This is the first full-length study of the screenwriter Troy Kennedy
Martin, whose work for film and television includes Z Cars, The Italian
Job, Kelly's Heroes, The Sweeney, Reilly - Ace of Spies and Edge of
Darkness. With a career spanning six decades Troy Kennedy Martin has
seen the rise and fall of the television dramatist, making his debut in
the era of studio-based television drama in the late 1950s prior to the
transition to filmed drama (for which he argued in a famous manifesto)
as the television play was gradually replaced by popular series and
serials, for which Kennedy Martin did some of his best work. Drawing on
original interviews with Kennedy Martin and his collaborators, as well
as extensive research at the BBC Written Archives Centre and the British
Film Institute Library (which holds a Special Collection of Troy Kennedy
Martin's scripts), the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the
film and television career of one of Britain's leading screenwriters,
whose work includes many adaptations as well as original scripts and
screenplays. Also included is a chapter examining Kennedy Martin's
significant contribution to innovative and experimental television
drama - his 1964 'Nats Go Home' polemic and the six-part serial, Diary
of a Young Man, plus his 1986 MacTaggart Lecture which anticipated
recent developments in television style and technology. Written in an
easily accessible style, this book will appeal to anyone with an
interest in television drama, screenwriting, and the history of British
television over the last fifty years.
