Troy Kennedy Martin

Troy Kennedy Martin (born in Scotland in 1932, and educated at Finchley Grammar School (now known as Finchley Catholic High School) and Trinity College, Dublin; sometimes credited as Troy Kennedy-Martin) is a British film and television scriptwriter. His best known work in the cinema is the screenplay for the original version of "The Italian Job", and in television he was responsible for co-creating the long-running BBC police series "Z-Cars" and writing the highly-regarded 1985 drama serial "Edge of Darkness".

1960s

He began writing for BBC Television in 1958, penning the play "Incident at Echo Six", and he wrote four further plays for the Corporation over the following three years, before in 1961 creating his first series, "Storyboard". "Storyboard" was a six-part anthology series which consisted both of original Kennedy Martin scripts and adaptations. The same year, he wrote the police drama "The Interrogator".

It was the genre of crime and policing which gave rise to his next and probably most famous television work, the drama series "Z-Cars", which he co-created in 1962. Set in the town of Kirkby (pronounced 'Ker-bee') near Liverpool, "Z-Cars" was revolutionary in that it depicted a hard-edged, grittier and much more realistic vision of the police force than had ever been seen on British television before - as a result, it was initially very unpopular with the real police. Although Kennedy Martin left the programme after the two series, the series ran until 1978.

1970s

Over the following decade he contributed to various television programmes, and also made his first foray into the world of feature films when he wrote "The Italian Job", which was released in 1969 and starred Noël Coward and Michael Caine. The following year he wrote another film, "Kelly's Heroes", and he scripted two more films during the 1970s - "The Jerusalem File" (1971) and "Sweeney 2" (1978).

"Sweeney 2" was the second cinematic spin-off from the television series "The Sweeney", which had been created by Kennedy Martin's brother Ian Kennedy Martin, and for which he had written several episodes. This was a return to his police drama roots, albeit in a more action/adventure vein rather than the attempted social realism of early "Z-Cars".

He is perhaps less well-known for writing a little-seen television sitcom based in the British Civil Service, "It It Moves, File It" (1970), featuring amongst others John Bird, who now stars alongside Rory Bremner and John Fortune in the satirical "Bremner, Bird and Fortune".

1980s

In the early 1980s Kennedy Martin was no less successful, with two highly popular series on different networks in the same year, 1983. One, "The Old Men at the Zoo", was an adaptation of the novel by Angus Wilson and screened on BBC One. The second was the hugely popular "Reilly, Ace of Spies" on ITV, based on the book by Robin Bruce Lockhart and starring Sam Neill.

In 1978, Kennedy Martin had drafted a script for a political thriller-cum-science fiction drama serial called "Magnox". The script attracted little interest from television executives until incoming BBC Head of Drama Series & Serials Jonathan Powell picked it up in 1982, assigning experienced producer Michael Wearing to the project.

The resultant serial, retitled "Edge of Darkness", was eventually screened on BBC Two in late 1985. Although Kennedy Martin experienced many creative differences with director Martin Campbell and star Bob Peck (who is reported to have vetoed the scripted ending with the remark "I'm not turning into a fucking tree!"), the drama was a resounding success, picking up several awards and being remembered as one of the best British television drama productions of the 1980s. [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/473217/index.html]

After "Edge of Darkness", he wrote another feature film screenplay, "Red Heat" (1988, co-written with director Walter Hill), which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi.

1990s

He did not return to television scriptwriting until he penned the one-off BBC Two drama "Hostile Waters" in 1997. Other recent work has included the adaptation of "Bravo Two Zero" for BBC One in 1999, co-written with the book's author Andy McNab and starring Sean Bean.

External links

*imdb name|id=0448392|name=Troy Kennedy Martin
*Screenonline name|id=473113|name=Troy Kennedy Martin