 A regular collaborator of director Ken Loach, Neville Smith is one of a
number of working-class actors and writers to have transformed the
subject-matter and tone of television drama in the 1960s and 1970s. He was
responsible for two of Loach's finest television films - 'The Golden Vision'
(The Wednesday Play, BBC, tx. 17/4/1968) and After a Lifetime (ITV, tx. 18/7/1971) -
but also developed a partnership with the director Stephen Frears, for whom he
wrote the cult British detective film, Gumshoe (UK/US, 1971).
Born in Liverpool in 1940, he began his film and television acting career in
series such as The Plane Makers (ITV, 1963-65), Doctor Who (BBC, 1963-89) and Z
Cars (BBC, 1962-78). He played his first lead role in Eric Coltart's
'Wear a Very Big Hat' (The Wednesday Play, BBC, tx. 17/2/1965), winning praise for the truthfulness
of his performance as an aggrieved working-class mod. The play was directed by
Ken Loach, who went on to cast Smith in three dramas for The Wednesday Play (BBC,
1964-70) - 'The End of Arthur's Marriage' (tx. 17/11/1965), 'In Two Minds' (tx.
1/3/1967) and 'The Big Flame' (tx. 19/2/1969) - as well as 'The Rank and File'
(Play For Today, BBC, tx. 20/5/1971).
It was also for Loach (and his regular producer Tony Garnett) that Smith
wrote (with a little help from ITN newscaster Gordon Honeycombe) his first
television play, 'The Golden Vision'. Partly based on Smith's experiences of
growing up in an Irish-Catholic working-class community, the play is focused on
a group of fanatical Everton supporters and proved to be one of Loach's most
engaging and enjoyable works. Smith also wrote and appeared in a second
Loach-Garnett production, After a Lifetime. Inspired by the death of his father,
the production lamented the death of an earlier era of political radicalism
while retaining a strong element of Smith's Liverpudlian humour.
This same humour is also to be found in his first film screenplay, Gumshoe,
about a Liverpool bingo caller who dreams of becoming a private-eye in the mould
of Sam Spade. Directed by Stephen Frears and featuring Albert Finney in the main
role, the film remains one of Smith's best-known works (and led Frears to
describe him as "the best writer I've ever come across"). Two further television
plays written for Frears followed: 'Match of the Day' (Second City Firsts, BBC, tx.
18/3/1974), in which the main character (played by Smith) misses a football
match for the sake of his sister's wedding, and 'Long Distance Information'
(Play For Today, BBC, tx. 11/10/1979), in which Smith plays an Elvis-obsessed DJ on
the night of his hero's death.
He also wrote and starred in 'Bag of Yeast' (Red Letter Day, ITV, tx.
22/2/1976), directed by Michael Grigsby, in which a young teacher decides to
become a priest. Smith's interest in football resurfaced in later work such as
The World Cup - A Captain's Tale (ITV, tx. 23/5/1986), a Dennis Waterman vehicle
recalling the Durham miners who won the first football 'World Cup', and The
Manageress (Channel 4, 1989-90), a series about a woman football manager for
which Smith wrote a number of episodes. In addition to writing for radio, Smith
also acted in a range of films and TV programmes, including playing the writer
'Neville', in pursuit of a director for a screenplay about the Aberdeen oil
business, in Maurice Hatton's low-budget feature Long Shot (1978).
John Hill
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FILM & TV CREDITS
