Jilly Cooper / Walter Coblenz

From the collection of

Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive

Launched in 2000, Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive spans from 1897 to the present day and currently contains an ever-expanding catalogue of 13,000 items. It comprises material from a variety of depositors including feature films, sport, documentaries, animation, amateur footage, light entertainment, and a significant proportion of broadcast material from the UTV Archive.

Jilly Cooper / Walter Coblenz (The Write Stuff)

Thriller writer Hammond Innes and a look at the craft of screen adaptation also feature on the weekly books series.

Presenter Henry Kelly visits the home of spiritualist Doris Collins to talk about her work. She discusses her first encounter with the departed spirits she alleges she can commune with and her plans for future books.

Henry then meets with thriller writer Hammond Innes who has gained a reputation for writing his best works set at sea. As well as his early writing career and authoring his first full-length work at seventeen, he talks about his new sea-based thriller, Medusa.

Henry interviews Harry Saint about his then-current bestseller, Memoirs of an Invisible Man. He talks about the concept of seeing invisibility as a curse through the eyes of the protagonist and of the loneliness of the writing process. Henry then presents that week's Top Ten US Fiction Chart.

Henry also visits the Cotswolds home of Jilly Cooper where they talk about her career and the success of her most famous novel, Riders. She recounts how she lost the original manuscript of it in London and had to start the book all over again.

Reporter Jill Cochrane meets Walter Coblenz about the art of turning a book into a good film. One famous success for him was All the President's Men and he also talks about how authors feel about their works being changed for the screen. Henry concludes the programme with a look at the UK Top Ten Paperback Fiction Chart.

The Write Stuff was a weekly round-up of the world of books, authors and publishing and was a contribution from Ulster Television to the ITV network's daytime schedules. Each week, presenter Henry Kelly and reporter Jill Cochrane interviewed prominent authors, sought out celebrities for the latest books they'd read and ran through the weekly book charts.

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The Write Stuff

Take a trip back in time to the literary landscape of the 1980s, full of spy and romantic blockbusters, in this series made for Channel 4 and presented by Henry Kelly and Anne Robinson.

Think Top of the Pops for the book world. For two series, this Channel 4 look at the world of 1980s literature, made by Green Apple/UTV, gave viewers the chart countdown for both fiction and non-fiction interspersed with interviews with the top authors of the day. Hosted by Henry Kelly for the first series and Anne Robinson for the second, The Write Stuff visited authors both in the UK and the USA to gain insights into their crafts or even just for juicy details on stars being covered by biographers. Lovers of books will find much to fascinate them here, with bestselling authors of yesteryear interviewed in their prime, from Jeffrey Archer to Clive Barker and from Ruby Wax to Jackie Collins. How many of the titles featured have lasted the course of popular and critical acclaim? Indulge yourself in this literary series to find out.

17 videos in this collection

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Barbara Taylor Bradford / Jack Higgins

  • 1988
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Noel Barber / Joss Ackland

  • 1988
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Craig Thomas / Ruby Wax

  • 1988
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Sally Beauman / Ned Sherrin

  • 1988
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Rosemary Conley / Griff Rhys Jones

  • 1988
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Mary Higgins Clark / Willy Russell

  • 1988
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PD James / Ruth Madoc

  • 1988
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Jilly Cooper / Walter Coblenz

  • 1988
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Gerald Seymour / Neil Tennant

  • 1988
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Jackie Collins / Ben Elton

  • 1989
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Danielle Steel / Ken Kercheval

  • 1989
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Evan Hunter / Douglas Fairbanks Jr

  • 1989
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Ruth Rendell / Frederick Forsyth

  • 1989
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Margaret Forster / James Herbert

  • 1989
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Jeffrey Archer / Jonathan Kellerman

  • 1989
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Dick Francis / Leon Uris

  • 1989
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Maeve Binchy / Clive Barker

  • 1989
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