The shows the company produce include historical documentaries and drama-docs, along with a range of lifestyle programming including gardening, cooking, travel and leisure programmes as well as factual programmes directly for many American broadcasters, Including Arts and Entertainment TV Networks. Flashback works extensively with two international cable and satellite channels, The History Channel and The Biography Channel - for whom they reversion more than 400 hours of programming each year. They also produce many hours of re-versioned programming for Five.

David Edgar is a Director and Company Secretary of Flashback Television. He began his career as a cameraman on programmes as diverse as Newsnight and Panorama for the BBC, and dramas. He has a list of impressive credits for Flashback including Nigella Bites 2, The Palestinians: on the history of the Palestinian people, Running The Games: a behind the scenes look at the Seoul Olympic Games and the acclaimed Garden Doctors for Channel 4. He has also been responsible for many more shows on subjects such as restoring four beautiful gardens from the past, growing and cooking organic food and Dan's Routes Around the World for Channel 4, following designer Dan Pearson as he journeyed through Japan, California, New York and New Mexico. Most recently he worked as Exec. Producer of 'Superhomes' a documentary series for BBC 2 and a revealing documentary about the D-Day landings.

David has won the Jacob's Creek World Food Media Award for both 'Nigella Bites' and 'Fork to Fork' as the Executive Producer; and the Garden Writers' Guild Television award for 'Garden Doctors' as Director. Recently, he took time from his busy schedule to talk exclusively to Teletronic about his career.

We wondered if David, born and brought up in South London, was influenced by television when he was a youngster. However, he is quite adamant on this point. "Absolutely not, I was brought up in a household of women, with the exception of my younger brother, but the women ruled the TV. I have always hated soaps with a passion and then, as now, the TV was dominated by them." He says that television in general never really 'grabbed' him, but the ability it had to tell stories did. "TV just happened to be there but I would have enjoyed making movies or writing books as much if the opportunity had come around."

Destiny was to take a hand though and help shape David's future. "Bizarrely enough I applied to an advert in the Evening Standard for a Post Room assistant in an independent film company. I knew that if I could get my foot in the door I could take it from there but the film company turned out to be a soft porn enterprise, something they didn't mention at the interview, still I thought this is a start!

"I stuck the Post job for about six months, only because I didn't want anyone to think I was a quitter but I managed to get another position as a general assistant to a woman producer from NOS, Dutch television. She made dramas based upon Classical music, a Dutch version of Ken Russell, I worked in every department, costume, sound, and eventually the camera dept. This was the beginning of my first career as a cameraman. We travelled the world and even made a film with Jeremy Irons, it was his first I believe, he doesn't mention it much in interviews maybe it's because he was dressed as a very camp woman for most of the time."

In 1988 David joined Flashback Television, which was owned by an old friend, Taylor Downing, who gave him one of his first directing jobs. "We enjoyed working together and after a few years we became business partners. Today Flashback is one of the UK's leading indies and I am delighted to say that Taylor and I still enjoy it."

The first show he worked on was a history of Palestine and the people who lived there before the establishment of the State of Israel. "It's a story that is heartbreaking to be honest. I think it is best summed up by a paraphrased quote that begins one of my favourite films: The Kid Stays in the Picture "There's your story, there's my story and somewhere in the middle is the truth" That's the story of Palestine and Israel, a story that begins with two good peoples living together in peace and 60 years later, there's anarchy."

One would think that such an emotional subject for your first television would have been a daunting prospect, however, David says that he was quite confident going into it. "I didn't know enough about what could go wrong to panic. Today I don't think I would have taken it on." He admits to making a few mistakes in those early days but has no regrets because that's the only way to learn. "Doing right first time is just luck, experience and creativity is a balancing act and takes years for it to feel comfortable. Or so I'm told."

The biggest lesson he learned from this production however was not to fall for the production manager on location. "I did and we have been married for over 10 years! I put it down to the spell of Jerusalem."

From there David went on to create one of the earliest garden make-over formats for Channel Four called 'Garden Doctors' and went on to make 'Lost Gardens', 'Fork to Fork with Monty Don', 'The English Civil War', 'Nigella' and most recently 'D-Day; The Lost Evidence' a 2 hour dramatised documentary for A&E. He says he can't pick a favourite, though. "That's like saying which of your children do you love most, all of them for good and bad. But I have made no bones about the fact that Nigella Bites was an incredible experience for many reasons."

So if there isn't a favourite is there a least favourite? "The least favourite job in TV was nothing to do with the production, it was in fact one of those wonderful BBC Bristol Life on Earth numbers but I was working as a cameraman on a remote Scottish island, waiting for some peripatetic bird to return to its nest. Bored to the point of numbness I put my radio headphones on to hear the announcement that the whole world was rocking together for the Live Aid concert. I knew then that I was in the wrong job and gave up camera work very soon after that.

One wonders if there's a set approach to each new product, so we asked, fairly naively, how David approached each project. "Slowly," he replied. "I like to kick things around in my head for some time before committing to a style or format, invariably my first idea will be dismissed and adapted until I am really happy." So was there a particular subject he had trouble getting his head around? "I can usually find an idea or a way of approaching a subject but it's convincing the commissioning editors that this is the way forward that's tough."

Two questions we posed were 1); How difficult or easy was it to work with the people you were filming? Answer: "They are all easy to work with." and 2); was there anyone you worked with that was far more difficult than you expected? Answer: "They are all difficult to work with."

There's a divided opinion of television today, many people will tell you that they don't make programmes like they used to, and there are far too many 'reality' shows. David has his own opinions. "What is for sure is that the day I start to think that TV is not what it use to be is the day I get out. TV has to continually re-invent itself and producers must do the same. I am in awe of the development teams we work with, like policemen they seem ridiculously young and their capacity to look at the world in new ways. The styles have changed and perhaps the subjects are less controversial but essentially they are about people and distorted lives.

"TV is by definition a voyeuristic experience, and it is inevitable that producers will push that as far as they can but I think the limit is close to us now with babies being given away as prizes and relationships being ruined. But if there is an audience willing to watch it there will always be a broadcaster prepared to show it."

Working for Flashback Television David has had the opportunity to work on a diversity of subjects and is happy to move from serious subjects like the history of Palestine to the lighter Nigella Lawson series. "I want my working life to be eclectic and as long as I can skip from one genre to another I will. And let's face it who wouldn't want to hang out with Nigella for a few months, eating her food and being dazzled by her brilliance?"

Flashback Television is currently involved in is the re-versioning of shows for the History Channel UK and Biography UK, but what exactly does this mean and entail? "Flashback is the biggest re-versioner of programming in the UK, we receive hundreds of hours of programming from broadcasters such as Channel Four, Channel Five, The History Channel etc and we adapt them for the UK market. This could mean anything from a simple re-write of the script and replacing a US voice-over with a British voice to a full re-edit, recording new interviews, composing new music and graphics.

"Most of our shows are shown in the US, some are made expressly for US broadcasters and some are acquired by them; Nigella is one such show. Battle Stations, known as Heavy Metal in the US, is commissioned by A&E History and I believe we have made 35 hours in this series alone. They are, by the way, just the best broadcaster to work for; very creative and supportive programme producers.

On this topic there must be a documentary subject that David would like to cover. "I am bound by a confidentiality clause not to talk about current projects but I have just delivered a 2 hour D-Day film to A&E and I am very proud of that." But ultimately? "I would love to make a film about how peace returned to the Middle East, that might sound a bit squeaky liberal but that's it."