David Leland was a master of understatement with a social conscience and wildly wicked sense of humour, arising like his friends the Pythons from our everyday humdrum British universe in the 60s and 70s.
More than 40 years ago I saw the astonishing Made in Britain. The film that made Tim Roth – who played a violent skinhead – a star, was written by Leland for the producer and director Alan Clarke. It was a a biting attack on rightwing Thatcherite policies and it is just as relevant to today’s brutal system.
A few years later I had the privilege to see Wish You Were Here (1987) David’s directorial debut, a hilarious but poignant film drama based on the early teenage life of the brothel keeper and party hostess Cynthia Payne. David also wrote it and the film introduced another new young actor Emily Lloyd to the world of cinema. I released the movie as a distributor to incredible reviews after its Cannes premiere.
Almost simultaneously I was working with Neil Jordan on an idea which became Mona Lisa. Neil had come to an impasse with the script, so I suggested we ask my new friend David to give us a hand. They worked together to create a wonderful screenplay for Bob Hoskins to give the performance of his life, that won him best actor awards at the Baftas, Golden Globes and Cannes and earned him an Oscar nomination.
We teamed up again as I was a producer and David directed an adaptation of The Big Man in 1989 for Liam Neeson to shine as an unemployed Scottish miner who takes part in an illegal bare-knuckle fight to save his family and resurrect his pride. David did an amazing job.
The common theme in all of these movies was David’s fierce determination to support and highlight the underdog, using stories told with a dark, quirky sense of humour. I don’t think I have laughed as much as when we made The Big Man on location in Glasgow with David’s clever observations on everyday life and his characteristic understatement always coming to the fore.
I will always remember calling him from Rome with the terrific news that Ennio Morricone had agreed to write our score and David deadpanned with his deep baritone from the set: “I’m very, very excited.” He genuinely was!
I will miss his witty but gentle philosophical intelligence. I’m sorry our paths didn’t professionally cross again after the 80s. But I know that everyone who ever met David was touched by his matter-of-fact pragmatism and his kind and acute sense of the absurdities of the human race. He was a terrific writer and director and a lovely man who will be greatly missed by his family and friends.
