0:00:07 > 0:00:11Welcome to HARDTalk, I'm Stephen Sackur.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14Watching TV is something pretty much all of us do for news,
0:00:14 > 0:00:18sport, and entertainment, but how much of what we stare
0:00:18 > 0:00:22at on the box do we actually remember?
0:00:22 > 0:00:25Well, over the past 50 years my guest today produced some
0:00:25 > 0:00:27of the most memorable, brilliant and shocking TV
0:00:27 > 0:00:32drama ever made.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35Tony Garnett's subjects - homelessness, illegal abortion,
0:00:35 > 0:00:37police corruption - point to his radicalism.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41He uncovered dark corners of British life.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43How much of his motivation came from the dark corners
0:00:43 > 0:00:46in his own life?
0:01:14 > 0:01:17Tony Garnett, welcome to HARDTalk.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19Sometimes it feels simplistic to make causal links
0:01:19 > 0:01:22between people's professional lives and their personal lives,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25but in your case would you say there are grounds for making
0:01:25 > 0:01:29a very direct connection?
0:01:29 > 0:01:32There are, of course there are with everyone.
0:01:32 > 0:01:37Sometimes they are unconscious and they remain unconscious.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39I have only just recently, finally, through hammering through the first
0:01:39 > 0:01:42draft of this memoir, realised what the connections were.
0:01:42 > 0:01:48I think it is true of everyone.
0:01:48 > 0:01:54You fascinate me in that sense, because you have waited
0:01:54 > 0:01:58until your late 70s, 80 years old, to write a memoir which has exposed
0:01:58 > 0:02:00very bleak and dark things about your own past,
0:02:00 > 0:02:05which, in a sense, cast new light upon your professional work
0:02:05 > 0:02:09as a television and film producer.
0:02:09 > 0:02:14If we start with the personal, as a child you went through the most
0:02:14 > 0:02:16extraordinary trauma which most people watching this would not be
0:02:17 > 0:02:19able to imagine.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23Can you tell me a little bit about it?
0:02:23 > 0:02:28Well, very, very briefly, it was 1941 in December.
0:02:28 > 0:02:33The bombs were dropping in Birmingham and my dad
0:02:33 > 0:02:37was in a reserved occupation working in a munitions factory.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40It was down the air raid shelter every night,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43up the next morning to see if the house was still there.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46I was loving it, it was a lot of fun for me.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48You were a kid, five years old.
0:02:48 > 0:02:50I was five, it was pretty exciting.
0:02:50 > 0:02:52I was in a very loving family.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55My mum adored me and my dad was strict but I worshipped him,
0:02:55 > 0:02:58my aunt and uncle were next-door and my grandma was down the road.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01It was a typical old fashioned close family.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06My mum got pregnant and my mum and dad decided for reasons,
0:03:06 > 0:03:11some of which have probably died with them, that it just wasn't
0:03:11 > 0:03:15the time to have another baby.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18In those days, it was illegal and it was against God.
0:03:18 > 0:03:24Abortion, you mean?
0:03:24 > 0:03:30Abortion was completely illegal.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34They found an abortionist, there was always a woman
0:03:34 > 0:03:37in the neighbourhood who would help girls.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39She had this abortion and something went wrong with it
0:03:39 > 0:03:45and she got very ill.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50My dad, three nights later, went to work and I was sent to bed.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54When he was on nights I slept with her, which I loved.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58I was woken up in the middle of the night and there was my mum
0:03:58 > 0:04:00banging on the adjoining wall to my uncle's house next door,
0:04:00 > 0:04:07shouting and screaming and wailing.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10It was a sound I had never heard before and have never heard since.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14And my aunt and uncle came round, whisked me away, of course.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17Some of this I learned later and pieced together,
0:04:17 > 0:04:26my mum died during the night before my dad got home.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28No one said anything to me.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31The next morning, I was at my auntie's house and my dad came
0:04:31 > 0:04:39in and he was weeping, in an uncontrolled way.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43I had never seen a man cry.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46I'd never believed my dad could cry.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49I was sent to my grandma's and then I was sent to an aunt.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54I saw my dad once more on Christmas Day, he came
0:04:54 > 0:04:58round for half an hour or so and I sat on his knee.
