ITV Central

And they said no. Oh, no.

After an awful lot of no's, John Lloyd suddenly found a champion at the Midlands-based franchise, Central Television.

People always forget about the Midlands.

Now, they had some good shows to their name, but they weren't anything like as well-funded or as dominant as the London franchises, and they didn't have the power of a big soap.

I have to tell you about this because I've d- [laughs] I've done a little bit of reading up on this.

So this is the second, I think, iteration of the titles, and as you say, it's a flight through a sci-fi city, and it was created by Graham Garside, who was a graphic designer at Central Television.

These titles, they took a year to make.

[laughs]

David Orb, the channel's head of drama, explained a little tartly, "We've noticed in the last few months how difficult it is to launch a new soap."

Mm.

Actor Paul McGann was photographed in character as the lead of Sharpe, a new period drama series made by Central Television.

But shortly after, he would badly injure his knee in a football game during a break in filming and would have to withdraw from production.

He joined Wolves on loan from Rennes earlier this month, and after a difficult few weeks in France, he's delighted to be back in England and closer to home.

Here he is speaking to ITV Central's Dan Salisbury-Jones.

John, thank you for this.

How are you settling in at Wolves?

It was a weird moment, wasn't it? When British movies were kinda co-produced along with cinemas 'cause there were these big chains of cinemas all over the country.

It was originally gonna be produced by ITC Entertainment, but they transitioned into Central Independent Television, so, um, they made it for Rank instead.

Certainly did.

Yeah.