Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
'Bodies' remains the drama I'm most proud of.
Sci-fi gives you the scope to do grand stories.
I want to be one of those serious, moody writers.
I always try and distinguish between facts and opinions.
I've never reached the point where I was ready to abandon a series.
I like the differences between American and British television dramas.
Standards in public life have decayed over time... Incompetence is the norm.
There's something very frightening about the vulnerability of mothers and babies.
I think you've got to be careful with gore. Different genres need different things.
There aren't a lot of political dramas on TV, and those that are tend to be American.
For something like 'Line of Duty' to work, it has to be both plausible and unexpected.
I have a lot of respect for our police forces. They are generally honest and effective.
'Lady Chatterley's Lover' is a novel that constitutes a milestone of English literature.
In 'Bodies,' we had a lot of gore because it was a medical drama. The gore was authentic.
British drama can compete with America creatively. But the two systems are very different.
One of the things I learned on medical drama 'Bodies' was that actors can't play ambiguity.
With 'Cardiac Arrest,' I wanted to show that there were times when doctors really didn't care.
I like to stay away from writing about good versus evil. I think the world is more complicated.
I think that the general public understands that its own doctors are human, fallible, and flawed.
I didn't study writing or drama or anything like that... that was not really a viable route for me.
Special effects are becoming more and more affordable and looking more and more like the real thing.
One of the most significant threats to our national security was and is home-grown Islamist terrorism.
I like to sit at my desk... sometimes I get inspiration when I'm going about my normal day-to-day life.
I do like books to be quite an intense experience, and that's the kind of novel I respond to as a reader.
The things I discovered when writing 'Line of Duty' were the tools you have available to write a thriller.
We earned the 'Line of Duty' audience's loyalty over a number of years, and I feel privileged to have that.
The success of 'Bodyguard' is a tribute to the magnetism of our two leads, Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes.
Between the ages of 12 and 15, I wanted to be a pilot because I thought it would be glamorous and dangerous.
What makes an audience watch something and care about the characters is the emotional life of the characters.
If you're a drama writer, obviously you always have to tell the truth; there's no element of fiction in at all.
There are great female role models out there, and I just feel very proud to be able to represent them in my work.
The problem with individual opinion is that it doesn't necessary correlate with what the mass audience is thinking.
As a content creator, all you can do is do your best work and then hope that it resonates somehow with an audience.
It doesn't excite me as a writer to write some swearing or sex scenes, because they don't have any emotional content.
Cannock is a friendly place. You can stroll down the road to a decent pub and have a good curry, and it is not too faceless.
I'm interested in institutions, particularly in the way institutions close ranks. They have hierarchies and their own ethics.
If we have friends over for dinner, I do the cooking. I like the pressure of a big meal and the technical challenges of a roast.
We're living in interesting times, where people seem to be able to say things which are contrary to what you would call rationalism.
Some shows do nosedive at the end, or some piece of content could become incredibly controversial and affect the way the show is seen.
'Line Of Duty' is first and foremost a thriller. But I hope it will also be seen as a revisionist commentary on 21st century policing.
In my third year at medical school in Birmingham, I joined the Air Force as a medical cadet so that I was sponsored to become a doctor.
With the police thriller genre, people come to it with an expectation. It allows you to get away with a bit of violence, edginess, darkness.
'Line of Duty' is a social realist drama, so it's set in a world that has the recognisable features of the authentic world we see around us.
I don't normally think of a specific actor. I concentrate on the character, and then when we get into pre-production, that's how names come up.
As a teenager, I read a lot of science-fiction, but then I read 'Catch-22' and 'The Catcher in the Rye' and started reading more literary fiction.
Certain people in politics and the press felt there was a political spin to 'Cardiac Arrest,' but there was no political agenda to what I was doing.
It was an absolute pleasure working with Stephen Graham. I've admired his work for many years, and what he brings is that real sense of authenticity.
'Cardiac Arrest' was the first British drama to use a lot of medical jargon. 'ER' began the following year and was the first American drama to do that.
The footballer I've admired most in the last ten years is Zinedine Zidane... one of those rare individuals who had the skill but also incredible vision.
I think a lot of police procedurals are very conventional. With the stuff I'm doing, I'm trying to approach the institution of the police in a different way.