28 Days Later and Trainspotting director Danny Boyle spoke out against the London-centric nature of the UK’s creative industries talking to Prolific North at the BFI London Film Festival’s first ever Screen Talk outside London over the weekend.
“I think it’s a shame that people can’t work closer to home. Not everybody wants to live in London,” he told Prolific North at HOME, ahead of the Manchester screening of his upcoming Sun newspaper biopic, Ink.
“Not everybody likes London. Not everybody should have to go and live there and work there. And it’s interesting that other other countries aren’t quite so capital-centric in the way that Britain has become.”
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There was more positive news from Boyle looking forward, though: “We’ve got a bloody Prime Minister now,” he said. “Manchester genuinely has broken that that chain, it really has, and long may it continue. I hope it spreads to other cities as well.”
Reflecting on his own career, Manchester native Boyle doesn’t seem too dismayed that he had to leave his hometown to find success in his younger days – the filmmaker has lived in London for many years now – although he clearly hopes that future directors may find staying up North a little easier: “Obviously I’m an established filmmaker, and I can get films hopefully made, and they’ll always be destined to be made in certain places, depending on the subject matter, depending on the finance and things like that,” he conceded.
“But from what I hear, things are improving significantly. When I left Manchester, there didn’t seem to be opportunities. There was Granada TV and the BBC on Oxford Road, but they felt like closed shops that you were never going to get into. Whereas now it seems like there are initiatives like we’re seeing tonight with the BFI, the Film Academy, where people get a chance to get a foot in the door, and it is a kind of industry that once you’ve got your foot in the door, and you and you’re not unreasonable, you can get on because it’s about getting on with people, and the and the industry then keeps employing people. You move around various different jobs, so there’s hope, and obviously the Burnham effect is going to be a very positive one for Manchester.”
