:00:36. > :00:38.You may not know his name but he has written some of our most
:00:39. > :00:46.This week, a new three`part drama series From
:00:47. > :00:52.It is a bold sweeping saga about the lives
:00:53. > :00:55.of two families ripped apart by events in the four years following
:00:56. > :01:00.There are three battles that shape our lives ` nature versus nurture,
:01:01. > :01:07.free will versus destiny, and City versus United.
:01:08. > :01:12.It is the story of love, betrayal and obsession that weaves
:01:13. > :01:16.together events like Manchester's rave scene, Euro 96,
:01:17. > :01:22.It begins with a family battling to save itself
:01:23. > :01:25.from the scars of separation at a meeting at a Manchester pub
:01:26. > :01:32.That is why Daniel wanted you to see me.
:01:33. > :01:40.I just wondered what it would take for you to turn around.
:01:41. > :02:00.The bomb's legacy was the catalyst for a city's transformation.
:02:01. > :02:05.Buildings can always be rebuilt but lives can be changed forever
:02:06. > :02:08.in an instant and that is the journey Peter Bowker
:02:09. > :02:17.He calls it his love letter to Manchester.
:02:18. > :02:29.# But when I touch your hands, I see shooting stars.
:02:30. > :02:33.# There is an honesty and a kindness about his writing which time and
:02:34. > :02:40.He is a sensationally truthful writer, he does not patronise his
:02:41. > :02:49.He writes really ballsy, tough, clever, intelligent, witty, wry,
:02:50. > :02:53.sarcastic, you know, all the things you want to play.
:02:54. > :02:56.What is so wonderful in his writing that he can often
:02:57. > :02:59.start with characters that are completely the opposite to how Peter
:03:00. > :03:08.I grew up in the suburbs, I grew up in a suburb of Manchester called
:03:09. > :03:13.Stockport, and I grew up in a suburb of Stockport called Hazel Grove.
:03:14. > :03:18.There is something about growing up in the suburbs which is you always
:03:19. > :03:21.imagine life is going on elsewhere, you always imagine something
:03:22. > :03:26.fantastic is happening in the city that you are a satellite of, and
:03:27. > :03:30.maybe that is why you make stuff up, maybe that is just to make life
:03:31. > :03:34.That might be one of the reasons I became a writer.
:03:35. > :03:40.Another reason might just be my dad was a screen printer and he
:03:41. > :03:44.often had offcuts of paper because of the size of the jobs they did.
:03:45. > :03:47.He would bring home sheets and sheets of paper that long.
:03:48. > :03:50.There is not a lot you can do with paper
:03:51. > :03:59.His dramas like Occupation, Flesh and Blood, and Eric and Ernie
:04:00. > :04:03.They take their inspiration from the Northwest and its people.
:04:04. > :04:07.Tonight we'll be finding out why his love affair with words and where
:04:08. > :04:12.This is Stockport Market in late October last year, the final scenes
:04:13. > :04:20.For Peter Bowker who now lives in London it is an emotional return.
:04:21. > :04:24.He used to come here as a boy, never dreaming he would come back
:04:25. > :04:36.In the real world, putting words on paper is not easy
:04:37. > :04:41.For Peter it has been a long and sometimes painful journey to get
:04:42. > :04:51.So I went from writing very bad poetry to writing very bad novels
:04:52. > :04:53.and then, marginally better but still bad radio plays.
:04:54. > :04:59.After 12 years of rejections, I finally wrote an OK script.
:05:00. > :05:01.There were two people who thought I was a writer.
:05:02. > :05:10.Me and the person who read the script.
:05:11. > :05:13.Relationships and family life are always at the heart of his dramas.
:05:14. > :05:17.Every family has a secret and the secret is that we are not
:05:18. > :05:21.Every family thinks everybody else is having a very normal life,
:05:22. > :05:24.and you only have to scratch the surface with families to find
:05:25. > :05:30.secrets, hidden passions, and so on, and myths.
:05:31. > :05:33.From There To Here poses the question, "What would you do
:05:34. > :05:36.if you thought you should have died when the bomb went off?"
:05:37. > :05:39.For the main character, Daniel Cooton, played by Philip
:05:40. > :05:44.Have you ever wanted to be anybody else?
