Alasdair Milne: Self - BBC Director General 1982-1987

Quotes 

• Alasdair Milne : I knew he was very good at constructing these rather complicated sequences with battles and discussions about battles, and so on. And I said to him, the Falklands War just having ended, "What about doing a play about the Falklands?" And he said "Yeah, OK, I'll think about that."

  Eddie Mair - Narrator : [voiceover]  Curteis had never hidden his political views. His plays tended to celebratory of firm government. This new work was expected to be pro-Thatcher.

  Ian Curteis : It was, essentially, the case for the defence. The BBC had been heavily criticised, possibly with some justice, at the way they had reported one side of the war while it was actually going on, but not attempting to explain *why* it was being fought, at any rate not enough for people to remember why it was being fought. And so my play was intended to cover that side of it.

  Alasdair Milne : One day The Falklands Play landed on my desk and I read it and I thought, and wrote to him, that it was a thumping good yarn.

  Ian Curteis : He was enthusiastic about it. I also delivered it to the then Head of Plays and it was put into immediate production: studios were booked, budget was allocated and signed. So the whole show was on the road for BBC1 at prime time. And then complications suddenly appeared.

  Eddie Mair - Narrator : [voiceover]  Enter two key BBC executives, the Managing Director of Television, Bill Cotton, and the new Director of Programmes, Michael Grade. Strong personalities, they didn't share their Director General's enthusiasm.

  Alasdair Milne : I sent it down to the Television Centre where it ran into more flak. Bill Cotton thought it was one-dimensional and Michael Grade didn't like it at all. So there was a professional disagreement between the three of us.

  Michael Grade : I was very disappointed because I was quite an admirer of Ian's work, Churchill and the Generals, and so on - very much to my taste. That kind of drama adds to the mix of general fiction that one sees on TV. And I read it and I thought it was a very poor piece of work. It was the Goon Show characters in the Argentine which were silly. He obviously had quite good access, I suspect, to the UK side of things, but basically he had to imagine, I think, what went on on the Argentinean side. And that was where the thing really fell apart. And his characterisations were thin, to say the least. The script needed... was many, many drafts away from being producible.

• [Alasdair Milne, the Director General of the BBC, had told Ian Curteis and the press that the reason the BBC was shelving production of The Falklands Play was because it was too sensitive and could be accused of biassing the result of the upcoming General Election] 

  Alasdair Milne : I was going to strong-arm them after the election and have it made. I'd decide to do that.

  Eddie Mair - Narrator : [voiceover]  But before the election, in an ironic twist to the story, the main supporter of the pro-Thatcher play was sacked by the Thatcher-appointed governors.

  Peter Fiddick : The firing of Alasdair Milne was an absolute shock to everybody inside and outside the BBC. It had clearly been plotted by a number of the governors.

  Eddie Mair - Narrator : [voiceover]  The sacking of Milne signalled the end of the play. Without his support, there was unanimous agreement among BBC management that the play should now be scrapped for good. The fact the Curteis had gone to the press had been the final nail in the coffin.

• Ian Curteis : Everyone is right from their own point of view. And if it was a private company, Michael Grade and Bill Cotton would be entirely justified. But it *isn't* a private company. They blocked the play. They didn't tell me why. They did not commission another play to put a similar viewpoint - the case for the defence.

  Michael Grade : There was no politics at the BBC. The BBC was not trying to change Ian Curteis's view of the world. It was not trying to change the script. We just wanted something we felt was worth a million quid of the licence-payer's money.

  Sir Bernard Ingham : I do not need persuading now, and I did not need persuading then, that there were elements within the BBC that didn't want to broadcast anything that portrayed Margaret Thatcher in a good light.

  Peter Goodchild : I never heard anybody actually saying "This is just a load of right-wing rubbish" or whatever. That wasn't the way it was discussed. There was no conspiracy.

  Eddie Mair - Narrator : [voiceover]  Yet fifteen years on, the BBC still stands accused. Production of the play may be complete but it seems the row behind it will never be resolved.

  Peter Fiddick : It was, from my point of view, impossible then and is impossible now to know what or who to believe.

  Chris Dunkley : It will be extremely interesting to see whether most of us now think it's a good or a bad piece of work.

  Alasdair Milne : I still believe, from the moment I first saw it, that it was worth making. I look forward to seeing it very much.

  Michael Grade : I don't like to see any work buried. I shall watch it with interest.

  Sir Bernard Ingham : I welcome it. Let's see what he wrote. Judge for ourselves.