No Hiding Place for a producer

The tenth series of ‘No Hiding Place’ with Raymond Francis in his role as Lockhart and newcomer Sean Caffrey as his sergeant is now being screened. It also has a new producer. What does it feel like to be put into the producer’s chair? How does one get a series such as this on the air? What are the problems? michael currer-briggs, the new producer, tells his story…

One day, just before Christmas, I was asked to write this article. ‘What is wanted?’ I asked. ‘Oh! something about your first series as producer,’ they said, ‘the personal point of view – a thinking piece – anecdotal – comedy – the theory and problem of taking over a long-established series and becoming a producer.’ Well, I thought I’d better oblige and so I started to think. To me this is a painful process. But I have been trying to be a producer for some months now so I should have something to say. At the time of going to press we have only just begun production and I have still got weeks of rehearsals, reactions, ratings, directors, designers, writers and artists ahead of me. There will be problems, some of which will no doubt be furry, four-footed and with fangs. There will be plenty of ‘final analyses’ and ‘critical appraisals’ and all those heart thumping terrors with which to cope. So, accepting that all this is still to come, I will now formulate my feelings and experiences as far as they go.

In the summer, while I was the other side of the Iron Curtain working for the BBC and hitting the high spots of Glasgow, I somehow felt that change was in the air. Sure enough one day I had a call from Television House. ‘We’ve got something very, very interesting we want you to do,’ they said. Well, of course my curiosity got going at double speed. ‘Producing the next series of “No Hiding Place”,’ they said. ‘Good for you and good for us.’ Well, I didn’t think long about it and I calmed down fairly soon, accepted it whole-heartedly and took the plunge.

‘Scripts,’ they said on day one. ‘Must get them in as soon as possible and you’re lucky you’ve got plenty of time. The budget’s fixed and your directors are fixed and your script editor’s fixed and the series is fixed and the new sergeant is fixed and you’re very lucky.’ They said that several times just so I wouldn’t forget.

Well, I suppose some would say I should have started by unfixing something. I should have been all difficult and talked about my creative integrity, but I decided not to – maybe I’ll prove myself to have been a fool not to have unfixed a bit, but I didn’t. I’d thought all about that on day one minus one, so it didn’t have the effect of fixing me all that much, especially as there were a hell of a lot of other things left to do. Every picture has to have a frame – old oak, heavy gold, stark modern simplicity – and I felt the frame they’d fixed for me was pretty good and plenty large and that I had so much to learn that I’d do myself a damage if I banged about trying to get a different shape or style for it.

And so we started. The first big thing was learning the series from a different point of view. ‘No Hiding Place’ is a common property to all of us. Experience on the series is part of a man’s life in Rediffusion Television. But I had to see it from an entirely new angle – the producer’s angle – and I had to ask myself a lot of questions. What could I bring to the series? What would be expected of me? What really is a producer’s function? What were his qualifications supposed to be – his attributes – his experience? Well, no one really told me very much about this and I could see I’d have to try and spring fully fledged as it were from the head of Jove.

I thought of all the producers who had produced me – the ones who were never called producers in the old days when they were heads of their section and the ones who had sprung up overnight and had acquired the title perhaps before they were dry behind the ears. Everyone according to his own experience and I to mine. I could only think of it all in terms of what I would like a producer to be and try to become that. Probably my ideas were very, very much too limited -in fact I’m sure so now after only a few weeks at it. The job involves much more than I ever imagined and even at the end of 15 episodes I know there’ll be a massive amount for me still to learn. All things to all men is a ridiculous impossibility. But it’s not far from what is demanded. Good with ideas, vivid with inspiration, profound with knowledge and experience, capable of communicating, but above all (and the one chief aim I am trying to keep before me) is the ability to make a climate in which everyone can give of their best. They should not only satisfy the audience and give it more than what is wanted and expected, but they should also satisfy the management and themselves. All seems to funnel down from above to a producer and then fan out from him to a collection of writers, directors and artists for whom the same process is being repeated. A storm of creative energy is at the heart of each episode and each one must not only be related to the others but must also be treated as if it were the only show on earth.

