FEEDBACK
Excerpts from queries recently addressed to Michael, and his replies.
Q. Someone gave me part of a poem written by you about depression. Is there a bakground to it, and where can I locate that poem? KC, UK.
A. The poem is called “Handing” and it’s in the “Fifty Fingers’ collection, available from irishmusicshop.ie or Amazon.com. Like many people, I’ve had my dark moments, and some people very close to me have struggled with depression. The poem was a very personal account of the redemptive light we all seek. Here’s the poem:
handing
crust of breath low wattage glowworm
blood earth glass with broke glass wings
gravey-yard plots the arctic wind
through the fell jambs the unmagicked spell
the beast of hermetics the bad bad music
crawling for the silverback scraps and unhappy
thumbless blurred off charcoal vomit
fins of fish the bones the alley the scumbling
lie in the blue valley v of wall and floor
curled like the cuticle of old candle falls
too soon age too soon time
too soon the cocked sailor hat of the wrong cornflake
too soon today where the one man parade
stands in broken line line
too soon
and then like the hand that wont dry in the dryer
the cup that cracks but holds the moist
the foot asleep that holds the walker
the fleet of foot and sleet on slush
it melts
the dry peculiar tasteless taste thats on me
the dog the ditch the dumb the doll the day
the beau speaks fast and tidal and takes
the elevator
the beau surprise of it: the up
the thorn the screw the bare branch: anything: once its handed
gladness warms the breath and warms the worm and
paris, 2000
Q. Do you still write poems? JKL, Glasgow
A. Still keep a weekly journal, which is poetry and sketches, which then usually transform into canvas paintings. I like to write poetry in periods of calm and silence which, given my fondness for multi-tasking, aren’t nearly often enough. I wrote three long form poems during 2007. Don’t know
if they’ll ever be published.
Q. What was your Christmas reading this year ...?
A. Kenneth Williams’s diaries, edited by Russell Davies. Stunning. Tragic. Also Roger Lewis (my favourite critic) on Charles Hawtrey - by far the best model movie biography on the market ... and it’s less than 100 pages long. It’s called The Man who was Private Widdle, and it’s from Faber.
Q. I love the work of Anthony Shaffer (the Agatha Christie movies, Hitchcock's Frenzy and The Wicker Man). The new Wicker Man [based on Shaffer's 1973 screenplay] is poor by comparison with his original. I know you worked on a script with Shaffer. Was he as quirky and inventive as his scripts? MS, Bristol
A. Tony spent several months in Ireland in the late eighties, working with me on The Negotiator for HBO. He was living in Cairns, NSW, and recently married to Diane Cilento but for the duration of our collaboration he was based in Dublin, at a rented apartment in Ballsbridge. We spent most of our shared time - which was a lot of time - hillwalking around Howth, near where I live. He was by nature a games player, highly inventive and very restless. In our downtime we sketched out another project which was dear to both of us but never quite got off the ground: an adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's The House by the Chruchyard. I regarded him (still do) as a cherished friend. I agree that the 'new' Wicker Man is very pale alongside the brilliance of Tony's original.
Q. Will Lovers and Dancers be reissued? Alex, Galway
A. There's some discussion about it. It's available through many online booksellers, or try Amazon sellers.
Q. Martin Campbell [who directed Casino Royale] directed your screenplay, Runner, for The Professionals series on ITV. Did you see Bond coming ...? S, Richmond
A. I'd have to say yes. Martin blew everyone out of the water as soon as he started directing in the seventies. I thought my screenplay for Runner was racy. But he supercharged it. Speed was his thing and his approach taught me a lot about economy.
Q. I enjoyed your Beach Boys and Luke Kelly tribute films. Were you personally a fan of either? Jen Mc, Dublin
A. I always admired Luke and the Dubliners. The music of my childhood was the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson became 'a mission' for me in the nineties. I felt he was seriously neglected and I wanted to re-evaluate the band, which I did in 'The Beach Boys Today' documentary in 1992. The programme was co-produced with RTE.