0:04:58 > 0:05:03Then, the day after New Year, he got a hose, put it in the gas,
0:05:03 > 0:05:09and laid down with a bottle of Scotch, and he didn't finish it.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11He gassed himself to death?
0:05:11 > 0:05:13Yes.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15My aunt said, "your father is dead".
0:05:15 > 0:05:19No one explained anything to me, no one asked me how I felt.
0:05:19 > 0:05:26To be fair to them, I think they were planning when I was much
0:05:26 > 0:05:32older to tell me these awful things.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36It is 75 years on and I can tell, even the way you tell the story
0:05:36 > 0:05:39today, it lives with you in a very real sense now.
0:05:39 > 0:05:44It lives with me now but it didn't because I buried it.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46My theory now is that I could not experience it.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49It was almost an act of self preservation.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51But remember, for them, not only had they lost...
0:05:51 > 0:05:54My granddad and grandma had 12 children, and my mum was one
0:05:54 > 0:06:02of the favourites of them all.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05Not only had they lost two people that they loved,
0:06:05 > 0:06:09but an abortion?
0:06:09 > 0:06:11A suicide?
0:06:11 > 0:06:13Attempted suicide was against the law.
0:06:14 > 0:06:15These are all massive taboos.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17And against God.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20Just put yourself back to those times and in that class,
0:06:20 > 0:06:22they are respectable working-class people -
0:06:22 > 0:06:26the shame of it.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29You somehow saved yourself.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32To put this into context, this was the Second World War.
0:06:32 > 0:06:34All over Europe, little children were having it a lot worse
0:06:34 > 0:06:38than I was.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41They were going to concentration camps, their parents were taken away
0:06:41 > 0:06:42from them, the suffering and the starvation.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46It was difficult and I had to deal with it.
0:06:46 > 0:06:53But we all have difficulties, not as difficult as that perhaps.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58You do not judge life by the hand that people are dealt,
0:06:58 > 0:07:05you judge life by how they play the hand.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08How they deal with it.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11You have to deal with it.
0:07:11 > 0:07:13I dealt with it by burying it and only very gradually,
0:07:13 > 0:07:18recently, have I been able to resurrect it.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21I totally take the point about the burial of it emotionally
0:07:21 > 0:07:25and personally, but you didn't bury it entirely because it clearly
0:07:25 > 0:07:32coloured your consciousness, your awareness of how
0:07:33 > 0:07:35the world works.
0:07:35 > 0:07:37If we get onto the beginnings of your film-making
0:07:37 > 0:07:39and television-drama-making career, you always had a very strong sense
0:07:39 > 0:07:43that there are powerful people in society, but there are a lot more
0:07:43 > 0:07:45powerless people, people who have bad stuff happen to them
0:07:45 > 0:07:50and for whom the system does not really work.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53You were quite radical, quite young.
0:07:53 > 0:07:59Yes, just to tease that out a little bit, first of all my work has
0:07:59 > 0:08:03been about secrets.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06My whole childhood and adolescence was that I did not want
0:08:06 > 0:08:09any more secrets.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13I interrogated relatives mercilessly, I just wanted to know.
0:08:13 > 0:08:19Looking back on it now, these connections were unconscious
0:08:19 > 0:08:21to me until recently, my work is that I want
0:08:21 > 0:08:25to expose the secrets.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29Like, for instance, we did a film, Newman wrote the screenplays
0:08:29 > 0:08:35and Les Blair directed them, about the Metropolitan Police
0:08:35 > 0:08:38detectives in the 70s.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40I wanted to know the truth.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43And the abuses that were within the police force?
0:08:43 > 0:08:45The abuses in the police.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48The police had interrogated my dad, there had been a policeman outside
0:08:48 > 0:08:50the house, they had followed him wherever he went.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53After your mother's death?