:05:45. > :05:52.And so, when I came to write From There To Here, I wanted it, above
:05:53. > :05:56.all, to be about family myths, story telling, and people only having half
:05:57. > :05:59.the story of even where they came from, and how those patterns repeat
:06:00. > :06:06.And that is not to get Daniel, the central character, off the hook
:06:07. > :06:10.completely ` he makes decisions he is responsible for but he is barely
:06:11. > :06:16.aware of the forces that are guiding those decisions, and in a strange
:06:17. > :06:20.way that seems to hook back to the bomb and the fact that Euro 96 was
:06:21. > :06:35.a very optimistic point for British football but delivered us nothing.
:06:36. > :06:39.The bomb at the time was a traumatic thing and seemed like a tragedy
:06:40. > :06:42.So, you never know which are the good
:06:43. > :06:48.Growing up in the North means football is part of Peter's DNA.
:06:49. > :06:51.His obsession with Manchester United led to his first drama for TV,
:06:52. > :06:54.the King and Us, a play about the moment former
:06:55. > :07:00.United legend Denis Law scored a goal against Manchester City.
:07:01. > :07:04.The King and Us is how I met Pete, I first worked with him.
:07:05. > :07:07.It was about a moment in Manchester history when Manchester United were
:07:08. > :07:09.relegated, and the myth was that it was
:07:10. > :07:12.relegated by Denis Law back`healing the goal into the United net.
:07:13. > :07:20.It's not true, it would have gone anyway.
:07:21. > :07:23.The fact that Peter as a writer took that moment
:07:24. > :07:29.and used it, in a way, to write about a man's fear of fatherhood.
:07:30. > :07:37.I had one gag to do with birth and football and Denis Law, that was
:07:38. > :07:41.my first line written and everything had to build up to that gag.
:07:42. > :07:44.That was when the midwife saw the baby being born and
:07:45. > :07:47.Chris Ecclestone has already seen Denis Law score for City and
:07:48. > :07:51.so you have these crossed wires where he is telling his wife, who is
:07:52. > :07:55.You'll never guess who scored the bloody goal.
:07:56. > :07:59.He is a goalscorer, that is what he lives for, it's instinct!
:08:00. > :08:08.The midwife says, the head, the head.
:08:09. > :08:11.No, it was the backheel, Stepney never got near it.
:08:12. > :08:16.if I live to be 100 I will never land
:08:17. > :08:23.I am ashamed to say that I was one of the supporters who ran on
:08:24. > :08:27.the pitch to try and get the match abandoned and the score nullified.
:08:28. > :08:29.I have to say, the achievement of running
:08:30. > :08:32.on that pitch in platform heels and the athletic prowess required to
:08:33. > :08:36.evade people and slap Jim Holton on the back was worthy of an Olympic
:08:37. > :08:47.Part of the intention of From There To Here was to write
:08:48. > :08:51.a love letter to Manchester, and when I was thinking about what
:08:52. > :08:55.that meant, you know, I think it had to include the good and the bad.
:08:56. > :09:00.I think part of it is that I owe Manchester, it
:09:01. > :09:04.is where I grew up, it is where the rhythm of my writing comes from,
:09:05. > :09:15.it's where, to this day, I feel most at ease and when I feel I belong.
:09:16. > :09:25.I mean, it is easy to say when you've moved away, once you have
:09:26. > :09:33.this perspective, it is easy to write something when you have left
:09:34. > :09:36.an attempt to capture the spirit of the place, really.
:09:37. > :09:46.And it was the spirit of the Manchester music scene,
:09:47. > :09:50.especially nights spent here at the legendary Electric Circus Club,
:09:51. > :09:59.that helped inspire the writing dreams of a teenage Peter Bowker.
:10:00. > :10:01.1976, punk happened and everything changed, really.
:10:02. > :10:05.The sheer energy of places like Electric Circus and Rafters was
:10:06. > :10:22.quite a contrast to Camel's Snow Goose suite at the Free Trade Hall.
:10:23. > :10:26.All the bands that emerged there, the DIY bands, The Drones, The
:10:27. > :10:29.the criminally underrated Manicured Noise, Certain Ratio, and I remember
:10:30. > :10:32.we'd would go to Apollo to see an aofficial gig, and then rush across
:10:33. > :10:35.to the Rafters to see someone like The Rezillos.
