Internet in British television. Moffat felt that he was unable to sustain the character, and he appears only sporadically after the first series. The main adults are deputy headmaster Bill Sullivan (Nick Stringer), maverick editor Matt Kerr (Clive Wood) and experienced Gazette reporter Chrissie Stewart (Angela Bruce). Production Inception Bill Moffat, a headmaster from Glasgow, had an idea for a children's television programme called The Norbridge Files. He showed it to a producer who visited his school, Thorn Primary School in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, when it was used as the location for an episode of Harry Secombe's Highway. Producer Sandra C. Hastie liked the idea and showed it to her future husband Bill Ward, co-owner of her company Richmond Films and Television. When she requested a script, Moffat suggested that his 25-year-old son Steven, an English teacher, should write it. Hastie said that it was "the best ever first script" that she had read. All 43 episodes were written by Steven Moffat. During production of series two, he was having an unhappy personal life after the break-up of his first marriage. His wife's new lover was represented in the episode "The Big Finish?" by the character Brian Magboy (Simon Schatzberger), a name inspired by Brian: Maggie's boy. Moffat brought in the character so that all sorts of unfortunate things would happen to him, such as having a typewriter dropped on his foot. This period in Moffat's life would also be reflected in his sitcom Joking Apart. Central Independent Television had confidence in the project, so rather than the show being shot at their studios in Nottingham as planned, they granted Richmond a £2 million budget. This enabled it to be shot on 16 mm film, rather than the regular, less expensive videotape, and on location, making it very expensive compared with most children's television. These high production costs almost led to its cancellation at the end of the second series, by which time Central executive Lewis Rudd was unable to commission programmes by himself. Directors More than half of the episodes were directed by Bob Spiers, a noted British comedy director who had previously worked on Fawlty Towers amongst many other programmes. He would work again with Moffat on his sitcom Joking Apart and Murder Most Horrid, and with Sawalha on Absolutely Fabulous. According to Moffat, Spiers was the "principal director" taking an interest in the other episodes and setting the