Author Profiles - Frank Cottrell Boyce

Shortly after leaving university, I had a radio play broadcast and it led to a job at Thames Television (Education Department), where I met Michael Winterbottom who was an editor at the time. We planned to make movies. At the time everyone in England had given up on films. It was after the Goldcrest debacle so it was like saying you wanted to do door-to-door roof thatching or scrimshaw work - a lost art. I supported myself by writing for Coronation Street - wonderful fun and the nearest I’ve ever got to a proper job. Then we made Welcome to Sarajevo and we’ve made several films since. Other screenplays that I have written include: The Stranger (nominated for a BAFTA) Butterfly Kiss, Welcome to Sarajevo, Hilary and Jackie (also nominated for a BAFTA), Pandemonium, 24 Hour Party People, The Claim, Code 46 and Millions.

When I met my wife-to-be, she was planning on becoming a nun. Luckily I managed to persuade her to marry me instead. We now have 7 children, ranging from 18 to just a few weeks old and we live in Liverpool.

I had the idea for the film of Millions several years ago. After a few false starts it looked like the film had nearly died but I never fell out of love with the idea, so we carried on working on it. Then out of the blue, Danny Boyle said he wanted to direct the film. Suddenly it all started to happen quite fast. The day the film started shooting, I went out to supper with Danny, and the idea for a book came up in conversation. He was so alarmingly enthusiastic about the idea that I went home and started writing it that evening. Didn’t even stay for pudding as I recall.

I can remember very clearly the day that I put the saints into the mix. I’d just read an interview with Martin Scorsese in which he said that Six O’clock Saints was his favourite book and the one which most influenced him. He pointed out that real saints were not often not simply virtuous people but people who were possessed of a crazed, transcendent energy - like some Scorsese characters. That sent me reaching for the Penguin dictionary of saints and it was like opening a treasure box full of hard, bright, jewel-like stories.

Everyone seems to have had a good English teacher at some point. Mine was Mr Biggs who moonlighted as a Punch and Judy man and managed to persuade me to be his assistant. Throughout my sixth form I spent weekends doing children’s parties and parish fetes with him and his dog (the dog used to pass the hat around). After school I took a year off and did it myself. I earned a fortune entirely in small change. Maybe that’s where I first got interested in the problems created by user-unfriendly cash!

AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANK COTTRELL BOYCE

When did you decide that you wanted to be a writer?

I can remember quite clearly the day I decided that I wanted to be a writer. I was in year six and we’d been given a piece of class work to do about Vikings. It was a lovely fresh February day and for some reason I decided that I’d make a bit of an effort with this piece of work. I put some jokes in and some nice adjectives and I illuminated the first letter making it look like the figurehead of a longboat. My teacher was a nice old nun called Sister Paul. She collected the work and the moment she picked it up I could tell she knew something was going on. After break she read it out to the whole class. I wish I could remember the jokes now but they must have been good because everyone laughed all the way through and that was a wonderful feeling. I imagine it’s the feeling you get when you win a race or something. If she’d asked me to read the piece out myself I probably would have wanted to become a stand-up comedian but there was something delicious about being able to sit back and watch her get the laughs. She was bright red by the end and her eyes were all twinkly. It was as though she’d briefly become one of the children, she was enjoying herself so much. I felt like a magician. And all I’d done was played about with the word order and thrown in a couple of unexpected metaphors. I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to regain the sudden magic of that morning.

Do you think Millions has its own patron saint?

The patron saint of Millions would have to be St Jude, patron of lost causes, because it took me so long to get it right. Anyone else would have given up.

Or it could be Joseph of Copertino – the one who could levitate – because I’ve been walking on air since it was published.

You’re the father of a big family. Surely yours can’t be a very QUIET house to write in! Are you at all like Anthony and Damian’s father in MILLIONS? Are you good at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

No, it’s not a quiet house, I have to say. I hope I’m a better cook than Damian’s dad. For instance, I CAN cook lasagne. I’m obsessed with trivia and LOVE quizzes. But I’m hopeless at Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? because the £8,000 question is always about golf or car racing.

Can you tell us anything about your next project, Framed? Is it also scheduled to become a movie?

Framed is based on a true story. In the second World War all the great paintings in the National gallery were hidden away in a small town in North Wales. I loved the idea that there were pictures worth millions and millions of pounds hidden in a hole in this very poor town. I didn't want to write about the second World War though so I've set the story in the present, or in the near future when the National Gallery is threatened by floods caused by global warming.

We have to ask, what would YOU do with GBP 229,370 (or, approximately $425,500) in cash and only 17 days to spend it?

Obviously I’d give it to the poor!

But I’d also quite like: a desktop candyfloss maker; a Planet Danger Mohican collapsible kayak; a yellow solar-powered IPod; a decent haircut; one of those kites that lifts you into the air; a Nimbus 2005 staircase rider; a digital underwater video camera; self-cleaning, self-sorting, self-finding socks; a donkey (also self-cleaning), a trip to space and some sweets.

And Finally . . .

MY TOP TEN SAINTS

1. St Pyr (d.520)
My own particular favourite saint is St Pyr, a Welsh abbot who fell down a well after a drunken brawl and drowned. He was made into a saint by mistake – some kind of administrative error, which is pretty great. There’s hope for all of us.

2. St Joseph of Copertino (1603-1663)
St Joseph was a gardener who discovered he could float into the air. Did he go off and join a circus? No. He helped bricklayers working on very tall buildings instead.

3. St Peter (d.c.64 AD)
St Peter was rough and ready, not clever, not well off, not even brave, not even a really good fisherman, but he did the best with what he had and became a real hero.

4. St Simeon Stylites (390-459)
St Simeon Stylites lived on top of a fifty-foot pole, just to avoid talking to people. (An extreme, but effective measure.)

5. St Winifred (600-c.655)
St Winifred lived not far from my house. When Prince Caradoc cut off her head, it bounced down the road for a mile and a half singing. Then the ground opened up and swallowed Caradoc whole, and St Bueno came along and put St Winifred’s head back on. Now that is entertainment!

6. St Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
I really do think St Francis of Assisi was probably the greatest human being who ever lived. He was a poet, an environmentalist and a passionate advocate of religious tolerance. He was as poor as it’s possible to be and he was always funny and happy. And he invented Christmas cribs (Nativity scenes)!

7. St Ursula (dates unknown)
St Ursula sailed away with 11 thousand holy companions. (She had a lot of friends.)

8. St Martin (316-397)
St Martin was a Roman soldier who, when asked by a beggar for his cloak, cut it in half and shared it with him. I love him because he kept half the cloak for himself. A lot of saintlier saints would have given the whole cloak away.

9. St Aidan (d.351)
St Aidan was given a beautiful horse and saddle by the king. It would have been the medieval equivalent of a luxurious limousine. Within hours of leaving the palace, a beggar asked for a ride, and St Aidan gave him the horse and saddle too. I have the feeling that Aidan just couldn’t be bothered with that horse.

10. St Nicholas (d.c.346)
After all, he is Santa Claus.

- January 2004

Thanks to Frank Cottrell Boyce and Macmillan

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