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Troy Kennedy Martin

Published Monday 2 November 2009 at 18:20 by Michael Quinn

Troy Kennedy Martin changed the tone and temper of television crime dramas overnight in 1962 when he created the groundbreaking Z-Cars. Two decades later, Edge of Darkness exploited the Scottish-born writer’s signature grittiness to revive the spy thriller by imbuing it with the dark complexities of contemporary life.

Z-Cars made stars of James Ellis and Brian Blessed, and placed Kennedy Martin at the forefront of a new generation of British television writers. The BBC’s reluctance to allow episodes in which a criminal’s comeuppance was not always a given provoked an incensed early departure, his return to the series coming 16 years later to pen the final instalment of the 667-episode institution.

Kennedy Martin’s return to the Corporation in 1985 was no less spectacular in television terms. Edge of Darkness caught the new Cold War anxieties and rising ecological consciousness of the decade to steely perfection, and critical and popular acclaim.

A career in Hollywood in the intervening years saw him produce screenplays for the iconic Michael Caine crime caper The Italian Job (1969), the Second World War-set comedy heist movie Kelly’s Heroes (1970) and, in 1978, Sweeney 2, a screen version of the television hit created by his younger brother Ian.

Kennedy Martin’s first television play, 1958’s Incident at Echo Six, was inspired by a three-year stint in Cyprus under commission with the army. He created his first series, Storyboard, in 1961. A number of Wednesday Plays followed and his other television credits included ITV’s Reilly, Ace of Spades and adaptations of Andy McNab’s SAS memoir Bravo Two Zero and Angus Wilson’s The Old Men at the Zoo for the BBC.

Born on Rothesay on the Isle of Bute on February 15, 1932, he died from a brain tumour and lung cancer on September 15. He is survived by his ex-wife, the actress Diana Aubrey, and two children.

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