Liverpool-born Jonathan Harvey puts new meaning into the word prolific. An award-winning writer of high profile plays, films, novels and TV scripts, his CV includes the play-turned-into-film Beautiful Thing, and the stage musical Closer To Heaven, which he collaborated on with the Pet Shop Boys. He also wrote the Bafta nominated sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme and is one of Coronation Street’s key script writers, among many other telly shows which have benefited from his wordsmithery.
Jonathan latest novel, The Secrets We Keep, his fourth since 2012, is about the search for a missing 90s club promoter and the effects his mysterious disappearance have upon his wife, wannabe-model teenage daughter and gay son.
When not busy working, Jonathan likes to indulge his obsession with crime – or more specifically, with the somewhat terrifying BBC show, Crimewatch, which since the 80s has been beaming news about the UK’s more grisly real-life murders, rapes, muggings, armed robberies and burglaries into the nation’s living rooms.
Here, Jonathan tells i-D about his penchant for a programme which always concludes with the not-very-convincing reassurance, “Don’t have nightmares…”
When did you first start watching Crimewatch?
I started watching when I was at school. I used to watch with my Dad at home in Liverpool. I’d take it very seriously. We’d watch a reconstruction of some robbery in Bournemouth and I’d look up the date in my diary. My Dad would join in the drama as well, going, ‘Were you anywhere near? Where were you?!’ and I’d say, ‘No I was at orchestra practice.’
Just how much of a dedicated Crimewatch viewer are you? And what is the ongoing appeal of the show?
I rarely miss an episode, though the older I get the more scary I find it. Some of the crimes are very upsetting and the injuries inflicted on normal people just hideous. I think the ongoing appeal is that even now, all these years later, I watch the update show an hour or so later and am still hoping they’ll say, ‘Yes, we’ve nailed it! Stop the calls!’ Of course, they don’t.
Would you be any good as a copper, do you think?
Useless. I’m too facetious. I couldn’t even be good cop or bad cop – I’d be piss-taking cop or camp cop. When you see police on YouTube twerking with people at Pride or Carnival, I could do that bit of the job. But I’d be useless at cracking crimes or being horrible to people.
One of my friends recognised his landlord as an armed robber, on some CCTV footage shown on Crimewatch. Have you ever had cause to call the show’s hotlines with some information?
No, but in my play Beautiful Thing the mother has rung up, recognising her ex from the incident desk. Does that count?
You’ve got experience of working on high profile musicals… could you envisage basing one on Crimewatch? Who would you cast in it?
I think Elaine Paige would be an interesting choice for Kirsty Young, the presenter. And the closing number would have to be, “Don’t Have Nightmares…”
Do you prefer the old theme tune, or the new, beefed-up remixed version? If it was to be re-recorded with lyrics, what could the chorus be?
The old one. No doubt the lyrics would be, ‘Coooome solve the crimes with us… at Crimewatch!’ I know, I should’ve written songs.
Who’s been your favourite presenter?
It was probably the Nick Ross-Sue Cook combo. But I really liked Detective Jacquie Hames. She was the friendly face of policing and gave great perm.
Which Crimewatch reconstruction sticks on your memory most?
A friend of mine was cast as a prostitute in a reconstruction. She was thrilled. She really dressed up when she went for her costume fitting. The designer scoured the costume store for something quite brassy. Then eventually said, ‘Actually, what you’ve come in is fine.’
I find Crimewatch quite scary? Do you? Do you check the front door is locked and the windows shut, after the show has been broadcast?
If I’m on my own, yes. When I was younger it certainly freaked me out. I shared a bedroom with my elder brother. I often demanded he stay awake all night in case anyone broke in. Bless him, he’d promise he would, and I believed him.
Which do you think has been the most bizarre crime portrayed on the show?
I think they pick them really well, and these days there’s a lot more CCTV so you often see the perpetrator before and after the crime. Or during if it’s a jewellry shop. I find them all a bit bizarre because I suppose fundamentally I don’t understand what makes some people want to put a gun to another person’s head.
What does your partner Paul think of your obsession with Crimewatch?
I think he’s bemused by it. But then he loves One Born Every Minute. I go to bed and he stays up watching re runs. I’m then woken by a text and it’s him going, “She had a Caesarian”.
What’s the worst crime you’ve ever committed, Jonathan?
I was once arrested — wrongly — for armed robbery on Clerkenwell Road, when I’d nipped out for a bottle of wine. I became aware of someone walking behind me so I quickened my pace. When they quickened theirs I started to run. So did they. It turned out to be a copper. He pushed me up against a wall and I said something rude so he put the handcuffs on me as his mates arrived and said I fitted the description of someone who had just carried out an armed robbery. God know what this armed robber was wearing because I was in my slippers. When they took me in for questioning I lied and said I wrote for The Bill because I thought this would prove my innocence. I was pretty petrified. I remember sitting in the back of a police van in handcuffs crying and saying, ‘This is a case of mistaken identity’. They soon realised it couldn’t possibly be me and let me go. I had to walk home. And the off license had closed.
The Secrets We Keep, published by Pan, is out now.
Credits
Text James Anderson