Jimmy McGovern: exclusive interview

Jimmy McGovern (right) and brother Eddie; YouTube: Clips from McGovern's Hillsborough drama

Born to a large, Catholic, working-class family in Kensington, Liverpool in 1949, Jimmy McGovern knew poverty as a child. His working-class background has become a platform in which a lot of writing is based upon. From his humble beginnings of being scrutinised by critics of his small productions showcased at the Everyman theatre, to working with Phil Redmond on Brookside, McGovern’s dedication to writing eventually paid off, and he has become one of the most influential television drama writers portraying tough, dark, even harrowing subject matter to a mainstream audience.
 
McGovern’s breakthrough came through the television drama Cracker, where his portrayal of the character Fitz as a brilliantly intuitive detective combined with a piercing insight, a highly developed moral sense and a host of personal faults, from alcoholism, smoking and a gambling addiction to a chronic incompetence as a husband and father. McGovern used his own individual blemishes to shape the character around his own image, giving him his Catholic legacy and even his own birthday.

Cracker, at it’s peak, was drawing in an audience of 15 million, and there was even talk of the programme being portrayed on the other side of the Atlantic, which would have been a great money-spinner for the four-time BAFTA winner.

“There was all this talk of the American Cracker getting done in the states and if it would have got commissioned I would have been minted. So I met the Merseyside Dockers who wanted me to write their story, and it was a great experience. I found myself saying, ‘it’s ok lads I don’t want any money for it, just throw it in the pot for the fighting fund’ because I was thinking I’m not going to need any money for the rest of my life after I do this American Cracker, but the next day they pulled it and I was absolutely gutted.”

In Cracker, McGovern had found an outlet that really allowed him to show what he could do as a writer, having complete control of his writing. McGovern’s mantra has always been controversy, and one episode in-particular sparked up debate. 'To Be a Somebody' aired in 1994, evoked memories of the Hillsborough disaster; McGovern, however, was unflinching, having already secured the support of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, and established a lasting bond with the victims families which lead him to writing a drama documentary based on the events surrounding the tragedy.

“I met the families involved in Hillsborough whilst filming an episode of Cracker, and I put everything that was in my heart into Hillsborough. In the eighties it was a bad time to be a white working class male because in them days it was trendy to be black or gay and we were seen throughout the eighties as fascists and we were attacked from every quarter, we weren’t fascists at all, we were trade unionists most of us, yet alls I saw was this constant attack against the
working
class white male, so I put that into an episode of Cracker and
a few of the Hillsborough families loved it and we struck a
bond. I’ll never forget the day when I came home back to
my house and there were two women on the doorstep
who had lost kids at Hillsborough and they said ‘we have
come to ask you to write our story’ so it started there really.”

McGovern's dramatisation of Hillsborough both investigates
the police actions which caused it and explores its effects
on the victims' families.

The drama brought the issue of a huge miscarriage of justice
that had occurred over Hillsborough to the wider public. When
Labour came to power in May 1997, the new home secretary, Jack Straw, promised the bereaved families of the tragedy that there would be an independent judicial scrutiny to inquire into the disaster. He stated that Lord Justice Stuart-Smith would head the scrutiny. Whilst the immediate response of this was one of optimism from families, the inquiry and the government delivered little and. This left everybody concerned with the disaster, including McGovern, disillusioned by the government.
 
“I can’t believe how naive I was after I had wrote it. I expected justice, but it never happened. I lost faith with everything, especially the Labour party and I spit upon Jack Straw. He promised the families everything and delivered nothing. And he established his scrutiny, he had it in his power to lay down the terms of that scrutiny for that disgraceful judge Smith and he never laid down the terms and so the judge was able to interpret the terms of his scrutiny and he did it very narrowly and he gave the families nothing.”

In McGovern’s recent work, The Street, his name and reputation has attracted to the series such illustrious actors as Timothy Spall, Bob Hoskins, Jim Broadbent, Gina McKee and Jane Horrocks.
 
And with a catalogue of dramas and serials, McGovern champions The Street as some of the best work he has ever done, but also the most demanding.

“I’m finding it hard to keep the passion now, mainly because I’m getting older. In my younger days I’d be writing really energetically with fresh ideas, but now I’ve set myself a high standard and I have to maintain it. I’ve just finished writing the third series of The Street and the standard is so high, and it’s all about life.

“The Street is probably the best piece of work I think that I’ve written, it’s out shone everything and particularly the first episode of the third series. I see so much lazy writing these days, writers don’t stick exclusively to the story they start with and you begin to see sub-plots developing and that’s because the writer hasn’t got faith in their own story.
 
“There’s an integrity of narrative in The Street that that you do not find in many dramas today or even theatre and you certainly don’t find it in movies anymore, movies are brain dead.”

"I expected justice, but it never happened. I lost faith with everything..."