By George

GEORGE Fenton is trying to find a quiet area for our interview. He's at the BBC studios in Bristol, chatting on his mobile phone as he rummages through his pockets looking for his car keys and visitor's pass.

"I'm at Bristol because I'm cutting the stuff for the show," says the multi-award winning composer. George, 56, will conduct a live orchestra when The Blue Planet Live! show comes to Newcastle next week.

"Well theoretically I am. I'm going to wave my arms around, whether they play is another matter," he jokes, in his typical laid back way.

Quiet spot found, George relaxes as he chats about his childhood. Born in South London, he grew up in a musical family, although none were professional musicians.

"I learnt my music in church playing the organ, then I learnt to play the guitar from the age of eight," he explains. "But I never thought I could become a composer, although I used to always write things. While I like writing film music, people didn't really do that in England then - now they're all at it."

Initially, George also worked as an actor, playing Martin Gimbel in what was then Emmerdale Farm in the early 1970s, as well as writing music for the theatre.

"I played the winsome son of the Gimbels who had the next door farm to the Sugdens," he recalls, before laughing. "My part consisted mainly of me looking forlornly over the wall and muttering the word Rosemary."

Eventually, George switched to composition and his theatre work led to television work throughout the 1970s and 80s, including writing the theme tune for the Jersey detective show Bergerac, which won him his first major award - a BAFTA in 1982. His work later came to the attention of Hollywood director Richard Attenborough's son, Michael.

"He asked me to send him a tape so he could take it to his dad and when I said why, he said 'because he's making a film about Mahatma Gandhi.' I thought he'd slightly lost the plot," admits George.

"Then he called me up and said 'you'd better come and see the film' and five months later I went to work with Ravi Shankar in Bombay. It was amazing."

Ghandi was to be a springboard for George's extensive film career. To his delight, he found himself nominated for an Oscar for original music score with Ravi Shankar.

"I'd never been to America, so the first time I went I ended up flying first class before a limousine took us to the Beverley Hills Hotel," he says.

Since those heady days, George has been nominated for four more Oscars - two for Cry Freedom and once each for The Fisher King and Dangerous Liaisons. He has won BAFTAs for The Blue Planet score and The Monocled Mutineer; five Ivor Novello awards and three Golden Globe nominations.

Does it matter to him that he has never won a coveted Oscar?

"It used to sort of bother me," he says. "I used to think it would matter to your career, but actually it doesn't matter now. Perhaps it still does to actors and directors, but less so to the crafts such as in music or editing."

George's most recent award was a Royal Television Society Lifetime Achievement Award which he amusingly refers to as being "like the gold watch for 30 years of service".

"On the one hand it's quite nice to be given something but quietly you do vaguely wonder if it's goodbye," he laughs.

"But being serious, I just do what I love. How I earn my living is a reward in itself and I'm lucky in that I don't have to do something if I don't want to. I've done more than a hundred films and I'm happy to do them but what I love doing now are the shows.

"I like playing live and I like being with the musicians. When the curtain goes up you get a surge of adrenalin, and you certainly do get adrenalin when you do a film score, but you also get long periods of nothing happening and a lot of meetings."

George, who has three grown-up daughters, often composes at his farm in Berkshire where he lives with his girlfriend. When he's in America, he can write music in his hotel room, thanks to a portable studio.

"I have a studio built into a flight case out there, so I just take the front off and it's like a full-blown studio," he says.

Occasionally, he gets writer's block. But not often.

"It is incredibly pressurised because you're trying to produce stuff that hasn't existed before and you sometimes only have three weeks," he says.

"But if I get writer's block it's like a juggernaut coming down the road because, in film, everybody's done their bit and the music is the last thing to go in, so the momentum of the project means you better get unblocked by the next morning otherwise they'll send the boys round."

Fortunately, George is inspired by pictures, which is why he loves working on wildlife shows such as The Blue Planet. He's composed for a number of shows for David Attenborough, including Planet Earth and The Trials of Life. "The quality of photography is amazing and I just love writing music to them," he says.

Now he's looking forward to those amazing wildlife images coming to Newcastle when they are projected onto an 18 metre by ten metre screen as part of The Blue Planet Live! show at the Metro Radio Arena. Previous reviewers have praised George's music, citing the "massive percussion and rending brass for the destructive work of the whales, graceful flutes for the spinning dolphins, Chinese theatre instruments to illustrate the exotic pink crabs". It is the first time a natural history programme has been transformed into a live event. But for George, it means he'll be working with musicians again, the Manchester Camerata orchestra and the Canzonetta choir.

"It's the thing I'm looking forward to, being with the other players," he says. "Unless of course, they mutiny."

And there won't be much chance of that.

* Blue Planet Live! will be at the Metro Radio Arena on Friday, December 29. Tickets are £26.50 for adults and £19.50 for children. Contact 0870-707-8000 for more details.