Paul Watson clearly revelled in being one among tv’s nice maverick programme makers, significantly having fun with, he as soon as advised me, a evaluate which famous: “He comes with bother as Rod Hull got here with Emu.”
Considered one of his first huge rows was whereas a scholar on the Royal Faculty of Artwork movie faculty within the 60s. His tutor, Iris Murdoch, advised him bluntly that she would fail him if he submitted his proposed thesis on “The Cruelty of Tom & Jerry”. Which, after all, he duly did.
A pioneer of TV’s so-called fly-on-the-wall approach, he at all times wished to have as little baggage as attainable between the digital camera and the topic. He defined it to me thus: “I banned lights on any of my productions from 1972, which received me into sizzling water on the time. ‘We’re turning folks into actors,’ I’d say.”
So, it was simply him and the digital camera’s gaze. ‘“It means I can sit on the ground, faff about, make a cup of tea for the topic and me, and simply anticipate issues to stew and occur.” Which they virtually at all times did.