The writer comes first. Alun Falconer as script editor fights for his writers, trying to get the best from them and for them. Stories came and went by the dozen and a few remain in memory as a laugh. There was the one where Lockhart was supposed to have high jinks with a gay widow who hid her diamonds and kept them in the fridge while she claimed insurance as a result of a supposed theft. But she’d made one mistake and chose for her Hiding Place a certain product wrapped in a wrinkled paper. But Lockhart knew all and solved the case because, as the title told, he could tell Stork from Butter. A bright young spark sent that one in and in all fairness I honestly believe he didn’t realise that he was completely doomed to failure.

So we ploughed on and the scripts started to come in. The consultants, Amos Gibson and Colin Holder, consulted, and sometimes we were elated, sometimes depressed. Re-writes came next to get the first drafts into line with the series as a whole. There were the dangers and problems of how to avoid spoiling a good idea, how to make a weak script stronger and so on. We had a script that was promising but this and that needed doing. Conferences followed, re-writes came in. We all thought we had a disaster on our hands. On that day Alun talked about his technique, it saved my life to hear him.

‘It’s like sailing,’ he said, ‘tacking against the wind. You have to push an author to get him to change his course and off he goes right over to the other side of the river. He nearly crashes into the opposite bank and you have to be over there to push him off again. Then he shoots back to the other side. But each time he tacks he gets nearer and nearer until he gets on course and the script comes into line. You’ve got to blow just the right amount and sometimes it takes a lot of wind.’ Soon after this another script came in. That was a big worry and Alun blew quite a gentle breeze. I thought he’d gone mad, become an early Christian and was being far too kind. But the result was miraculous – straight on to course in one go. I wish they were all like that.

And so we had something to produce and all the internal processing began. Will our revered chief approve? Who shall direct? What will he say? Will it be number one? Must have a good one to start – can we bring it in within budget? What about filming, casting, designing? Bang, bang and we were off and I found another chain of reactions, some new, some expected but all vitally fresh.

This is where the directors come in. They are the next step towards exposure. They add, they give actuality, they transmit. God help a producer who doesn’t get on with them. To me the heart of this new job is seeing them for the first time. Before, when I was directing myself, I was blinkered. I never saw another director working. I was always alongside. I was in parallel at the best of times, behind or ahead most of the time, never face to face. I know already I want to direct again in the future because I can now much more clearly understand that unless a producer and a director mutually see each other’s problems as their own, they will never be united. If this principle isn’t applied in every television relationship, nothing can happen successfully, smoothly or with integrity.

There is and must be a friction and it must cause heat. Fire is needed to create but it can also destroy. I am beginning to understand that really it is best for a producer to be seen and not heard. Even his own personal ‘OOMs’ [“Official Office Memoranda” – Captain Brownrigg’s way of communicating with staff – Ed] give rise to a large range of reactions. His function must be to reconcile, balance, give form and he must live with the constant hope that his suggestions might inspire – and not be disturbed when they are rejected.

It is far better to have a good idea left untasted than to force it to be swallowed and then to see it sink undigested like a lump of solid dough to the bottom of a dyspeptic stomach. But if a producer has a reward, it is to see his suggestions chewed over and transformed into something new, fresh, vital and appropriate. Something which will need no defending, because it exists as it should and will reach the screen in a way in which even the sleepiest viewer will respond to, perhaps without even knowing why.

As a wise man once said of a producer – he must have a love-hate relationship with anyone with whom he works. He must be willing to help always but above all he must respect a man’s self-respect. A producer is with a series for the entire run but on each episode the director is the creative chief. The same applies to every relationship a producer has with every creative technician. His editor comes first, then the director and through (and only through) the latter, the rest of the company of each production.

The one real link with his old job as a director is the producer’s relations with his stars. He has to keep them happy with good scripts, good publicity, good everything. They are the ones who take the ultimate exposure and get the final praise and blame. Raymond Francis has done it all before but Sean Caffrey is taking his first plunge. We wish them both all the best of luck. At the time of writing this I haven’t got any further. I’m not going to crystal gaze into the future – it’s too dangerous. By the time this gets to the great Fusion public, they’ll know whether I’ve been able to do anything to actualise my aim. They must be the judges.