I was doing two things at once for quite a long time. I was working in television and writing novels.
In history there's what's written down and there's what actually happened.
Manchester's history is cotton and wool. Birmingham's is iron and steel.
I will never unravel the mystery of how a script gets into the hands of certain people.
I do lots of projects in film and TV. You have some that are lucky, and some that are unlucky.
True stories are always good because they're so odd, and so unlikely. It's always good to have a world that people don't know about - a world that hasn't yet been done. It's like treading on fresh snow. You're the first one there. It always feels good to be dealing with a period of history or a world that no one else has dealt with.
