Sundays just wouldn’t be Sundays without this man

Matthew Napier

MARTYN MEETS... part two of his chat with BBC producer Martin Napier
Matthew Napier is a garrulous man, and that is meant as a compliment, for having spent 90 minutes in the company of this award-winning BBC producer, I was loathe to leave.

He was full of bonhomie and stories and lifted my spirits with his effervescence and energy.

But for three months he was lost to the creative industry that sets apart this country’s broadcasters from the plethora of dirge and drivel — I know we have to fill zillions of hours of content but come on, who really wants to watch “Show Me Your Wardrobe” or “Grand Designs Australia”?

His creative juices coagulated as he sat and stared at the phone, spending his BBC redundancy and wondering, not quite in a stage whisper but pretty close I suspect, about his career choices and chances.

Matthew, who now lives Dobcross having taken a staff job with the Beeb at the swanky new MediaCity UK headquarters in Salford Quays, had taken the corporation’s shilling, aka redundancy money.

“I had earned my wings as a director (Matthew had directed two episodes of the hugely successful soap “Grange Hill”) but was then told I was going back to being an assistant floor manager.”

The internal groan as he recounted this episode in his life was almost audible.

Floor managers are a bottomless pool of talent from which producers and directors pluck people to support the programmes produced by the world’s largest public sector broadcaster.

Matthew, having spent most of his professional lifetime being in charge, or at least being in a responsible job, was not having any of that and packed it in.

He wasn’t about to go back to being an assistant floor manager, which is why this talented young man was in a mire of his own making.

“They were tough times, for sure, you begin to think about the next job, of course you do. It’s only natural.”

As the hours spread into days and the days into weeks and the weeks into months, Matthew’s natural ebullience kept him going.

“And then came the magic call: ‘Can you come to Liverpool and direct Hollyoaks?’”

Dobcross’s newest creative resident was ecstatic: “It was a seven-week contract with a hint of possibly a bit more work.”

Those seven weeks turned into 11-months and he was back in business. The business he knew best, making classy television programmes.

It was all a far cry from his early days in the industry working as an assistant stage manager at the Great Eastern Stage Company. He had been with the Lincolnshire touring group on work experience during his two years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Those were the days when an Equity card was king — it probably still is — and the fresh-faced, eager young Matthew couldn’t get his union card until he had experience, but couldn’t get a job, and some experience, until he got a card. It’s a wonder the industry even survived, let alone flourished with rules like that, I mused to myself as Matthew recounted this tale.

Then came the call from Great Eastern — a job and a card — and he was on his way to fame and fortune. Well, he now lives in Dobcross and makes programmes like “Songs of Praise” and “School Choir of the Year” — and he has won a BAFTA — so he’s doing okay.

He recalls taking one show to Skegness and the local council banned the performance . . . “It was a story about a couple who couldn’t have children and there was one scene in which they were required to be nude.”

The local paper ran the headline “Skegness bans sex shocker” he recalled with a rueful smile that suggested he didn’t entirely trust journalists — and there was I, sat across the coffee table eagerly taking copious notes.

From touring he progressed to deputy stage manager before moving the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, taking a job as stage manager. Happy days followed as he learned his trade in the busy, atmospheric live theatre that is the relentless, treadmill world of rep.

“It was in 1989 that I got to thinking to myself that I couldn’t do this forever,” he told me. His siblings — he is the fourth of six, Simon, Sally, Guy, Adam and Emma being the others — and they were all doing ok, moving onwards and upwards in their careers.

Matthew’s Birmingham Rep assistant landed a job with the BBC at Pebble Mill and this set him thinking. He secured an interview with the corporation, travelling to London for the interview.

“The salary was £2,000 a year less than I was already earning so I reluctantly had to turn it down.”

Three months later he took a leap of faith, accepting a job offer as an assistant floor manager and as he was able to live in Streatham with his brother Guy, the salary difference as somewhat nullified.

And so began his inexorable march to his present position of eminence as a senior staffer at MediaCity UK.

Those of you who watch the BBC’s religious and ethics output will be familiar with his work.

He has progressed from children’s television — having won his British Academy of Film and Theatre Arts award for his work on six series of the fantasy game show show “Raven” — through other hits such as “Copycats” and “A Question of Genius”, alongside presenter Kirsty Wark, to his current role.

“After six series of ‘Raven’ it was time to leave. The BAFTA award was special, an evening I will never, ever forget, but it was time to move on. I was becoming known as ‘Mr Raven’ and I had to do something else.”

But, like much of Matthew’s professional life, that wasn’t an easy transition.

By now he was based in Scotland, albeit in a beautiful spot on the banks of Loch Lomond, but the work was in Manchester and he spent 21 months commuting, travelling down on Monday mornings, living in a B and B in Chorlton, and returning to wife Sue and children Harvey and Emily for long weekends.

It was 250 miles each way and was tedious, tiring and draining.

But work as a BBC producer is a precarious existence and Matthew wasn’t about to give up his home on a whim. He had done that once and had waited three months for a call.

Life changed for the better when an opportunity arose in the BBC’s religious and ethics department. It was full-time and now he took the chance to move his family south. To Dobcross and he loves it here.

The family have no intention of leaving the leafy glades of the Saddleworth valley and Oldham should be glad to have him.

After all, we have in our midst the man who produces some of the biggest programmes the BBC puts out on Sundays.

He is responsible for the “School Choir of the Year” series — having revamped the format into its current successful status — and he produced the “50 Amazing Years” programme, a look back at five decades of “Songs of Praise”, one the Beeb’s timeless Sunday staples.

In addition to the hour-long “Hope” programme to be shown in the New Year, he was working — with his team of three — on the day we met, on the “The Big Sing” which went out a couple of weeks back and the “Songs of Praise Diamond Jubilee Special”. This was recorded in the chapel at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. For the “Big Sing” he worked with tenor Alfie Boe at the Royal Albert hall.

“Good days, it’s great work and I get to meet some amazing people, in front of the lens and behind the scenes,” he told me with a smile that confirmed here is a man happy in his work.

As I stood to leave we shook hands and his parting words words were: “My wife told me not to talk too much.”

Clearly he wasn’t listening, I am delighted to report.