Mike didn’t like me. I never knew why.
Probably the pink hair.
I think it was also the relationship with Granada. I hear at some point he’d said to someone, “What’s going on? Is he sleeping with him or what?” Because it was quite a homophobic place in those times, I think. Yes, Scott didn’t like me, he told me he didn’t like me. I didn’t know what I’d done. I hardly had any dealings with him. He fought single-handedly to not give me the director’s job, according to Morrison, who said I had to go and make peace, which I did try to, only to be rebuffed with, “You make one mistake, you’re out of here.” I went, “Oh, okay.” But I don’t know. So, I never really got to the bottom of it. I did get my revenge though, because we did a telethon, one of the first telethons for ITV about a year or two later. I was directing The Street at the time and I had to do a live section in the middle, which was in the middle of the telethon, Doris Speed coming back to The Rovers out of her retirement. I went down to see her in makeup, and I explained to her what I wanted her to do, and was very reassuring, very confident – confident, seducing, all the great skills that a young director has – and she was like putty in my hands. Then after I left makeup, one of the makeup women came up to me and said, “I’m really sorry, Tim, but do you know what Doris said as you left?” I said, “No.” She said, “She said to me, what did that nice man say? I didn’t have my hearing aid in.” Anyway, the introduction to this was Mike Scott on The Street doing a piece to camera, because of course he used to be a presenter. I made him do 23 takes. Second take was absolutely fine, which I said at the end of this. He was getting very frustrated by the end of it. At the end of it, I went, “No, it’s fine, we’ll use take two,” and just walked off. “Gotcha, mate.” Liddiment was appalled.
Because he was a very good presenter.
He was. He worked with Derek Granger on Cinema, I think on the Cinema, but also Scene At 6:30. Derek said, “The great thing about Mike was he always asked the question that the audience wanted.” He instinctively knew. And so they had the Rothschilds, can you believe, one of the senior Rothschilds, on Scene At 6:30 at one point. Derek says, “And whatever you do, we’ve been told by the PR people, whatever you do, don’t ask them about being rich.” Well, of course, halfway through the interview, “What’s it like having all that money?”