Russell T Davies - 2

When you were starting out, did you know what you wanted to write for?

Then, all I ever wanted to do was work on Coronation Street. I just loved that show, and I love it to this day, and it was all I wanted. And when I worked at Granada there were only three episodes a week, so there was a much more old-fashioned team who'd been there for thirty, forty years each, so it was like asking the royal family for a job. And every year I said "Please can I work on the Street?" And every year they'd say "No, you haven't got enough experience yet." I was creating soap operas for them and I was storylining for them, and every year I'd ask. And then when Brian Park took over, he turned round and said yes, and I'd just got a taste of life outside it, I'd started to get nine o'clock stuff made.

As much as I love it, if I'd got on Coronation Street I'd be there now, I would never have written all of those things, because I would still be there, I just love that show. So I'm sort of glad that it worked out that way.

Why did Coronation Street connect with you so strongly?

Well partly there was no choice. My sisters watched it when I was a kid, and Crossroads as well, so I wasn't very discriminating! But it was on, and I really loved it and some of my earliest memories are of the really powerful stuff. Literally my earliest memory of colour television is Miss Diane discovering that her husband was an alcoholic on Crossroads, it was so good.

You get these arguments about soaps, about what's real, how realistic is it, how serious is it, how issue-led, and it just bugs me. Because I do like EastEnders, I do watch it now and again, but they get off when the grim reality kicks in – life is like this – and in truth your life is not full of drugs and theft and abortion and rape and anger and violence.

And there's something about Coronation Street, even when it's having extravagant murder plots, it's very true to a sort of real life pulse, because we've all got an auntie in a big sparkly jumper like Rita. And the comedy in it is like real life. People tend to get through and banter in their everyday life, a bit of banter with the woman at the newsagents or with your neighbour that you pass in the street. And I think the Street's always kept that at its heart... a warm, comic heart that is true to life.

Have you any interest in doing anything in theatre, radio, or film?

The very first writing I ever did was with a youth theatre. I was in the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre, I was fifteen years old, and writing for the very first time, and it was absolutely brilliant. It wasn't one of those daft youth theatres where you just swan about pretending to be a tree, it was disciplined and strict and all sorts of things, really into the classics with Greek tragedies and things like that. It was amazing.

But I just love television and the moment I set foot in a television studio, which is when I was about 21, I was hopelessly lost. I've always watched television, I'd sooner watch telly than go to the theatre of a night, so it's sort of in my blood. If I think of an idea I tend to sort of sit there and think, oh that's six hours on ITV. And the idea comes into shape straight away.

I think as I go on I'm more likely to write a film just because my ideas are getting shorter. I'm sort of falling in love with the compactness of the single story as opposed to the long-running format that is television's speciality, so I think in the end my own mind will push me that way whether I like it or not. Also that's a really interesting area that I know nothing about, so that's a good area to get into, because I'm scared... So maybe one day.

In your book The Writer's Tale, you say that writer's block for you means not having any ideas at all. Has that ever happened to you?

I imagine writer's block to be like an empty head, and it is a thing that terrifies you your whole life, actually. Journalists always say "Do you ever think you'll run out of ideas?" and you go "Shut up, don't even say that." It's like saying Candyman three times, you just don't even want anyone to say it. You do get enormously stuck trying to get it out of your head in the right order, in the right way, with the right words. There's a lot of times when I'm not writing, when my sister would probably say "Oh he's got writer's block", but it's not what I think writer's block is. It's not that you've got nothing, it's like you've got too much, so it won't take the right shape or it won't behave. So sometimes all of that gangs up on you, and stops you, and actually a break is probably the best thing to do. I think if writers' blocks are the same, just go away and have a couple of days off and eventually it sorts itself out.

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