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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Interviews by Chris Broughton

‘When Star Wars came out, one of our directors was close to tears’: how we made Blake’s 7

‘We had to aim our guns and say, “Bang! Bang!”’ … Sally Knyvette, Gareth Thomas and Jan Chappell in Blake’s 7, which launched in 1978.
‘We had to aim our guns and say, “Bang! Bang!”’ … Sally Knyvette, Gareth Thomas and Jan Chappell in Blake’s 7, which launched in 1978. Photograph: Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy

Michael E Briant, director, series one

I got the impression Blake’s 7 was just going to be “space opera” and, having worked as a director on Doctor Who, I wanted to move on and do other things, but the script for the first episode won me over. It was 1977, before the mass surveillance we have today, so the idea of everyone being watched by cameras, as that opening episode had it, seemed striking. It had shades of Nineteen Eighty-Four and felt very adult and relevant.

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