Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Their names might not instantly ring a bell but their work will; television gold in the shape of ‘Porridge’, ‘Tracey Takes On. . . ’, ‘The Likely Lads’ and ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’, alongside cinematic treats such as ‘The Commitments’, ‘Still Crazy’ and current release ‘Killing Bono’ all came from the scribbling of the British pair who spoke with IFTN for our Screen Masters Series about absurdities in ‘The Commitments’, what broadcasters want nowadays and writing for Will Smith.
Recently in town for a special IFTA 'In Conversation With . . . ' event, the BAFTA and Primetime Emmy winning writing duo have been behind dozens of television and film hits. It's rather surprising then that Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais’ professional relationship seems to have happened almost accidentally; taking a BBC course in directing for television in 1966, Clement was given a £1000 budget and told to make a short production using one studio. Turning to his then drinking companion, La Frenais for help, the pair delivered a series that would later become ‘The Likely Lads’. “I had vague acting ambitions at the time,” Dick explains. “And, as a result, Ian and I got in to cabaret shows and revues. We did a revue with the in-house BBC drama group, the Ariel players and we had a sketch in it where we cross cut between a pair of men and women after a date. We looked at their different perspectives following their dates and then just expanded on that really for ‘The Likely Lads’.”
So far, so highly convenient. What followed was a series that is still today cherished by an audience who were delighted to see the return of the series with ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?’ in 1974. Between the two series, Clement and La Frenais had created further comedy shows including ‘Not Only…But Also’ and ‘Thick as Thieves’. It is the series that followed all of these that is perhaps the pairs’ most celebrated, ‘Porridge’.
The prison based black-comedy series propelled Ronnie Barker into stardom and cemented Dick and Ian’s position as professional script-writers. A lack of formal training meant that the pair had a little bit to learn as their career progressed, as became apparent when Michael Winner approached them about writing a film called ‘The Jokers’. ”He asked us for a treatment and we didn’t know what that was,” Dick describes. ”When Michael asked us for a treatment we wrote far too much, and we wrote it in prose form! Then we got the go ahead and they started shooting the film, and we naively assumed this was how the industry ran!”
The film starred Oliver Reed and Michael Crawford and was followed by a string of films written (complete with non-prose style treatments) by the pair including ‘To Catch a Spy’, ‘Doing Time’ and ‘Vice Versa’. And then in 1990 Clement and La Frenais found themselves walking around Ballymun with Alan Parker, familiarising themselves with the backdrop to their new project, ‘The Commitments’. The pair had succeeded in getting Alan Parked to sign on for the project and this allowed for unprecedented access to the filmmaking process for the writers. “We were there for the initial read-through which is a very rare thing for a film’s scriptwriter,” Ian tells us. “And it meant that, afterwards, we were able to take people’s abilities on board and give one actor more and another a bit less.”
Production of ‘The Commitments’ seems to have brought a specific kind of hilarity into normal filmmaking proceedings, as Ian explains: “There was so much poverty in some of the areas and there were wandering horses absolutely everywhere! We also had to change the script several times for the most absurd reasons – in one scene where the band have borrowed a chip van to get to a gig we had it that one certain actor would drive. Then it transpired he couldn’t drive. Then it transpired that none of the kids knew how to drive!” The film led to a London Critics Circle Film Awards and a BAFTA for the two.
Before anyone gets too suspicious of the pair’s run of luck it is worth noting that not all of their projects have had the lives they envisaged: “We had a series about a limo company called ‘Full Stretch’ that was a complete flop,” Dick admits. “And we had another one with Angeline Ball and Bronagh Gallagher from ‘The Commitments’ called ‘Over the Rainbow’ where we were forced to do a new format of a previous show we had done. It never works and it didn’t then.”
Revisiting another series did work out very well for the pair previously though. “We had been mulling over doing a new series of ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’ a few years after the original had broadcast,” Ian says. “And it had seemed like a bad idea until we got all the cast together for a charity gig in Newcastle and the audience gave this amazing reaction.” The series seems to have been a common source of surprise to Clement and La Frenais who still don’t understand how it proved so popular: “We didn’t forsee that becoming the hit that it went on to be,” Dick explains. “It was a drama, and it was working class and very gritty. We were speaking with Laura Mackie, the head of drama in ITV recently and when we asked her what broadcasters are looking for nowadays, she said they’re on the lookout for a new ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’ series, basically a drama with huge emotional heart.”
Now in their early seventies, the script writers show absolutely no signs of slowing down. A question as to what they are working on at the moment lends itself to a never ending list of projects: “Our next project is a drama for the BBC set just before the second world war in Paris and Budapest called ‘Spies of Warsaw’,” Ian starts and pauses so Dick can take over “We also have a movie musical in the pipeline based on the Motown catalogue and called ‘Motor City’ for Disney,” he tells us. “It’s proving difficult because we’ve been told it needs to suit a broader spectrum so we’re scratching our heads with it at the moment. We’re also writing a heist movie for Castlerock and we’ve written something for Will Smith. I don’t really know where we are with that one. You never really know though, do you? You just keep chipping away.”
Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais were in Dublin for the Irish Film & Television Academy's Screenwriting Masterclass which was presented in association with BAI. Full details about the event are available at www.ifta.ie
Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais Selected Credits
Film
- 2011 – Killing Bono
- 2008 – The Bank Job
- 2007 – Across the Universe
- 2006 – Flushed Away
- 1998 – Still Crazy
- 1991 – The Commitments
- 1979 – Doing Time
- 1967 – The Jokers
TV
- 2009 – Parents of the Band
- 2004 – Auf Wiedersehen, Pet
- 1999 – Tracey Takes On . .
- 1994 – Lovejoy
- 1982 – Shine On Harvey Moon
- 1978 – Going Straight
- 1977 – Porridge
- 1974 – Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
- 1974 – Thick as Thieves
- 1966 – The Likely Lads
