Steve Morrison joined Granada Television in 1974 while still a student at the National Film School. He would quickly become a producer on World In Action. After making a number of World In Action programmes he moved to local programmes where he became editor of Granada Reports and a few years later became Head of…
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Steve Morrison recalls how he came to join Granada
I was a student at the National Film School, which is now the National Film and Television School, and I was in its first ever year when it opened. And I had started making an observational film about my local Labour Party, which was the Norwood Labour Party; it was largely about their social interaction.…
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Steve Morrison on his first day at Granada
On my first day, they didn’t have an office for me because this documentary unit was a gleam in Gus’s eye, but nobody knew about it. So what the hell are we going to do with this guy who has turned up, and they said, “Look, why don’t you go into the studio and observe…
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Steve Morrison talks about working on Granada Reports
I got another phone call from Gus, after a couple of years, who said, “I want you to be the Editor of Granada Reports,” which was the nightly news programme. And of course I never worked in news, so there was a fearsome News Editor with a beard, who was very tough, on the news…
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Steve Morrison recalls managing local programmes
It would be 1976-77. I was asked if I would run the whole of Granada’s regional programmes, which was a very, very interesting job, because you were like a TV station within a TV station, nobody higher up the building really cared, although obviously regional programmes are very important for the licence and the franchise,…
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Steve Morrison talks about the Northern Documentary Unit
Basically, Gus (MacDonald) invented a new role, or a new unit, called the Northern Documentary Unit, and he said, “You’ll be running the Northern Documentary Unit, you make little films just for the region, and you find stories and you find directors, and I’ll give you a couple of researchers,” one of whom was Anna…
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Steve Morrison’s memories of working on World In Action
After I had ben running the documentary unit, Gayle and I – who were not romantically connected, but did films together – were invited to join World in Action, which obviously was a very glamorous programme, and we soon discovered that we were the ‘quick turnaround’ team. So while all the more established members of…
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Steve Morrison remembers a difficult incident with a government minister
Gayle and I were sent off to interview the Labour Minister for what was then called… I think it was called Sport and Pollution. So this guy got this double-barrelled job when he was really interested in boxing and sport, which included tips and all sorts of pollutants that he was responsible for, and we…
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Steve Morrison’s memories of making of the Spanish Civil War documentary series
I ran the Locals for two or three years, had a wonderful time, and then again, I think Gus may have been still in charge of the whole Factual area. He said to me, “I’ve got a problem with the Spanish Civil War.” He said, “We’ve got an Executive Producer and producers and a very…
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Steve Morrison recalls starting the Granada Film operation
So during the time I was head of Features, I got this completely mad idea to start Granada Film, and on a Friday, at the end of the day, I used to sneak up the back stairs and occasionally have a whisky with the Managing Director of Granada then, who then became the Chairman, who…
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Steve Morrison recalls winning two Oscars with ‘My Left Foot’
So there is a story I must tell you about My Left Foot. By the time the Oscars came around, we had completed the film, and I had been promoted again – which is a whole different story – from the head of Granada Film to the Director of Programmes at Granada, which meant that…
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Steve Morrison’s memories of making the film ‘The Magic Toyshop’
So David Wheatley and I had worked together, and we decided to make a film about one of Angela Carter’s books, and the one we chose was called The Magic Toyshop. Angela Carter was in Texas, lecturing, so David and I got on the phone, which in those days seemed a very long way away,…
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Steve Morrison on working with Kid Creole and the Coconuts
One of the most original things we made, which was an idea from David Liddiment, who I know you have also interviewed, who was working in the Entertainment department, but the Entertainment department wasn’t making it, it was a musical called There’s Something Wrong in Paradise or something similar to that, I need to check…
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Steve Morrison discusses the changing nature of TV in the 1990s
There were basically two things that happened in the late 80s which were very, very important. The first thing was that when I was at the controllers’ group, there was a great deal of rivalry between what was called the seven-day companies, which were those that had franchises across the whole week, and the London…
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Steve Morrison talks about leaving Granada – and its legacy
I left in 2002. So I was at Granada for 27 and a half years, 21 in Manchester and the rest in London, and my reflection on all of this is that Granada went through two golden eras. The first golden era was up to 1987, when it had guaranteed programmes of a relatively small…
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