An Interview With Local Writer Ian Newton (3/6) By Jane Foster

(1/6), (2/6), (3/6), (4/6), (5/6), (6/6).

After getting one book published it was easier to the second and the third, and I'll hopefully have a fourth out next year. I knew from experience that I would get slagged to pieces in the newspapers for attacking a then untouched political icon like John Prescott. I was called everything from a Moslem fundamentalist to someone who had served time in prison. I must have been the only Moslem fundamentalist who likes Tetley's draft bitter, but there you go. What I would say, is that considering current events around Prescott, I am tempted to say I told you so. What was the inspiration behind The Night Shift? Is it true that it is based largely on your own experiences?

I worked the night for about seven years at Anglia Oils and about two years at BP. What amazed me was that the shift was a laugh from start to finish. I remember one night we had been sat drinking tea, smoking and generally doing as little as possible. I thought to myself we have actually been in hysterics for most the night, and a sit-com struggles to get a grin out of most people these days. This would make a great sitcom. So I wrote the first two episodes of The Night Shift about 20 years ago. It has been around and I have met some absolute idiots of TV producers. I cannot be bothered with them anymore, a total waste of space.

I am sure any writers reading this will know what I am talking about. These people are in charge and responsible for the junk television that goes out. The hypocrisy is quite strange. There are some simple rules - no working people's humour (that they judge as crude and crass), but if its got tits, fanny and bucketloads of shagging, foul language, mutilated bodies and serial killers, or some talentless nobodies for 'Reality TV' then that will be OK. It is junk television, and what junk food does to the body, junk TV and media does to the intellect.

Yes, people tune in. If you put two blokes in an arena with swords to fight to the death, people will also tune in. They did that type of thing in Rome before the collapse of yet another civilisation, and many great civilisations before that had gone down the same road of de-moralisation. And don't worry, these imagination-less Hooray Henrys at the TV companies have heaps of more rubbish to kill your brain cells with. I really do not think it will be long before we see real gladiators on the telly. Mark my words, there are virtually no boundaries of morality left any more.

The Night Shift has been compared to comedies such as On The Buses, The Rag Trade and Only Fools and Horses. Which programmes in particular would you say have influenced you in writing The Night Shift? My favourite of all my sit-coms is a toss up between Steptoe and Rising Damp, but all the ones you name are classics. They had artistry and subtleness in their approach to making you laugh. It just doesn't exist in TV these days. Some people have criticised The Night Shift as being 'racist'. For example, you have a character called 'Black Dave' (who is black). What would you say in reply to people who think The Night Shift is racist?

They are talking as usual a load of rubbish. I come from the ethnic community and they are some of the most racist people you can meet. This political correctness is a middle class phenomenon. They are the closet racists from the past, who have jumped on the PC bandwagon, and are of such weak character and principle, no doubt will be jumping back onto the racist bandwagon when that comes along again.

Continued ...Next page (4/6)

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