:10:36. > :10:38.I spent all the 1970s wishing I hadn't missed out on the 1960s
:10:39. > :10:41.but once punk happened, you thought, ah, that's here, that's now,
:10:42. > :11:06.We knew it was going to be a good night if John Cooper Clarke
:11:07. > :11:11.And I still love Buzzcocks to this day.
:11:12. > :11:15.I think what they had was energy but what they brought to it was melody,
:11:16. > :11:18.and great lyrics, and I thought Howard Devoto, Pete Shelley, great
:11:19. > :11:21.lyricists, and they also have a lot to do with the rebirth of Manchester
:11:22. > :11:24.because they were the first band who self financed,
:11:25. > :11:27.on their own label, a single, and that changed everything, and
:11:28. > :11:31.made people think they could do a bit of their own stuff off as well.
:11:32. > :11:35.# You saw my natural emotions, you made feel hurt, and I'm hurt.
:11:36. > :11:47.# My version of doing something is an unfortunate
:11:48. > :11:50.afternoon of trying to sell my own poetry at Stockport Market
:11:51. > :11:53.which only became a punk experience when some one threatened me with
:11:54. > :11:59.Thankfully, no`one bought them so no`one can bring them out and
:12:00. > :12:07.flog them on eBay, otherwise I would have to be the highest bidder!
:12:08. > :12:11.Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside.
:12:12. > :12:13.The Northwest has always provided moments of inspiration
:12:14. > :12:16.Family holidays spent here on the Golden Mile later became
:12:17. > :12:19.the key to the groundbreaking crime series Blackpool `
:12:20. > :12:33.# You must try, try and try, try and try, you succeed at last.
:12:34. > :12:37.# Blackpool on the surface of it, it was a very, you know,
:12:38. > :12:40.when you first look at episode one you see a very fluffy, candy floss,
:12:41. > :12:54.But it very quickly descends into quite a dark,
:12:55. > :12:58.dismal sort of place and the decline of Ripley Holden and his friends.
:12:59. > :13:02.So it is quite a big statement, really, that he was trying to make
:13:03. > :13:04.with Blackpool, so it worked on many levels.
:13:05. > :13:06.That is why it was so massively successful, really.
:13:07. > :13:09.We had no idea it would be such a hit.
:13:10. > :13:12.It was such a risk to take at that time.
:13:13. > :13:34.# I'm losing sleep over the secrets that you keep.
:13:35. > :13:54.# I'm losing sleep over the secrets that you keep.
:13:55. > :13:57.17 years ago, in the days before Media City at Salford, Peter
:13:58. > :14:01.felt he had no option but to move his family down to London to get
:14:02. > :14:04.his voice heard, in the television industry corridors of power.
:14:05. > :14:07.It is one thing writing a drama, it is another getting it
:14:08. > :14:18.I got my first professional commission in 1991,
:14:19. > :14:21.so that's 22 years this year and I still feel that every
:14:22. > :14:23.commission I have is going to be the last.
:14:24. > :14:26.It's not a secure business and I was a teacher
:14:27. > :14:31.and I left what was a secure job to do this and it's just a case
:14:32. > :14:35.of sort of getting on with it, owning your ideas and finding a
:14:36. > :14:42.I suppose, finding a way to put those insecurities on the page,
:14:43. > :14:47.And Peter often uses humour to do just that.
:14:48. > :14:49.We live and breathe the stuff here in the North.
:14:50. > :14:52.They say you have to be funny to live here.
:14:53. > :14:55.In reality, you have to live here to be funny.
:14:56. > :14:58.This is the face that launched 1,000 quips.
:14:59. > :15:03.Eric's life story inspired Peter to write Eric and Ernie,
:15:04. > :15:06.a drama about the early days of Morecambe and Wise.
:15:07. > :15:22.He wanted to honour the greatest double at the country has ever
:15:23. > :15:29.produced. There is a heartbreaking moment when they have to sack Sadie.
:15:30. > :15:35.and Ernie are finally letting Sadie go, as it were, and it is going to
:15:36. > :15:40.come as a shock to her and it is a big turning point in the whole plot.
:15:41. > :15:42.I want it to have a kind of real understatement,
:15:43. > :15:44.whilst also really pulling your heartstrings.
