The British television director Alan Clarke is primarily associated with the visceral social realism of such works as his banned borstal play 'Scum', and his study of football hooliganism, 'The Firm'. This book uncovers the full range of his work from the mythic fantasy of Penda's Fen, to the radical short film on terrorism, 'Elephant'.

Dave Rolinson uses original research to examine the development of Clarke's career from the theatre and the 'studio system' of provocative television play strands of the 1960s and 1970s, to the increasingly personal work of the 1980s, which established him as one of Britain's greatest auteur directors.

'Alan Clarke' examines techniques of television direction, and proposes new methodologies as it questions the critical neglect of directors in what is traditionally seen as a writer's medium. It raises crucial issues in television studies, including aesthetics, authorship, censorship, the convergence of film and television, drama-documentary form, narrative and realism.