belfast's Balmoral Studios.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34For added realism, they returned to the streets
0:18:34 > 0:18:38around Graham's former neighbourhood for the exterior scenes.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42- In the plays, they're very sinister at night.- Very sinister,
0:18:42 > 0:18:46and it's the kind of secret, private place that is on the doorstep
0:18:46 > 0:18:50- that anything you don't want can happen in.- Yeah.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54'The moment you take things out of a daylight situation,'
0:18:54 > 0:18:56you go into the night situation
0:18:56 > 0:19:00and there are pools of light and there's big dark bits.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04'And if you're in Northern Ireland, there at that time,
0:19:04 > 0:19:08'those big dark bits could've held any number of nasty surprises.'
0:19:10 > 0:19:13'A Belfast street, people can be playing in the street,'
0:19:13 > 0:19:15buses going past, and then you walk round into the entry
0:19:15 > 0:19:18'and suddenly you're in some kind of no man's land.'
0:19:18 > 0:19:24'Just six feet away, you're in darkness where nobody can see what you're doing,
0:19:24 > 0:19:29and nobody wants to because they know you're up to no good.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32The auld bollocks is always in bad form.
0:19:32 > 0:19:34He hit me a dig in the rib.
0:19:34 > 0:19:39'I think when John Fletcher yanks Ian up the entry to beat the crap out of him,'
0:19:39 > 0:19:44that's quite frightening because suddenly within or seven feet of space,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47he is completely and utterly isolated.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50HE GROANS
0:19:53 > 0:19:56It feels like the mean streets. It feels like it's Scorsese time.
0:19:56 > 0:19:58What's going on?
0:20:01 > 0:20:03It's the Boy Wonder himself.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08What I recall was being outside and having a scene with John Hewitt,
0:20:08 > 0:20:11a wonderful actor, and how cold it was.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13It was absolutely, bitterly cold.
0:20:13 > 0:20:18Or someday...you'll push your luck too far.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21Any time you like.
0:20:21 > 0:20:23Like right now.
0:20:23 > 0:20:27It certainly felt, um, very claustrophobic
0:20:27 > 0:20:31and a place, a real arena, where people had to prove themselves.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34It's an insult to refuse a drink.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36All right.
0:20:36 > 0:20:37Just one swig.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40And so Billy did.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43GLASS SMASHES
0:20:45 > 0:20:49You can't totally ignore the troubles on the street,
0:20:49 > 0:20:50what's happening outside.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54It does impinge to some extent, there is the threat of danger,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57but that was not ever the centre of the play.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02The Martin family had more to concern them.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04Day-to-day issues were more important
0:21:04 > 0:21:06than the bigger picture outside.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12My opening shot was usually at the sink
0:21:12 > 0:21:16and I would never move much beyond the scullery
0:21:16 > 0:21:19to the little living room and the bottom of the stairs.
0:21:20 > 0:21:24That young woman I was playing, Lorna, was so repressed
0:21:24 > 0:21:28and had so little, sort of, life
0:21:28 > 0:21:33beyond this new, quite tragic life that was forced on her,
0:21:33 > 0:21:36that it was quite hard to shake it off.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38I was quite overwhelmed by it, really.
0:21:38 > 0:21:39Jimmy.
0:21:51 > 0:21:53It's great to see you, Jimmy.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55And you.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59What a daughter I had.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02And how you looked after me.
0:22:03 > 0:22:06And how you looked after that rascal Norman,
0:22:06 > 0:22:08I don't know, and stood all that.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11- I had an awful lot to put up with. - You did.- I did.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14And watching it again, I realise just how important
0:22:14 > 0:22:16that relationship was and how strong it was.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19It really was, it came across, this time, very much, to me,
0:22:19 > 0:22:23- watching it again.- Yeah, well...
0:22:25 > 0:22:29I'm no longer the 40-year-old street fighter that Norman was.
0:22:31 > 0:22:36Yeah. I was never like Norman, myself.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38But I empathised with Norman.
0:22:39 > 0:22:46There was one scene, I think, that gave away Norman's vulnerability.
0:22:46 > 0:22:48- That scene where you give him the kiss.- Yeah.
0:22:48 > 0:22:49We were having our supper
0:22:49 > 0:22:52and he was fightin' with someone in the street.
0:22:52 > 0:22:54So I remember that, and then next minute,
0:22:54 > 0:22:55Brid had us up the stairs.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58- NORMAN SHOUTS OUTSIDE - Quickly!
0:23:02 > 0:23:05Woah-ho! That's right, the big, bad wolf's here.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07You chase the kiddies off to bed.
0:23:07 > 0:23:10I remember actually rushing up the stairs like that,
0:23:10 > 0:23:12"Come on, quickly, get up the stairs quickly and hide!"
