PETER MORGAN - MORGAN SAD AT GLOBES NO-SHOW

MORGAN SAD AT GLOBES NO-SHOW

Award-winning writer Peter Morgan has admitted to disappointment at the cancellation of this year's Golden Globes award ceremony.

Morgan's TV movie Longford won the best mini-series or motion picture produced for television prize but the writer was not able to enjoy the glitz and glamour of an awards show thanks to the ongoing repercussions of the Hollywood writers' strike.

This year's awards were replaced with a simple press conference as a result of the industrial action as it had been feared that acting talent would shy away from a ceremony to avoid picketing writers.

But Morgan, the acclaimed writer of The Queen and The Last King of Scotland, told the BBC this year's Golden Globes represented "a missed opportunity to put differences aside and bring the community together".

"The cancellation is another loss of revenue the industry can ill-afford," he added.

"Watching from a distance, the deepening intransigence and hostility feels like a family dispute that has got out of control."

Longford, an HBO Films production, told of a British peer who befriended serial killer Myra Hindley and also won awards for Jim Broadbent in the title role and Samantha Morton as Hindley.

Executive producer Andy Harries said he was "thrilled" at the film's success - with three awards it was the most successful nominee at this year's event.

"Who could have predicted that the tale of an eccentric English peer's obsession with Britain's most famous serial killer would strike such a chord with audiences in America?" he added.