Desmond's

I hope you are all well.

[upbeat music] My special guest today is Nick Phillips, a prolific television director who, as well as 20 hard-hitting episodes of The Bill, his many directing credits include Brookside, Casualty, Coronation Street, EastEnders, and the sitcoms Barbara, Birds of a Feather, Desmond's, Goodnight Sweetheart, and My Family.

[upbeat music] Working in the screen trade since 1968, Nick got his drama directing debut on LWT's The Gentle Touch, the first police procedural with a leading female detective, DI Maggie Forbes, played by the late great Jill Gascoine.

I interviewed Nick last year to capture his memories of working on The Gentle Touch for Best of British Magazine.

Including the show that transformed how Black British life was represented on screen.

Desmond's.

I'm Anika Allan Gray, and this is Then, Now, Next.

A podcast where we tell the stories of the Black British creatives who built, shaped, and are now redefining the TV industry.

So, you know, so it was that.

Trix was later invited to have a meeting with Humphrey Barclay, one of the producers of the black-led Channel 4 comedy No Problem.

It was actually Trix's journey to that meeting where he got the inspiration for the show Desmond's.

I was at the film school and I got a phone call to say that Channel 4 were looking for a new comedy.

I had Christopher Asante stop me at London Weekend.

He's the guy who used to play Matthew on, um, Desmond's.

Oh.

"Lenny, hello."

I was so...

I was crying so-

What did he, he say, what did he say on Desmond's? "In Africa, we have a saying." That was it, was it?

Oh, yeah, that was what he used to do.

It was the British adaptation of the American show Good Times.

This show in particular paved the way for other black popular sitcoms like No Problem, The Lenny Henry Show and the era-defining Desmond's.

Even though the cast was all black, there was absolutely no one behind the scenes that reflected the stories they were telling.

The first big thing I ever did was The Fosters, which was the first all-black sitcom on British television.

One institution built infrastructure from conviction, the other built infrastructure to keep pace.

One of the shows that Fruit backed as a commissioner is a great example of direct speech that would go on to change how black British life was represented on primetime television.

When I first started to write Desmond's, Humphrey Barclay, the producer, and Charlie Hansen, the author, the other producer, said to me at the time, at the beginning, so who do you see playing Desmond's? And they were still smiling and said, yeah, that's a great episode, that's fantastic, so who do you see? I said, well, there's only one man that could play this.

And all three of us went, Norman Beaton.