In Praise Of: John Armitt, Mega-Producer

I love John Armitt. Who? Well that’s exactly my point.

In 1998 I was travelling from London to Worcester and back by train on the same day. The journey involved two changes.

The wheels came off at the very first of six legs and I missed the connection. What followed was an entirely Third World infrastructure experience where I was forced to consider staying overnight in some godforsaken Midlands town.

Determined to make it back to civilisation, I turned to one of my fellow beleaguered travellers on a trainless and informationless platform and asked him if he knew what had happened to the 11.42. When he had finished laughing, he replied that I obviously didn’t do this journey much, did I?

Surely I wasn’t actually expecting to catch a scheduled train? Well, actually yes, I replied. More laughter:

‘What you do, is get on the platform in the direction you’re headed, go as far down the line as you can, get off and start the process again. Worcester? Good luck mate!’

Then out of nowhere a miracle happened. From about 2005 trains began to not only turn up but arrive on time. They also stopped hitting the buffers, other trains and mounting platforms at speed. One man produced this miracle: John Armitt. He converted the disastrous Railtrack into Network Rail, and now one of the most intricate, complex and ageing rail networks in the world actually works. Not only that, but at the end of the process, everyone liked and respected him, including the unions.

Give that man a cigar.

And while he’s smoking that, give him another cigar for another Olympian task - delivering the Olympic Stadium, under budget and ahead of schedule.

Where it gets interesting is to look at who’s getting the limelight for the Olympic Stadium non-fiasco: Seb Coe and Boris Johnson, complete with builder’s helmets, spades and shit-eating grins as Mr Armitt quietly sidles off back to the shadows.Us Brits have a nasty habit of pursuing the underachievers while completely overlooking the achievers. More accurately, when we do recognise achievements, we very often attribute them to the wrong people.

I’ve been trying to counteract this with mixed results. My business partner and I, being winos, recently decided to treat ourselves to a slap-up lunch at our favourite restaurant. The sommelier dutifully delivered our chosen wine, swilled it around the glass, sniffed it, turned his nose up at it and refused to serve it to us. Pretentious wanker. Off he minced to get another bottle of the self-same wine and guess what? Still not good enough for Monsieur. Double pretentious wanker.

In spite of our reservations about Monsieur Masturbator we took his advice and ordered an entirely different and much more expensive bottle. And boy was it worth it. What followed was needless to say a gorging of Roman proportions.

So credit where credit’s due, I emailed the restaurant, thanked them for the above and observed that thanks to their gifted sommelier we had probably spent three times what we might have otherwise. Did they thank me for thanking them? No. Did they even acknowledge the email? No. Could it be that the restaurant has a ‘star’ chef, and the last thing he wanted to hear was that the man from the shadows had overshadowed him?

Producers are backroom boys by nature. Calculators, schemers, plotters and manipulators. You can’t do any of this from the front room because people see you do it.

Producing absolutely anything is all about focus on the target, not listening to the white noise, concentrating on what could go wrong (and often what is actually going wrong) while amplifying and building on what is right.

Is it enough for John Armitt that the 11.42 turns up on time without killing anyone? Is it enough for the producer to stand off-stage as the much-lauded ad and its director are showered with praise and gongs?

I suspect the answer to both the above questions is yes. Turning away, knowing what you have achieved should be enough for the men and women in the shadows.

I have flirted with direction and it is frankly terrifying. I have the utmost respect for the director and his vision, a) if he has one, b) if it’s his and c) if he can deliver it under fire. But we should make no bones about the fact that while Danny Boyle will be arranging a nice firework display for us all come next summer, the fact that he’s not doing it in a half finished mud pit or embarrassing White Elephant is down to John Armitt.

Film producing is undoubtedly a more glamorous job than sitting in an office at Network Rail for four years with your head in a spreadsheet, but I won’t try to argue it’s as important, difficult or beneficial to the lives of people up and down the country. I wish I was as good a producer as John Armitt. Then I could take over from him, and he could run the country.

John Hackney is Co-Chairman of the APA