Growing up in Belfast in the 1970s, Anne Morrison was fascinated by clothes, films and words. Tomorrow night she will walk on to the stage of the Royal Opera House in London and indulge her love of all three when she opens the 68th British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards.
Now Bafta's chairwoman, Morrison is a former BBC executive who commissioned ground-breaking investigative reporting such as The Secret Policeman during her time as controller of the broadcaster's documentaries division.
As she sits over coffee at the organisation’s Piccadilly headquarters, she recalls being brought up just off Malone Road. Morrison, the daughter of atheist parents, – “unusual, that, in Belfast then” – applied for 47 jobs after she finished an English-literature degree at Cambridge University.
Like so many others who grew up during the Troubles, Morrison wanted to leave Northern Ireland – a dream that her parents backed even though she was their only child, “so that was quite a big deal for them, quite noble in a way”.
The Troubles formed the backdrop of her teenage years. The Catholic judge Rory Conahan, who lived two doors up from the Morrisons, was murdered by the IRA in 1974, shot dead when he answered his front door.
“I was too young to understand the why and wherefores. To me he was a neighbour who suddenly wasn’t there any more. And this was a terrible thing. You got worried. My father listened to the radio broadcasts obsessionally to see whether we should go into town that day.”
Her job applications reflected the interests of an 18-year-old: dancing, shopping, English, books and journalism. “I applied to run discos in the north of England for the Rank Organisation. Life could have been very, very different.”
A pitch for a trainee manager’s job in Selfridge failed, too. But she won one of six general trainee positions the BBC offered that year. “I often quote that to people who are thinking about careers, just the randomness of it all,” she says.
"Lots of people are down on the younger generation. I see keen, talented people wanting to get in, but they don't quite know how to get into this mysterious business. If you want to be a doctor it is clear how you go about it, or a lawyer. But if you want to get into TV the best advice is not necessarily to do a media course – but you wouldn't necessarily know that looking in from the outside," says Morrison, who started off writing freelance pieces for Ulster Bride about what mothers-in-law should wear at weddings.
Storytelling business
Televison and the wider media need all sorts, she says. “We are in the storytelling business. The stories must come from the widest set of backgrounds. People want to see themselves represented on the screen. They don’t just want the world of the privileged elite,” she says, even if she accepts that the escapism offered by a night on the sofa watching
Downton Abbey
will always have an appeal.
The BBC comedy series Gavin & Stacey, about an Essex boy and a Welsh girl, did "tremendously well in Essex and south Wales", because those were the areas that the viewers saw on screen.
The original format of Coast, which meandered its way around the UK, led to "a Mexican wave" in viewing figures, she says. "People used to think that the local is not a ratings winner, but it is."
Predicting the future can be perilous. In her previous life Morrison and other BBC executives pondered the future of television; many believed that the days of the schedule would by now have disappeared.
"There was an expectation that all viewing would be time-shifted, that live events would have disappeared. But live events have grown in importance. And that's partly because of social media. People are watching Eurovision, Strictly Come Dancing or whatever and joining in with their friends. It has become a communal experience, and you can't afford to miss it, because you will feel left out the following day."
Morrison gave up her £200,000-a-year job as head of the BBC's training academy last November, because the division is moving to Birmingham; she says the shift made her job impossible to combine with her ambitions for her unpaid Bafta role.
“I don’t want to look back and think I should have given a bit more to it,” she says, adding that she will fill the rest of her time with a few directorships, some consultancy work and speeches.
Tomorrow night’s awards are part of Bafta’s rise in the film world, she says. “They are a very British take on the world. They might predict some of the Oscars, but they also differ in important ways.”
The proof of the academy’s rising reputation is the people in the seats in front of her when she walks on stage to welcome guests and tell them of the organisation’s wider work. “Just look who turns up. It means a huge amount to them. They are remarkably well behaved; they are so keen to get one,” says Morrison.
“I love the role, I enjoy the fact that Bafta does so much good work but I also enjoy putting on the frock and the jewellery and walking on the red carpet. Both sides of my personality are expressed.”
The British Academy Film Awards are on BBC1 at 9pm on Sunday