0:08:53 > 0:08:56Yes, because they wanted to find the abortionist.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58My dad didn't shop, he didn't say anything,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02he killed himself.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06So that is one aspect of it.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10Let's go to a clip which will give people, many of whom are young
0:09:10 > 0:09:13and will not know your work so well, let's go to a clip that encapsulates
0:09:13 > 0:09:18the degree to which you in the end dramatised some of the terrible
0:09:18 > 0:09:22things that you had somewhere in your own consciousness.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26Let's start with Up The Junction, a drama that you made in 1965,
0:09:26 > 0:09:30had a huge audience on the BBC, filmed in black and white.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34It was all about a backstreet abortion.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37Let's play a little, and quite difficult to watch, clip.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41Let's look at this.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50GRUNTS AND CRIES
0:09:50 > 0:09:53Take the lowest figure, 52,000 abortions a year.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55That is 1,000 abortions a week.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59Something like five or six every hour, of every day.
0:09:59 > 0:10:02And that is taking the minimum figure.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06It is a pretty extraordinary piece of film because there you have got,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09obviously we've only taken a short clip, but you have a very graphic
0:10:09 > 0:10:12portrayal of a woman in the middle of terrible suffering but you chose,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15in a pretty new and revolutionary way for television, to juxtapose
0:10:15 > 0:10:21that with a very measured, dispassionate voice,
0:10:21 > 0:10:24giving some true facts, some journalism, about the scale
0:10:24 > 0:10:28of the problem of illegal abortions.
0:10:28 > 0:10:30It was a mix of drama and fact, which Britain hadn't
0:10:30 > 0:10:33really seen before.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37No, a lot of it was new.
0:10:37 > 0:10:43That voice-over was my GP.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47My doctor from Kentish Town, Dr Grant.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52His specialty was pregnancy and birth and so on.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55He knew a lot about it.
0:10:55 > 0:10:59Did you tell anybody that you wanted to be involved in this project
0:10:59 > 0:11:03partly because your own mother had died in a backstreet abortion?
0:11:03 > 0:11:05No.
0:11:05 > 0:11:06I told no one.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10Why?
0:11:10 > 0:11:11I don't know why.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14Why would I?
0:11:14 > 0:11:17Because that would give everybody a sense of how much it
0:11:17 > 0:11:19mattered to you.
0:11:19 > 0:11:24I don't know, in Birmingham we don't talk about stuff,
0:11:24 > 0:11:29we keep things to ourselves.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32Why would I burden people with all of that?
0:11:32 > 0:11:35There is one thing I want to correct, if I may?
0:11:35 > 0:11:38It is an inexcusable shorthand for you to say "films that I made".
0:11:38 > 0:11:41I have never made a film.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43Ever.
0:11:43 > 0:11:45Produced is the right word.
0:11:45 > 0:11:47Yes.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50You could say I had a role in it if I produced it,
0:11:50 > 0:11:52or wrote it, or directed it, but for me films
0:11:52 > 0:11:53are social activities.
0:11:53 > 0:11:54They are not like novels.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57I have always gathered people around me who have worked
0:11:57 > 0:11:59together very closely.
0:11:59 > 0:12:04One of the men you have worked closest with is Ken Loach.
0:12:04 > 0:12:08And, of course, Ken Loach has had a fantastic career and has won
0:12:08 > 0:12:11prizes at Cannes and all over the world.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13You and he, I think, are regarded as pioneers
0:12:13 > 0:12:18of and revolutionaries working with this idea of social realism,
0:12:18 > 0:12:23of using actors who are encouraged to extemporise, to be spontaneous,
0:12:23 > 0:12:28not to obsess about memorising scripts but to let drama unfold
0:12:28 > 0:12:36and live with the drama unfolding.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40How new was all of that and do you accept this notion that you set
0:12:40 > 0:12:47a trend that still matters to a great many film makers
0:12:47 > 0:12:49around the world?
