 James - or Jimmy - O'Connor had an unusual background for a television
dramatist. He was an adventurous career criminal whose life changed in 1942,
when he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His reprieve came just
days before he was due to hang. He served ten years but always maintained his
innocence. Although the Home Office admitted misgivings about his conviction, he
was never pardoned.
He became a crime reporter in the 1950s and then a car dealer. It was his own
life experiences and those of his criminal acquaintances that informed his
writing when he turned to television drama in the 1960s, with three scripts
produced for The Wednesday Play (BBC, 1964-1970) in 1965 alone - all of them
directed by Ken Loach, using many of the same actors.
'Three Clear Sundays' (tx. 7/4/1965) was a grim, haunting and yet sometimes
comedic account of a young man's hanging. Although written afterwards, 'Tap on
the Shoulder' (tx. 6/1/1965), a lighter piece about a gold bullion heist and the
criminality of nobility, reached the screen first. 'The Coming Out Party' (tx.
22/12/1965) depicted a pair of petty criminals forever entering and leaving
prison and the effects of this on their son.
In 1965 O'Connor was reportedly writing the screenplay for a film of the
'Great Train Robbery', having himself known some of the robbers, but the project
was never realised. Another Wednesday Play, 'Profile of a Gentleman' (tx.
22/11/1967, directed by John MacKenzie), dramatised the mechanics of a bank robbery. He also worked briefly
for ITV, writing 'Thirty Stretch' (tx. 15/12/1967) for the anthology The Gamblers (1967-68).
'Her Majesty's Pleasure' (tx. 25/10/1973), for Play for Today (BBC,
1970-1984), concerned prisoners serving life sentences and brought a young Bob
Hoskins to wider attention. In 1976 he published a best-selling autobiography,
The Eleventh Commandment.
Oliver Wake
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FILM & TV CREDITS
