 Michael Wearing has been responsible for producing some of the most
progressive drama seen on British television in the last thirty years, including
Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff (BBC, 1982), Troy Kennedy Martin's
Edge of Darkness (BBC, 1985) and Peter Flannery's Our Friends in the North (BBC,
1996). After entering television in 1976 he worked almost exclusively for the
BBC as script editor, director, producer and executive producer, until a series
of disagreements with BBC management in the 1990s, when he was head of Drama
Serials, led to his resignation in 1998.
After studying anthropology at Newcastle University, where he was involved
with a theatre group, Wearing got a job as an assistant stage manager at Bromley
before moving to the Royal Court Theatre, where he did his first directing.
While touring a stage version of Gogol's The Diary of a Madman, which he
directed, he came into contact with David Rose, then head of English Regions
Drama in Birmingham. Rose subsequently directed a television version of The
Diary of a Madman (tx. 23/8/1973) at Pebble Mill, dramatised by Wearing and
Victor Henry, who played the eponymous madman. Three years later, Wearing joined
Rose's regional drama department as script editor. In 1979 he directed Jack
Shepherd's 'Underdog' (tx. 4/5/1979) for W. Stephen Gilbert's The Other Side series but was otherwise a script editor for four years at Pebble Mill, working
with writers such as Alan Bleasdale, on 'Scully's New Year's Eve' (Play for Today, tx. 3/1/1978)
and 'The Black Stuff' (tx. 2/1/1980), and Ron Hutchinson, on 'The Out of Town Boys'
(Play for Today, tx. 2/1/1979), writers with whom Wearing developed a particular rapport.
The following year he produced Stephen Davis's 'Trouble With Gregory' (tx.
23/2/1980), for BBC2's Playhouse (1974-83), and Ron Hutchinson's six-part Bull Week
(1980), a social realist drama set in a factory in Birmingham. But it was
Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man (1981) that confirmed Wearing's penchant for
progressive TV drama. The History Man was a four-part serial, a form with which
Wearing was to excel as the single play gave way to the authored serial on
British television in the 1980s. Ron Hutchinson's four-part contemporary
thriller Bird of Prey (1982) was followed by Alan Bleasdale's five-part Boys
from the Blackstuff, which Wearing guided to the screen in 1982 after a
protracted production period. Wearing suggested Bleasdale write 'The Muscle
Market' (tx.13/1/1981), originally intended to be part of the series, as a
separate Play for Today (1970-84), in order to keep him on board at a time when the BBC
was prevaricating about commissioning a more expensive regionally-based drama
series. Wearing recruited the accomplished television director Philip Saville to
direct Boys from the Blackstuff, shooting four of the five episodes on video to
keep costs down - a decision which arguably enhanced the contemporary realism of
Bleasdale's 'state of the nation' drama.
Following the departure of David Rose to Channel Four, BBC English Regions
Drama gradually declined as an important producer of regional drama; indeed,
Boys from the Blackstuff represents the department's last great achievement.
Wearing subsequently left Birmingham, but such was his reputation by now that he
was subsequently re-engaged by the BBC to executive-produce the final series of
Play for Today in 1984. Later in 1984 he produced Alan Clarke's last studio
play, Stars of the Roller State Disco (tx. 4/12/1984). In the same year Wearing
was invited to produce an as yet unfinished contemporary serial, then entitled
Magnox, which Troy Kennedy Martin had been working on for some time. Wearing
brought in Martin Campbell to direct and they both worked with Kennedy Martin to
realise his vision. The convoluted nuclear thriller which emerged, re-titled
Edge of Darkness, was one of the seminal dramas of the decade, proving
such a success on its transmission on BBC2 that it was immediately repeated on
BBC1. Edge of Darkness won six BAFTA awards in 1986, including Best Drama
Series/Serial.
After a production of Malcolm Bradbury's Rates of Exchange fell through,
Wearing moved to ITV for the first time, producing the feature film Bellman and
True (d. Richard Loncraine, 1987) for Euston Films/Thames TV/Handmade Films,
subsequently shown on ITV in a longer three-part version in 1989. He returned to
the BBC to produce Blind Justice (1988), a five-part drama about two radical
barristers written by Peter Flannery. The two would collaborate again on
Flannery's BAFTA-winning epic Our Friends in the North.
In 1988 Wearing returned to Birmingham as head of Drama, producing several
films for series such as Screen One and Screen Two, including Michael Eaton's
Fellow Traveller (tx. 10/2/1991), about American writers working anonymously in
Britain at the time of the McCarthy witch hunts. As an indication of his
propensity to speak his mind, Wearing drew an analogy between the subject of
Fellow Traveller and contemporary developments in British broadcasting, with new
government proposals threatening the future prospects of radical television
drama. Such pronouncements only seemed to enhance his reputation, however, and
Wearing was recruited by BBC head of Drama Mark Shivas to become head of Drama
Serials. As the BBC entered a more competitive era, Wearing believed that
quality drama could be the corporation's chief weapon; among the many serials he
was responsible for in the 1990s were classic literary adaptations such as
Middlemarch (1994), Martin Chuzzlewit (1994), Pride and Prejudice (1995),
Nostromo (1997) and Our Mutual Friend (1998), as well as original authored
serials such as Paula Milne's Die Kinder (1990), Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of
Suburbia (1993), Our Friends in the North, Dennis
Potter's Karaoke (1996) and Cold Lazarus (1996) and Tony Marchant's Holding On
(1997).
Throughout this period, Wearing was an outspoken critic of BBC management,
especially following the appointment of John Birt as director general in 1992.
Wearing believed that Birt's policies were stifling creativity and, after
threatening it on more than one occasion, he resigned in February 1998. There
was much industry sympathy for his position and, shortly after announcing his
resignation, he was awarded the Royal Television Society's highest accolade, the
Cyril Bennett Judges Award, having received BAFTA's Alan Clarke Award for
outstanding creative achievement in television in 1997. He subsequently took up
a position as an executive producer with Irish Screen. In August 2008, filming
began on a feature film version of Edge of Darkness with Wearing as co-producer,
Martin Campbell directing and Mel Gibson in the lead role.
Lez Cooke
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FILM & TV CREDITS