0:23:12 > 0:23:15That's what we really felt, because, you know,
0:23:15 > 0:23:16Jimmy was such a powerful actor
0:23:16 > 0:23:18and was able to provoke those emotions.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21ANN SOBS Kiss me.
0:23:21 > 0:23:24- What the hell are you cryin' for? - Dad, please let them go...
0:23:24 > 0:23:28It's you! You've turned them against their own father!
0:23:28 > 0:23:32He must, somehow, have realised
0:23:32 > 0:23:35that other men's children
0:23:35 > 0:23:37kissed them night-night
0:23:37 > 0:23:40and why was he different?
0:23:40 > 0:23:42There must be something wrong with him.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50She just got his face and kissed him,
0:23:50 > 0:23:52and it was just such a lovely, tender moment.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54In amidst all that violence.
0:23:59 > 0:24:01Good night, Daddy.
0:24:11 > 0:24:17That scene really did, probably, drain the last ounce out of me.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25Come, sit down, Dad.
0:24:26 > 0:24:31Too Late To Talk To Billy secured Graham Reid national recognition.
0:24:31 > 0:24:35Further success followed with A Matter Of Choice For Billy
0:24:35 > 0:24:37and A Coming To Terms For Billy.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40New characters emerged, including Uncle Andy,
0:24:40 > 0:24:43played by veteran Ulster actor Mark Mulholland.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Norman Martin, now remarried in England,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49returned to collect his younger children,
0:24:49 > 0:24:53a move that proved one change too many for Billy.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55I thought he wanted us to meet her before they got married.
0:24:55 > 0:24:59Does it matter now? He's married again, he's nearly stopped drinking.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01It's all different, we're all different.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03I don't think we are, I don't think anything's changed.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06I think Billy was, you know, trying to find himself
0:25:06 > 0:25:08and something about the whole arc of the plays
0:25:08 > 0:25:11was about a family trying to come to terms with itself.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14It's a title that Graham used in the end.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16'Basically, a discussion, both in the family
0:25:16 > 0:25:20'and internally, inside Billy, to do with trying to understand
0:25:20 > 0:25:22'what it was like to be a young man at that stage
0:25:22 > 0:25:24'in the early '80s in Belfast.'
0:25:24 > 0:25:27Is this a private row or can anybody join in?
0:25:27 > 0:25:30It was a very vivid way of understanding what it was like
0:25:30 > 0:25:33to be a young man in a working-class environment
0:25:33 > 0:25:35almost anywhere in the world.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47This is where my old house stood. 67 Coolderry Street.
0:25:53 > 0:25:55The very spot.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02I always maintained that the Billy Plays
0:26:02 > 0:26:05were, in essence, about my mother.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09My mother's gift of keeping the family together
0:26:09 > 0:26:13and always being able to reconcile the differences in the family.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15And sort out the problems.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18That's what the plays are for me.
0:26:19 > 0:26:21Memories of my mother,
0:26:21 > 0:26:24and it's going down those roads again with her.
0:26:30 > 0:26:32I think that family could have been transposed
0:26:32 > 0:26:34to Liverpool, to Manchester...
0:26:34 > 0:26:39anywhere, that family could have been transposed to.
0:26:39 > 0:26:41In this country, if you had something to say,
0:26:41 > 0:26:44you tended to work in television at that date.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46Things like Cathy Come Home.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49They'd been writing about a different part of society
0:26:49 > 0:26:53and the Billy plays are an absolute prime example of that,
0:26:53 > 0:26:55in that they were writing about what we, today,
0:26:55 > 0:26:59would expect to see from soap opera but at a level, I think,
0:26:59 > 0:27:00way above soap opera.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07This play was about this family just trying to survive,
0:27:07 > 0:27:10trying to keep their head above water.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13Normal life went on.
0:27:26 > 0:27:31With the Billy plays, I had a sense of coming home.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35To do a play that I'd fallen in love with.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38Damn them, then.
0:27:38 > 0:27:39I'm their father.
0:27:39 > 0:27:41Oh, I know you might wish I wasn't.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45But I am. They're mine! My kids!
0:27:46 > 0:27:47Anne!
0:27:47 > 0:27:50Maureen! Come down here.
0:27:50 > 0:27:51- Dad, please...- Shut up!
0:27:51 > 0:27:55Will I ever forget them? No. Course I won't.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58Not at all, me.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04Good night, Daddy.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10I'm not the sort of person who says,
0:28:10 > 0:28:13"Ah, it was one of my best performances."
0:28:14 > 0:28:16I'm not that sort of an actor.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19I hope I did my best.
0:28:24 > 0:28:26The Martin family was so vivid.
0:28:28 > 0:28:30I will never forget them.
0:28:40 > 0:28:43Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:43 > 0:28:46E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk