Ready When You Are, Mr McGill

Ready When You Are, Mr. McGill
The DVD cover of the 1976 version
Directed by	Mike Newell
Produced by	Michael Dunlop
Written by	Jack Rosenthal
Starring	Joe Black Jack Shepherd Mark Wing-Davey Stanley Lebor Fred Feast
Cinematography	David Wood
Edited by	Tony Ham
Distributed by	Granada Television
Release date	1976
Running time	52 mins
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Ready When You Are, Mr. McGill is a feature length TV drama, written by Jack Rosenthal. ITV produced two versions, in 1976 and 2003. The 1976 version was the first in a series of six single television plays called "Red Letter Days" each of which showed the events in a single, special day in someone's life. The 2003 version was a remake which was partly rewritten by Rosenthal.

The Ready When You Are, Mr McGill story is centered on the filming of a movie. A television actor-extra (Joe McGill) is finally given a line to say to camera. While filming, a collection of comical mishaps occur to create chaos on-set.

In the 1976 adaptation Joe Black takes the lead role of Joe McGill. It aired on ITV on 11 January 1976. The story revolves around a British soldier and his relationship with a suspicious School Mistress, set in 1940. McGill's line is "I've never seen that young Lady in my life before, and I've lived here fifty years". Jack Shepherd plays the stressed director, and Mark Wing-Davey is his assistant.

This version has been released on Region2 DVD by Network DVD, both as part of the compilation Jack Rosenthal at ITV, and as part of Red Letter Day.

In the 2003 adaptation Tom Courtenay takes the lead role of Joe McGill. The story is centered on the filming of a movie starring Amanda Holden as a police officer and Bill Nighy as an increasingly frustrated director. McGill's line was, "I've never seen the young man in my life before, and I've worked here forty years."

Rosenthal said his rewrite had turned the drama into a criticism of Television executives, and argued that "the industry has gone crazy and it needs a new generation to change it into something better". He also criticised television schedulers. Although completed early in 2003 the resulting film was held back and had not been screened by the time Rosenthal died in May 2004; it turned out to be his last work. It was first screened, not on ITV but on Sky Movies 1, in September 2004.