Mike Bolland has experienced television from the grass roots up. He started out at BBC Scotland as an office junior,. He then worked as a film editor before moving to London in 1973 to produce and direct with the BBC Community Programme Unit making “access programmes such “Open Door”, “Write On” , “Grapevine” and youth series “Something Else”. In October 1981 Mike joined newly formed Channel 4 as its first Youth Controller commissioning groundbreaking series such as “The Tube” and “The Comic Strip Presents...Five Go Mad In Dorset”. He has held senior posts at Channel 4, BBC Scotland and independent production companies Initial Television and Channel X Communications and been involved in programmes as diverse as Saturday Live , Whose Line is it Anyway, The Crystal Maze, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Tonight with Jonathan Ross, Rab C Nesbitt and Comedy Connections. He has also been Chairman of the Edinburgh International Television Festival, and Vice Chair and then Chairman of PACT. He joined the National Film & Television School in October 2004, as its first Director of Television where the first of these two interviews was recorded.