:15:45. > :15:47.Eric. Be patient, keep them closed. Keep them closed. Sadie.
:15:48. > :16:07.That's no way to talk about your only child.
:16:08. > :16:12.You can open them now. Ham and eggs? What the heck is this in aid of?
:16:13. > :16:16.We've landed a tour. Number two circuit. ?25 a week. ?25 a
:16:17. > :17:08.week? When do we start? He didn't mean you. He meant us.
:17:09. > :17:11.And then the director did a wonderful sequence where Eric
:17:12. > :18:27.When he is not writing in his study in London, Peter likes to
:18:28. > :18:32.I like coming here because you can unwind. It's very nice.
:18:33. > :18:47.Always pretty empty and the main reason
:18:48. > :18:50.though is I've got a dog to walk. She's over there.
:18:51. > :18:53.And I've got cholesterol you could plaster the walls with.
:18:54. > :18:56.My uncle Ron told me that whisky burnt the fur off your arteries.
:18:57. > :19:01.so I've got a dog and I do long walks now instead.
:19:02. > :19:06.I don't find this kind of landscape that inspiring, to be honest.
:19:07. > :19:09.It is beautiful and I love being here. It's a bonus.
:19:10. > :19:12.But I've always walked. Wherever I'v lived, I've always walked.
:19:13. > :19:18.You can unravel plot and put plot back together, but I don't
:19:19. > :19:22.think I'm going to be writing an ode to a nightingale any day now.
:19:23. > :19:25.I love this part of the park because you get this...
:19:26. > :19:29.I don't know if you can see it, but you get this massive sweep,
:19:30. > :19:33.Right on the top there, from the top, you can
:19:34. > :19:35.see the Royal Ballet School in that direction
:19:36. > :19:39.and Wembley Stadium over there, two great high and low cultural icons.
:19:40. > :19:43.I'm not a great... This is as countryside as I go.
:19:44. > :19:47.I like to be within the sound of traffic.
:19:48. > :19:51.I get a bit insecure if all I can hear is birds.
:19:52. > :20:01.It becomes too Deliverance for me. So, yeah, this suits me.
:20:02. > :20:05.Just going to grab the dog from the deer.
:20:06. > :20:08.This is Flesh and Blood, one of Peter's most poignant
:20:09. > :20:19.It is about a man adopted at birth who later discovers his real
:20:20. > :20:22.parents have learning disabilities and never knew they had a child.
:20:23. > :20:25.How long have you been here? I don't know.
:20:26. > :20:26.Peter adapted key roles of the mother
:20:27. > :20:31.and father in the play for Dorothy Cockin
:20:32. > :20:33.and Peter Kirby who themselves have learning disabilities. In this
:20:34. > :20:42.scene, Chris Ecclestone's character Joe meets his birth
:20:43. > :20:50.mother for the first time. Hiya. Janet, this is Joe. Hello, Janet.
:20:51. > :21:08.I have got a little baby. I was like that once and you are... You are my
:21:09. > :21:13.dad. I just wanted to say it out loud. You did not understand a word
:21:14. > :21:24.of that, did you? No. and Blood is that it's a
:21:25. > :21:34.story about ordinary people's lives. We shot it on a tiny budget.
:21:35. > :21:38.Nobody really got paid much money. We shot it in a very modest style,
:21:39. > :21:41.but it had great power because it was written and hopefully
:21:42. > :21:44.performed and shot truthfully. But it didn't need to take place
:21:45. > :21:46.on the Titanic, it didn't need huge backdrops,
:21:47. > :21:49.it just needed flesh, blood and magic which I think was
:21:50. > :21:52.actually the original title. Flesh, Blood and Magic. It was the
:21:53. > :22:19.BBC, in their wisdom, shortened it. I wanted to write about the world
:22:20. > :22:23.and it was only when I left that world a few years later, I could
:22:24. > :22:29.look at it fresh. I wanted to write about parenthood and I wanted to
:22:30. > :22:36.write again about family and how you construct yourself. One of his most
:22:37. > :22:40.successful series was Occupation about the Iraq war and the
:22:41. > :22:50.devastating effects it has on the relationships of three friends who
:22:51. > :22:59.were soldiers from Manchester. I think what Pete was so brilliant at
:23:00. > :23:04.in that was of course in the grander picture you are talking about a
:23:05. > :23:09.conflict, but what interested him of course was how it impacts on people,
:23:10. > :23:14.not only on the soldiers themselves, but on their relationships, the
:23:15. > :23:20.domino effect of how many people are connected to that one person. At
:23:21. > :23:25.times, his writing can be painfully honest. This scene reveals how
:23:26. > :23:30.difficult some soldiers found that to show their emotions when
:23:31. > :23:40.adjusting back to family life. It is the unspoken words that say so much.
