 In a career spanning four decades, Ian Kennedy Martin charted the seismic
changes in post war British society through the prism of popular drama. One of
the busiest and most successful writers then working in television, he was also
crucial in redefining the cop show genre for the 1970s and 80s.
Born on 23 March 1936 in London, Ian followed his brother Troy Kennedy Martin
(1934-2009) to Dublin to study at Trinity College but was, as he later put it,
"in and out of that institution very quickly". He returned home in 1961 to join
the writer's pool at the BBC, where Troy was already developing the
groundbreaking Z Cars (BBC, 1962-78). Ian worked, often uncredited, on a variety
of live television dramas before the pool was disbanded. His first major credit
came as script editor on the military thriller Redcap (ITV, 1964-66), featuring
John Thaw as the first of Ian's trademark flinty, no-nonsense protagonists. He
got Troy to pen several episodes and they subsequently collaborated on the
country vet soap Weavers Green (ITV, 1966), which Ian also script edited, and
the police drama Parkin's Patch (ITV, 1969-70), with Troy using his 'Tony Marsh'
pseudonym on both.
Ian and John Thaw's long and fruitful collaboration would later include an
episode of The Onedin Line (BBC, 1970-80) and a silly-but-fun Francis Durbridge-style serial The Capone Investment (ITV, 1973), culminating in The
Sweeney (ITV, 1975-78), which brought a new realism to police drama and forever
changed the genre. Ian created this zesty warts-and-all cop show with Thaw in
mind, but after his introductory story 'Regan' (Armchair Cinema, ITV, tx 4/6/1974) he departed, following disagreements with producer Ted Childs, although Troy remained on
staff.
Ian's only produced movie screenplay, Mitchell (US, dir. Andrew V. McLaglen,
1975), proved to be a disappointing Hollywood potboiler, but featured a
variation on the most recurring situation in his work: that of an opinionated
and strong-minded individual pitted against the system, seen most clearly not
just in The Sweeney but also in his later creations Juliet Bravo (BBC, 1980-85)
and The Chinese Detective (BBC, 1981-82), which respectively looked at
entrenched sexism and racism in the police force. Ian's best work has fashioned
several imaginative permutations of the crime story, from the heightened rough
and tumble of The Sweeney, the slow-burn psychological pressure of his Armchair Theatre (ITV, 1956-74) play 'Detective Waiting' (tx. 14/9/1971), to the more
everyday problems encountered in Juliet Bravo. He displayed a lighter side in
King and Castle (ITV, 1986-88), his odd couple show about debt collectors.
Always highly prolific, Ian was a writer-for-hire on such popular series as
the boardroom soap The Troubleshooters (BBC, 1966-72), the wartime drama Colditz
(BBC, 1972-74), to which Troy also contributed, Hadleigh (ITV, 1969-76), about
the Yorkshire gentry, and the long-running Bergerac (BBC, 1981-91).
Ian's last produced script, for the Customs and Excise drama The Knock (ITV,
1994-2000), was screened in 1997. Also the author of several novels, his first
stage play, 'The Berlin Hanover Express', premiered in London in 2009.
Sergio Angelini
Bibliography
Sean Day-Lewis, Talk of Drama (University of Luton Press, 1998)
Robert Fairclough and Mike Kenwood, The Sweeney! The Official Companion
(Reynolds & Hearn, 2002)
Lez Cooke, Troy Kennedy Martin (Manchester University Press,
2007)
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FILM & TV CREDITS
