 Troy Kennedy Martin's first work for television was Incident at Echo Six (BBC, tx. 1958) and he delivered four further plays between 1959-61 before his first series, a six part anthology of original material and adaptations, Storyboard (BBC, 1961). He followed this with a gritty police drama, The Interrogator (BBC, 1961), which indirectly led to his next series Z Cars (BBC, 1962-78). Kennedy Martin created Z Cars as an antidote to the 'cosy-cop-on-the-corner' style TV police series, epitomised by Dixon of Dock Green (BBC, 1955-76). Z Cars was revolutionary. For the first time the police were portrayed as real human beings, complete with flaws. Prejudiced, bad-tempered, shifty and sometimes even displaying traits (such as wife-beating) more commonly associated with criminals. The police were horrified at first, but eventually came round to regard the series with some affection. Kennedy Martin wrote Diary of A Young Man (BBC, 1964) and then contributed half-a-dozen episodes to ITV's military police series Redcap (1964-66), which starred John Thaw. After more plays and series episodes Kennedy Martin opted for a change of pace to create and write an ITV sitcom, If It Moves, File It (1970). However he was soon back on familiar territory (and with familiar face John Thaw), writing episodes of tough, fast-paced cop show The Sweeney (ITV, 1975-78), a series created by his brother, Ian Kennedy Martin. He enjoyed another huge hit with Reilly Ace of Spies (ITV, 1983) and followed this with his 5-part adaptation of Angus Wilson's The Old Men at the Zoo (BBC, 1983). In 1985, he delivered what is arguably his finest work, Edge of Darkness (BBC, 1985), a brilliant conspiracy thriller transcending the genre with its mix of murder, political chicanery and supernatural mystery. It was over ten years later that he returned to TV with Screen Two entry 'Hostile Waters' (BBC, 1997) and, later, Bravo Two Zero (BBC, 1999) co-written with Andy McNab. Kennedy Martin has also written five feature films, the evergreen Italian Job (d. Peter Collinson, 1969), Kelly's Heroes (US/Yugoslavia, d. Brian G Hutton, 1970), The Jerusalem File (US/Israel, d. John Flynn, 1971), Sweeney 2 (d. Tom Clegg, 1978) and Red Heat (US, d. Walter Hill, 1988), co-written with Walter Hill. Dick Fiddy
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FILM & TV CREDITS