0:12:49 > 0:12:53I don't know, I don't see much sign of the trend now, frankly.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57I never thought of it like that.
0:12:57 > 0:13:01This all started for me as an actor and the terrible way actors
0:13:01 > 0:13:06are treated, were treated and still are to some
0:13:07 > 0:13:09extent, by everybody.
0:13:09 > 0:13:11I thought they had got everything wrong, everything wrong
0:13:11 > 0:13:14with their attitudes to screenplays, their attitude
0:13:14 > 0:13:16to lights and cameras.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19The actor was in the service of all of that, but I wanted
0:13:19 > 0:13:23all of that to be in the service of the actor.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26It is the audience that sees the actor or the character -
0:13:26 > 0:13:29they should not even see the actor.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32When I met Ken, we were up both working on The Wednesday Play.
0:13:32 > 0:13:38We did not have to talk very much because we just knew of each other.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41He had seen the light too.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44Ken is the finest director of actors, of conjuring
0:13:44 > 0:13:46a performance from actors, that I have ever worked with.
0:13:46 > 0:13:58We were brothers from the start.
0:13:58 > 0:14:04Talking of truthful performances and the power that television drama
0:14:04 > 0:14:08can generate, let's look to one more clip that is perhaps the most famous
0:14:08 > 0:14:10project you collaborated on and that is a drama called
0:14:10 > 0:14:12Cathy Come Home, which exposed the problem of poverty
0:14:12 > 0:14:18and homelessness in the Britain of the mid-sixties.
0:14:18 > 0:14:24This scene we are going to see is very upsetting.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28It is based on a true life story, it is where the authorities have
0:14:28 > 0:14:30come to take away the children of a young mother.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34Let's have a look.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39You are not having my babies.
0:14:39 > 0:14:42SCREAMING AND CRYING
0:14:42 > 0:14:47Get out!
0:14:47 > 0:14:56SCREAMING AND CRYING
0:14:56 > 0:15:01I tell you what, it is hard to watch that and not feel a stab of pain
0:15:01 > 0:15:07in your heart.
0:15:07 > 0:15:09Well, I felt it because I had lost my mum.
0:15:09 > 0:15:15I had been taken in by the family, what your mum is your mum.
0:15:15 > 0:15:18-- I had been taken in by the family, but your mum
0:15:18 > 0:15:19is your mum.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22There was an advertisement when I was young for something that
0:15:22 > 0:15:23said, "accept no substitutes".
0:15:23 > 0:15:24There are no substitutes.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27You lose your mum.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30What I am thinking about was the degree to which your films had
0:15:30 > 0:15:33such an impact that they became almost part of the political
0:15:33 > 0:15:38discourse in Britain.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you had a meeting
0:15:41 > 0:15:44with the British Government's Housing Minister as a result
0:15:44 > 0:15:48of Cathy Come Home, the furore, 12-14 million people had watched it,
0:15:48 > 0:15:51the nation was talking about this problem of young people
0:15:51 > 0:15:53who could not get homes, who were forced out of homes
0:15:53 > 0:15:55and ended up losing their families.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58You made a difference.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01Do you feel your films, going back to the 60s and beyond,
0:16:01 > 0:16:03made a difference?
0:16:03 > 0:16:06It depends on what you mean by making a difference.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09When I was young and arrogant, I thought we could make a film
0:16:09 > 0:16:10and change the world.
0:16:10 > 0:16:11Film don't do that.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15The most that a film can do, to use an old political phrase,
0:16:15 > 0:16:17is raise consciousness, so that people who are active
0:16:17 > 0:16:30in politics can be affected and then they can change the world.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32We did have a meeting, Jeremy Sandford, the writer,
0:16:32 > 0:16:35and the director and me with the Minister at the Ministry
0:16:35 > 0:16:38in a beautiful and huge room in Whitehall -
0:16:38 > 0:16:41I have never had a flat as big as that - and it was a very
0:16:41 > 0:16:46English occasion.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48He was there with his permanent secretary.
