Paul Greengrass – Granadaland

Paul Greengrass describes how he joined Granada

I can remember when I joined. I joined in October ’77, and I was at university. I don’t think I was alone, I think, going into television was the sort of popular thing to do at that time, I think, particularly if you had a sense of the world. I always loved World in Action.…

Paul Greengrass remembers his early days as a sports researcher

And so, I literally travelled up in the next day from memory, and I was put up in a pub, I’m sure it doesn’t exist now, it was down at the back of… If Quay Street was one side, then you got at the bottom of the old Granada Studios. As you looked at the…

Paul Greengrass on the debt he owes Paul Doherty, the head of sport at Granada

But Paul Doherty, I owe a special debt. Because I was a young student, I’d gone to a good university, I had the advantages and the naiveties that that bestows upon you, and probably the arrogances too. And I was, I think, in many ways, unprepared for the world of work, what work was really…

Paul Greengrass remembers his worst telling-off from Paul Doherty

The worst row we ever had, funnily enough was about the slides, which I often tell it to my kids when they go out to work, because it’s an abject lesson in what not to do. Which is that I’d been there a few weeks, and Doc came in one day. He was a great…

Paul Greengrass on the training he got on Kick Off – and the team he worked with

it was a great year. I learned so much. One of the beauties about working in sports television, which you saw everything that there was, you did it all. You made films with a crew, you mounted items in a studio. We did Kick Off on a Friday night. You did OB work. You edited…

Paul Greengrass on the investigation into Louis Edwards that became a World in Action

The only way you could get on, it seemed to me, was to find your own story. Obviously, I was up there doing football 24/7. At that time, the Edwards family, what they did was they brought forward, essentially, a rights issue in the shares. That had never been done in football clubs, because bear…

Paul Greengrass reflects on the culture of World in Action

When I went to Granada, which I was very lucky to do… and I owe Granada an equal debt, but World in Action… so I’m not decrying it in any way, but World in Action as the years… I knew none of this then, by the way. This is wisdom that came to me much,…

Paul Greengrass on the ethos behind World in Action

I’m sure that’s true of Granada as a whole, incidentally. I think one of the interesting things as we sit and talk today is that these kinds of cultural organisations are now few and far between. Organisations where you and I would have come in as young men, and matured and become men, as opposed…

Paul Greengrass on when he realised he needed to move on from Granada

I think what happened was that, as I say, the me that was the me of my teenage years, which was always wanting to head towards writing and making my own things, and self-expression, began to collide with the World in Action that was about exposing – and not that I didn’t love those programmes,…

Paul Greengrass recalls Granada as a precious cultural institution

They were all these people, Denis Forman, David Plowright. I went around them all actually, and it left me with an abiding sense of Granada as one of Britain’s great liberal institutions, like a great university, like the BBC and very different in character. One of those precious cultural institutions that, when you set aside…

Paul Greengrass on the world that was World in Action

So World in Action in that period was very much a closed world. The offices were up there on the third floor I want to say, off to an annexe at the back of the street. They were sort of their own space, weren’t they? They were. I’m not sure, actually, that was the very…

Paul Greengrass remembers some of his colleagues from World in Action

David (Boulton) was a very gifted man, highly intelligent, thoughtful. I think probably one of their very best executives, but he wasn’t very popular. I don’t really know why. … but he wasn’t popular with the troops, I think because there were people around…now I’m guessing, because the first time he was obviously before my…

Paul Greengrass on the crew he worked with on World in Action

And then of course the best, George Jesse Turner and Phil Taylor were always shooting wherever you went. It’d be sometimes Alan Bale on sound. Phil Taylor. And we went to many, many places around the world. God, I remember being in Beirut with George Jesse Turner in ‘82, it must’ve been. With George Jesse…

Paul Greengrass transcript

Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 5 May 2020. Let’s start at the beginning. Where were you before Granada? How did you come to join Granada? And when? Dates are quite important. I can remember when I joined. I joined in October ’77, and I was at university. I don’t think I was alone, I think, going…