Interview with creator Anthony Horowitz
What was the inspiration for Collision?
I’ve always been interested in car accidents. In a sense, every car journey is a story and a car crash is, by its very nature, an extraordinary, unprecedented way for many stories to come together.
When did you start writing this?
I had the idea about ten years ago, began work on it but then abandoned it as I couldn’t make it work. The problem was the structure which was always very complicated. Then, last year, my agent (Anthony Jones) mentioned it to ITV and suddenly I found myself revisiting my ideas.
How would you describe it?
It is moving, tense, thrilling, compelling. I’d like to think it’s fairly unpredictable. I tried hard to make the stories move in unexpected directions so that often things aren’t quite what they seem. What is hidden in the Home 2 Bed van? What is Stanley really up to? I’m also interested in the metaphysical side of car accidents, the idea that the tiniest things can have huge, life-changing results.
Does it show how the lives of people in a collision collide in the same way as the vehicles?
You could say that we’re all in a dance of death and we never know who we’re going to be waltzing with next. I love all the secret connections in Collision which the characters never discover.
Does it explore how events cannot always be in our control?
I think we already know that events are often out of our control. But perhaps what Collision shows is the way that we are often at the control of events. You have to wait for the very last shot of the series to get the point. I do sometimes get the feeling that we’re being shuffled around by an invisible hand.
Do you think it will be thought provoking?
The few people who have seen Collision so far have found it thought provoking. Certainly, there’s been a lot of discussion about what might happen to the characters next – some of the stories are left purposefully open-ended.
Collision was co-written by Anthony Horowitz and Michael A Walker
Watch the drama unfold every night, 9th-13th November at 9pm on ITV1