Q. Why wasn't Brian Wilson included in your 1992 film on the Beach Boys' Bob, Birmingham
A. I didn't meet with Brian until 2005, long after the film was made (and thank you, Maggie Magee, producer of Brian's concert films, for setting it up). At the time of my documentary he was under the fulltime control of his therapist Eugene Landy, who wasn't interested in his appearing with the other Beach Boys without strict conditions. So I went ahead making my documentary with the input of the other Beach Boys, but without Brian.
Q. Did Jayne Mansfield's family participate in your book about her, Pink Goddess? JT, Oxfordshire
A. Yes, her husband and lifelong supporter Mickey Hargitay assisted me throughout. He was a joyful presence, and very kind. I liked him and his contribution to the book was immense. I was sad to hear of his passing last year. He was very loyal, and he kept her flame alive till the end.
Q. Is your television series My Riviera available on DVD? E McG, Co Derry
A. My Riviera was screened on ITV and RTE in the early nineties. It has not been on DVD, to the best of my knowledge.
Q. I've got a vinyl record by Brendan Shine with your songwriting credit. Were there other musical collaborations ... ? CC, Kilkenny
A. I wrote Rince Rock with Ronan (Lord of the Dance) Hardiman and Brendan - for fun. I also directed Brendan's video for that song, which took the form of a take-off of Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love. We all had a blast, though I think Brendan decided his future wasn't in rap. I'd like to attempt a musical at some stage.
Q. Had you got anything to do with the casting of Cluedo [for Granada TV]? I remember David McCallum [Ilya Kuryakin from The Man from UNCLE] played Professor Plum for a period .... J McK
A. No role in the main casting. I was consulted about guest stars and we had some great people, like Jean Boht who was in my episode called And Then There were Nuns. The main roles were recast each season, and different actors played Plum every year. As a kid I enjoyed The Man from Uncle, so it was great to have David playing the professor.
Q. There was a lot of newspaper controversy about Perry Como's being unwell during the concert [at the Point in Dublin in 1994, which MFC co-produced and wrote]. He missed a chunk of the live show. What was the true background story? TB
A. Perry was unwell. He arrived in Dublin with a cold and I was strongly opposed to his appearance on The Late Late Show, when he was visibly exhausted, but he was advised otherwise. We worked closely together on the script over four or five days at his suite in the Berkeley Court Hotel, and he improved. On the performance night, he was recovering, but it didn't help that some inebriated presence interrupted him on stage in mid-song. This deeply disturbed him, and put him off. He curtailed the running-order and sat it out for the next 30 minutes. Luckily, Twink, his co-star on the night, kept the show rolling. He was later exhilarated and triumphant. He told me afertwards he had wanted to end his career with an Irish show, something he'd been trying to stage for ten years.
Q. What happened to Dr Who in the middle eighties, when it was cancelled in mid-run? I remember you were writing a finale episode for it ... ? JF London
A. I wrote a two-parter called The Children of January. It was to be a season closer, not a series termination. But the BBC decided in mid-season that the show had run its course and, in the middle eighties, I think they were right. But I loved my episode, which was delivered late in 1985. I created a race of runaway proto-humanoids called the Z'ros, sort of 'human bees', of which I still have the fondest nightmares. The Children of January, incidentally, refers to renegade outcasts of a dawning 'parallel universe' civilisation that was abandoned.
Q. Was Eoghan Harris a co-writer on [the RTE police series] The Burke Enigma? CH, Dublin
A. No. Eogahn may have sat in on one or two early development meetings, but I wrote the scripts solo, with input from producer Brian MacLochlainn.
Q. What's your favourite Richard Harris movie? And did he tell you what his own favourite was? D, Sherman Oaks, California
A. I loved Camelot. Richard himself changed his views daily. He told me once that 'the only' movie he made was This Sporting Life. But on other occasions he was especially fond of A Man Called Horse.
Q. Years ago, I heard your adaptation of The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins on radio. I always felt it would make a marvellous TV series. What chance of a TV version ... ? BB, CoWicklow
A. Tricky story, but I agree it was a good mystery, with oodles of atmosphere. It was a six-parter for RTE radio. I think if it was made for television, it would work best as a one-off, like one of those Poirot adaptations.
