Researcher in Focus: Lez Cooke

Special Collections is used by many distinguished academics and film historians during the year - at the moment one of our most frequent visitors is Lez Cooke, who kindly took a moment to explain a little about his projects involving Special Collections.

"I'm currently consulting the Troy Kennedy Martin Special Collection as part of my research for a book on TKM to be published by Manchester University Press. There is an extensive collection of TKM's work held in Special Collections, from his first television play, Incident At Echo Six (1958) to Edge Of Darkness (1985), including scripts and production notes for Z Cars, The Sweeney, The Italian Job and Kelly's Heroes. I'm also consulting the John McGrath Special Collection as McGrath and TKM worked together on Z Cars and Diary Of A Young Man (1964) and McGrath also produced The Chase, a 1964 TV drama co-written by TKM for a series of filmed dramas called Six.

I've consulted the John McGrath Collection in the past when I was researching a paper on his 1980 Play For Today, The Adventures of Frank, for a conference on McGrath in 2002, held shortly after his death.

Until the end of 2002 I was Principal Lecturer in Media Studies at Staffordshire University, during which time I wrote a book on British TV drama, British Television Drama: A History (bfi, June 2003). Currently, in addition to researching and writing the book on Troy Kennedy Martin, I'm engaged in a three-year research project on regional British television drama at Manchester Metropolitan University."