As well as an account of a world seething with ambitious egos, back-stabbings and betrayals, Adam Clapham’s blistering tale of the intrigues of television production is also a personal history of the growth of British television; from the single, black & white BBC channel to the multi-channel babble which television has become today.
Adam rose from being a lowly researcher, through the ranks of the BBC and ITV to become an executive producer during the fabled Golden Age of British television, producing series like Man Alive, Braden’s Week, Aristocrats and Americans. Blood on the Carpet discusses the thornier political topics that senior producers had to confront – nuclear disarmament, the killings in Northern Ireland, the vetting of BBC staff by MI5 and attempts by politicians, crooks and bully boys to prevent programmes from being broadcast – even the bitter palace revolution that involved Esther Rantzen, That’s Life and the tabloid press.