Allan Prior: The Real Thing is Always Worse

Allan Prior is a writer of fiction - novels, films, TV plays - but he is probably best known for his scripts for Z Cars and Softly, Softly. He portrayed policemen and criminals as he found them. Some people said his brand of truth was too harsh. He says that the real thing is always worse, that the professional criminal is on nobody's side but his own, that his only concern is to have a good time at somebody else's expense. To illustrate his theme Prior has written two scenes of life in a criminal 'family,' contrasting fiction with fact. He also talks to victims of criminal greed and violence; and, ten years after his visit to write the original Z Cars scripts, returns to Kirkby's Newtown - where, most of all, he finds evidence that 'the real thing is always worse.'