The shirt out of your shorts

Writing technique – explained

By John Owen

Jimmy McGovern is a world-class writer born and raised in Kensington; he has evolved into a superb critic of contemporary Britain through his tough gritty portrayals of sensitive and taboo topics that have both shocked and touched peoples lives not only here in Liverpool, the UK but also in other parts of the world.

Topics and subjects like “Hillsborough” ‘Bloody Sunday’ T.V. detectives shows like “Cracker” and film scripts like “Priest” and “Liam” and the drug issue drama “Needles”, John Owen was sitting in when Jimmy delivered a lecture to mature students at Liverpool University on ‘Keeping the Faith’ ‘techniques of writing - the motivation and style’ “The shirt out of your shorts writing technique – explained”.

Jimmy explained that the “ability to keep one’s identity, faith in yourself and your ideas was a central theme to his writing, and how you keep going after the ideal and illusions have gone.” “Whether it be the destruction of peoples socialist beliefs in “New Labour”, by Blair turning them sour, or the Police failure to grant justice for the Hillsborough tragedy. The Army reaction at “Bloody Sunday” or the loss and decline of self-respect highlighted in “Needles”, young people being lost in a drug fuelled escapist retreat to a careless zone.” Jimmy has a keen eye for observation, an uncanny ability to note and record the sharp realities of life in all its gritty dramatic detail, “ the interplay of passion and intellect, that people struggle to keep in check or under the surface.” His writing can “winkle out the drama moment fleshing what works and fathoming out what he described as a shirts out of shorts defining moment. The writing has to be able to Punch and kiss”, at the same time.” One scene in the play “Needles” where Peter Postlethwaite plays the irate father, refusing to allow the main character access to see his girlfriend, violently head butts him to make it a real Liverpool scene. Showing a typical Scouser reaction, raw brutal emotion, the reply “I bet he drinks Carling” was replaced with “I’ll take that as a No! Then shall I!” “ Pessimism of intellect optimism of will that is the writers maxim; I was the highest paid apprentice in the world when I started, on “Brookside” as scriptwriter under Phil Redmond’s direction. He made a lot of mistakes in my mind over characters and their realness.” “My first broadcast writing was the 14th episode of “Brookside”, a drama for me as it was make or break, for this grammar school kid, Jesuit priest trained and good at English and other languages, for an inner city kid to progress this far so unexpected, took a lot of confidence.” Hillsborough was a defining moment for Jimmy with a social issue that was still very much alive and unresolved tackling it was political dynamite. ‘The police appeared to be doing a cover- up, and the sinister conclusions that were deduced from the whole scenario, pointed to a “Dirty Harry” scene involving sections of top coppers acting on their own agenda’. A fan that survived Hillsborough in the audience related, “that justice was not even seen to be done and related how the trauma still affects his life. Police, who lied refused to open gates and watched people die, received whacking great compensation handouts ranging from a 1/5 of a million. Paid for dirty deeds. So it seemed according to the fan.” Jimmy is a great scene creator “the techniques of successful drama hinge on these methods and formulas”, people asked him if he could “write like a middle class person or from a woman’s perspective”, “yes”! He replied in a posh affected camp falsetto.

Jimmy talked of his meeting with Martin Maguiness ‘the best sniper in the business’, who has been “elevated to spokesman for Sinn Fein and was a key man to discuss the events of “Bloody Sunday” with, however due to the paranoia of surveillance, and the ever present air of being watched, studied and dissected we held a meeting that had to be arranged on a windswept moor with questions in advance. Communicating using paper passed to each other, rather comic”

Ironic, he thought, that both “Martin Maguiness and Gerry Adams were products of the 1944 Education Act, it’s an example of what I call the “Bridge over the river Kwai syndrome”. This is where Alec Guinness builds a bridge that will destroy everything he believes in, to aid the enemy so to speak, of the country you’re at war with, but he has to do it. And it has to be nice bridge too!”
“ I take what people say with a rock of salt especially the police, half truths I expect from the army, the same also with Martin too. The other film made on the subject of “Bloody Sunday” filmed in Dublin for tax reasons, stole a march on us. Paul Greengrass was the Producer and came up with a neutral plot that played safe. Just to save time and money. The 30th anniversary of that day in 1972 was upon us; I felt I had to do justice to the memory of the people involved. For me we had to be real therefore we used the people and families involved in the actual incidents. It was shot in Derry; sons played fathers, nephew’s uncles a close bond was established between the cast and the actors and crew. I came over with a group of Dockers and had a great time; they had all been through the dispute of 1995/6”. Jimmy in “Dockers” tackled this issue.
“Discussing the scenes with the relatives of the 13 shot and the survivors we felt we had to do the thing properly that was important, so when they (film company) suggested saving money by leaving one of the victims out, we threatened to all walk (out) till they relented.”
“To learn how to write you should listen to radio two and study the form and structure of the drama’s broadcast, this is simple advice and I’ve benefited from it”.

Jimmy elaborated at length on writing technique “how to end and continue a scene, a tragic one for example, comic cuts I ask what would Charlie Chaplin do in this place? Interactive crossover dialogues a way of two or three people speaking at the same time.
“Nine pages of my scripted dialogue are reduced to 1 minute and then the sound editor decides to muffle the script. It is important you have a good cast who have a feel for the subject and are ready to tackle anything.”
A buzz had entered the room animating all as he spoke the energy he gave off now left us spinning slightly, chaplinesque and a thwarted footballer as frenetic as an electric mouse a bundle of nerve endings attached to a vibrating tongue throstling out a sweet bird song on the joys of writing. A human dynamo that Liverpool is lucky to have.
“Every writer faces choices because a story can go off in a 1000 different directions, I packed in writing for Phil Redmond and decided to go it alone away from “Brookside”. A kecks minus shirt epiphany moment.”
“When writing the scene for “Needles” and trying to figure out how you set a scene showing young men enjoying the pleasures of Heroin and slowly going into ecstasy, you ask yourself how? How do I shoot this?”

The ferry scene was chosen due to the problems we encountered off British rail when they found out that one of their employees was on the fiddle, they refused to allow us to show or shoot the train through the tunnel analogy that I wanted.” As we all know no one is underpaid and needs to resort to these methods of supplementing their incomes. Reports suggest they are in fact overpaid like most workers.
“How for example do you set up the scene for two men in a bar arguing, if no one intervenes the company would cut the scene to a house and not a pub so you include a barman you use the furniture of the scene. How to solve problems is the essence of drama, an exposition is what you do, how basically to convey essential information over to an audience, the author getting the character to say what he wants him or her to say is a difficult task.”

Writers tend not to trust editors that is why they write in sentences, knowing it will be cut, also knowing the ways of actors trying to blow each other off the screen. Speaking or writing Scorcese (Scousecese even) style is difficult, spontaneous dialogue is very hard to do. You ask yourself how do I write this like it’s never been done before? How do I do it so the BBC notices it? When these people have seen everything, and are quite cynical. Your livelihood depends on this and a crucial SOS moment (shirts out shorts) has arrived. When I wrote the screenplay for “Needles” in 1990 you hadn’t seen this type of writing before writers are lazy and they’re to precious about their words – the best dialogue is sometimes just thrown away – its very hard sitting in your room with 240 pages to write and you write page one, imagine that it’s sheer hell!” By the blood of Christ be gone. Exercising your demons is best done on paper, and then you can see the phantoms in daylight. Jimmy has left the building.