0:16:48 > 0:16:49We sat down for tea.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52The china was very nice and the biscuits were palpable.
0:16:52 > 0:16:58We sipped tea while we talked.
0:16:58 > 0:17:05He was very complimentary about the film but in the end said,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08"well, but what can one do?".
0:17:08 > 0:17:15And I said, "build more houses".
0:17:15 > 0:17:18He looked at his permanent secretary, who smiled back at him.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21Then we were on the street again in Whitehall.
0:17:21 > 0:17:22I take the point, then.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24Maybe it didn't change anything in the short term,
0:17:24 > 0:17:28but there are two things that strike me and the first one is this:
0:17:28 > 0:17:31I find it hard, being a professional and having worked in TV for quite
0:17:31 > 0:17:35a while myself, I find hard today to think of film-makers and films
0:17:35 > 0:17:38on television or on the big screen that have the same kind of impact
0:17:38 > 0:17:40that would encourage a Government Minister to call
0:17:40 > 0:17:43in the film-maker for talks about the subject at hand.
0:17:43 > 0:17:45Do you think radical boundary-pushing stuff is being made
0:17:45 > 0:17:48today on television or in film in the same way you were doing it
0:17:48 > 0:17:58in the 1960s?
0:17:58 > 0:18:00There may be some political films for the cinema,
0:18:00 > 0:18:08for the arthouse circuit, very low budget being made
0:18:08 > 0:18:10here and certainly there are in other countries,
0:18:10 > 0:18:14but you will not see it on television.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17Nothing to do with the quality of the film-makers, but because it
0:18:17 > 0:18:18would not be allowed.
0:18:18 > 0:18:20Television now is different business.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24Do you mean the bosses?
0:18:24 > 0:18:26The people who run organisations like mine,
0:18:26 > 0:18:27the BBC, have lost their nerve?
0:18:27 > 0:18:29They are no longer interested in being radical?
0:18:29 > 0:18:31In confrontation and saying difficult things?
0:18:31 > 0:18:31I do.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33I don't blame them as individuals necessarily.
0:18:33 > 0:18:34We can talk about the BBC.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37The BBC lives in a cultural and political environment.
0:18:37 > 0:18:52It affects that environment and it is affected by it.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55But if you wanted to make a film like Cathy Come Home today,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58would you find an easy place to put it on mainstream terrestrial
0:18:58 > 0:19:02television?
0:19:02 > 0:19:05I doubt it, and in any case I wouldn't, if I were still working
0:19:05 > 0:19:08in films, I would not want to produce a film
0:19:08 > 0:19:09like Cathy today.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13Cathy let everybody off the hook.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17Cathy was not a political enough.
0:19:17 > 0:19:25Cathy was a nice, soft, liberal film.
0:19:25 > 0:19:27It wasn't seen that way at the time.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30It didn't put the boot in where it should have done.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32That is what I would want to do now.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36There would be no chance now.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38By the way, just to finish that point very quickly,
0:19:38 > 0:19:40when we did Cathy Come Home, there
0:19:40 > 0:19:42was a homeless problem but it wasn't that huge.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44And most people knew nothing about it.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47When Jeremy Sandford told us about it, because he had researched
0:19:47 > 0:19:54it, neither Ken nor I knew there was homeless problem.
0:19:54 > 0:20:00It went out and caused a stir, to put it mildly.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03Now there is a huge problem of homelessness and housing.
0:20:04 > 0:20:05Acknowledged by everyone.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07Television does a documentary every week or two on it
0:20:07 > 0:20:11and it is in the newspapers, but no one cares.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15The politicians of all parties have neglected it for 30 or 40 years,
0:20:15 > 0:20:18but they are our politicians, so maybe we live in a country
0:20:18 > 0:20:24that does not care as it used to.
0:20:24 > 0:20:29Your staples, the films you are known for, for having
0:20:29 > 0:20:32collaborated on, are really all about class, powerlessness
0:20:32 > 0:20:34of so many people in society, corruption and abuse,
0:20:34 > 0:20:36abuse of power.
