 The BBC should be eternally grateful to the creative and highly productive
partnership of Holland and Julia Smith. It was their close professional
association (he as writer/script editor, she as producer/director) - beginning
in 1970 on the police drama Z Cars (BBC, 1962-78) - that resulted in the BBC's
highest-rating weekly serial, EastEnders (1985- ), placing the programme firmly
at the heart of the network's schedule.
Although an early interest in acting took him to drama school, he turned to
scriptwriting when a play he had developed was taken up by the BBC: 'The Isle Is
Full of Noises' (tx. 3/5/1967), a twist-in-the-tail yarn about a woman's hatred
of noise, was produced by Thirty Minute Theatre (BBC, 1965-73).
Through his agent, he landed the job of script editor on Z Cars in 1970,
which had by then switched to a twice-weekly format. In 1973 he moved over to
ITV as story editor on the series Marked Personal (1973-74), set in the
personnel office of a Northern factory; Rooms (1974-77), observing the lives of
residents of a boarding house; the thriller serial The Life and Death of
Penelope (1976); and the courtroom case anthology Killers (1976).
He rejoined Smith on the popular twice-weekly series Angels (BBC, 1975-83), a
serialised student nurses drama embracing social as well as medical issues.
Continuing with a medical theme, the Smith-Holland team devised The District
Nurse (BBC, 1984; 1987), a 1920s-set period piece following nurse Nerys Hughes
as she negotiated her way through tight-knit, and often hostile, Welsh
communities.
They left the series in 1984 to launch EastEnders, which, while becoming an
instant hit, soon became arduous and exhausting. As a year-round series, the
production schedule was punishing and eventually had a draining effect on both
Holland and Smith. They remained with it for the first four years of its run,
leaving in 1989.
In 1991, they were called to devise a new soap serial, set in Spain in an
expatriate community. They developed a lively format, with an almost surreal
edge, but the executive element had different ideas and the result was the
dismal Eldorado (BBC, 1992-93). Later, as a complete change of air, Holland
co-created for Swedish TV (with Louise Boije af Gennäs) the private eye serial
Snoken (SVT1, 1993-97).
He was awarded a Special Achievement Award at the British Soap Awards in
2002.
Tise Vahimagi
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FILM & TV CREDITS