:23:41. > :24:04.Hello. You all right? Very good. Good. You go ahead.
:24:05. > :24:18.Will your wife be wondering where you got to? Unusually, Peter had an
:24:19. > :24:21.active role in the editing. For a writer to get in the edit in the
:24:22. > :24:25.first place, it takes a bit of doing in York were a. New writers do not
:24:26. > :24:32.get that privilege. `` in your career. Good editors want the writer
:24:33. > :24:38.in their even if it is only to nail what you intended to do with the
:24:39. > :24:44.narrative. What I find trickiest is stepping back from my own taste
:24:45. > :24:48.because the editor has a skull, the director has a school, the producer
:24:49. > :24:56.has a skill, the music people have a skill `` the editor and the director
:24:57. > :25:05.have skills. It is what works for the story, not what works for me as
:25:06. > :25:11.a vanity project. If it was just me, they would have the words really
:25:12. > :25:26.loud. Sometimes one word says it all. So. So. Still alive then. We
:25:27. > :25:33.macro unless we died in the night and went to heaven `` unless we died
:25:34. > :25:39.in the night and went to heaven. On the surface, he was a very
:25:40. > :25:43.conventional character. As the story unfolds, he goes through a very
:25:44. > :25:51.unconventional process. A lot of people might think this guy is just
:25:52. > :25:57.a serial adulterer. Towards the end, I think the really strong
:25:58. > :26:08.characters, which is down to Peter, they are the women. His wife,
:26:09. > :26:27.Claire, and Joanne. Oh, God. Who are you? His wife. Who are you? When I
:26:28. > :26:33.am writing, without it sounding too borderline ill, I think it is
:26:34. > :26:39.conversations I hear in my head. I cannot get it down quick enough. It
:26:40. > :26:44.is very much about rhythm. I don't know what I am doing when I am doing
:26:45. > :26:51.it but I can see if something has a rhythm when I look back, if it has
:26:52. > :26:59.got a conversational rhythm. My dad died in a pub cellar. He was an
:27:00. > :27:07.alcoholic. Lost him, he went just like that. 54. He annoyed the living
:27:08. > :27:11.daylights out of me but I missed the aggravation of the day. Your point
:27:12. > :27:14.is? When I missed the aggravation of the day. Your point is? When I'm not
:27:15. > :27:22.around to annoy you anymore, you will miss me. It is good. But don't
:27:23. > :27:28.expect a call from thought for the day any time soon. I wrote long
:27:29. > :27:34.before anybody looked at my work, long before anybody thought it was
:27:35. > :27:40.worth buying my work. It is an itch I have to scratch every day. It is a
:27:41. > :27:43.bit of a cliche, writing is something I have to do, but it
:27:44. > :27:47.really is. The world makes more sense to me if it is written down
:27:48. > :27:53.and dramatised. I think fundamentally that story is the way
:27:54. > :27:58.that we process the world. At the market, filming has finished and
:27:59. > :28:04.Peter's journey is nearly complete. But for the man who knows how to
:28:05. > :28:08.make a drama out of a crisis, there is still some words to say. In an
:28:09. > :28:15.age when every tweet, e`mail, Facebook entry, news bulletin, it
:28:16. > :28:19.does not explain a story, it distorts and twists the story and
:28:20. > :28:25.gives it an angle. The way I look at it, the irony is that drama might
:28:26. > :28:29.now be the only truth we have. The end.
:28:30. > :28:37.# The sky # In the sky
:28:38. > :29:51.# In the sky # Because I'm trying to
:29:52. > :29:52.put things right. Did I die?
:29:53. > :29:55.Not yet. But it can be arranged. All the lies.
:29:56. > :29:58.Does that just cost you nothing? Because I'm trying to
:29:59. > :30:03.put things right. Every one of us has lied.
:30:04. > :30:06.Every single one of us.