0:20:36 > 0:20:42When you look at Britain today, Britain that has just voted Brexit
0:20:42 > 0:20:49and exposed all sorts of new divisions between young
0:20:49 > 0:20:52and old, north and south, urban and rural, poor and wealthy,
0:20:52 > 0:20:55when you look at Britain today, do you look at a society
0:20:55 > 0:20:58that is in worse shape than it was when you set out
0:20:58 > 0:20:59on your film-making career?
0:20:59 > 0:21:02It is in worse shape but it is also in better shape.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04There are all sorts of wonderful things happening.
0:21:04 > 0:21:11We value our individuality, we cooperate and compete.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13It is finding a balance between those two elements
0:21:13 > 0:21:15in society and now we are far too much individuals,
0:21:15 > 0:21:17the competition has cancelled out the cooperation
0:21:17 > 0:21:21and we are an unhappy society because we are unbalanced.
0:21:21 > 0:21:27We need to get the balance back.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31If you wanted to make people care today by force of a creative medium,
0:21:31 > 0:21:38would you choose television or would you try to harness the Internet?
0:21:38 > 0:21:39What would you do?
0:21:39 > 0:21:42If Tony Garnett wasn't 80 but was 25 and setting out to influence people,
0:21:42 > 0:21:44influence debate, and change the world, how would
0:21:44 > 0:21:45you go about it?
0:21:45 > 0:21:54I would, without hesitation, be working on the Internet.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56The barriers to entry into our business have more
0:21:56 > 0:22:02or less disappeared.
0:22:02 > 0:22:04When I started very few people were allowed,
0:22:04 > 0:22:06because it was so expensive and the technology was
0:22:06 > 0:22:11so complex to master.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14Now, any kid in a provincial town can get a digital camera
0:22:14 > 0:22:15which is point and shoot.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18They can edit on their laptop.
0:22:18 > 0:22:20Server space is cheap.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24They are there for billions of people.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28No one will know you're there, but that is a marketing problem
0:22:28 > 0:22:29and kids find things.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31The final thought, and it may be bleak or it may not,
0:22:31 > 0:22:34the kind of serious message and the serious analysis of how
0:22:34 > 0:22:37society works that you have always wanted to make,
0:22:37 > 0:22:48is that going to find a big audience anyway?
0:22:48 > 0:22:51Is that, you know, if it's the internet, is that ever
0:22:51 > 0:22:54going to go viral or are people too busy looking
0:22:54 > 0:22:54at cute cats?
0:22:54 > 0:22:56It depends on how good you are.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59When we were making films for television, there were all sorts
0:22:59 > 0:23:01of other things that people could look at.
0:23:01 > 0:23:14The problem now is that it is all available all the time.
0:23:14 > 0:23:15There is too much?
0:23:15 > 0:23:19It is not that there is too much, the choice is there all the time,
0:23:19 > 0:23:22whereas when there were two channels of television it was one
0:23:22 > 0:23:22after the other.
0:23:22 > 0:23:24But you still had to get people to watch.
0:23:24 > 0:23:28I want to end by going back to where we started and your decision,
0:23:28 > 0:23:31after so many years, decades and decades of bottling up
0:23:31 > 0:23:34the personal that has been so much of a part of your life
0:23:34 > 0:23:36through all this professional success, you have now unbottled
0:23:36 > 0:23:39and you have been very open about your own tragedy and trauma.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41Have you conquered your demons, do you think?
0:23:41 > 0:23:42I am a lot happier.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45Do any of us ever conquer all of our demons?
0:23:45 > 0:23:53As an old psychoanalyst friend of mine who said,
0:23:53 > 0:23:55"it is our scars the make us interesting."
0:23:55 > 0:23:56But I'm happier now.
0:23:56 > 0:24:02That is a great way to end, a happy thought to end with.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04Tony Garnett, thank you so much for being on HARDTalk.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06Thank you.