THE latest TV puzzle starts with a crossword.

Plus a flashback to the young detective being shot at the end of the last story.

Endeavour returns to ITV on Sunday for a second series of the Inspector Morse prequel.

It’s May 1966 and the young Morse (Shaun Evans) is on his first day back at work at Oxford City Police with Det Insp Fred Thursday (Roger Allam).

But doubts remain about whether the Detective Constable is fully recovered from his ordeal.

“The light’s gone out of him,” Thursday tells his wife.

There are four 120-minute films in the new series, which again pays respect to John Thaw’s Morse while continuing to carve its own place in television history.

The first episode guest stars Beth Goddard as Labour Parliamentary candidate Barbara Batten.

Alongside Jonathan Coy, Pooky Quesnel, David Westhead, Jessie Buckley and Liam Garrigan.

With John Thaw’s daughter Abigail Thaw returning as newspaper reporter Dorothea Frazil and Anton Lesser as Chief Supt Reginald Bright.

The new series further explores the relationship between Endeavour and Thursday, while revealing more about the latter’s background.

There’s a taste of romance for the young detective on his journey towards becoming the older, lonelier Inspector Morse.

With a first glimpse of his lifelong conflicts with organisations like the Freemasons.

I went along to the London media launch of Endeavour 2 earlier this month.

A screening of the first episode and later series highlights.

Followed by a Q&A with Shaun Evans (Endeavour Morse), Roger Allam (Det Insp Fred Thursday) and Russell Lewis (Writer & Executive Producer).

During which Shaun spoke about that romance, studying the voice of Michael Palin rather than John Thaw and much else besides.

You can read my edited transcript below.

I had the pleasure of interviewing the late John Thaw many times over the years, including during the early days of Morse in the late 1980s.

And my main thought during the Endeavour series two preview screening?

Just how much he would have loved it.

Endeavour returns to ITV at 8pm on Sunday (March 30).

Q&A:

Q: (From me) We know that the relationship between Thursday and Morse obviously develops in this series. Do you want to talk a little about how it develops. Also I gather in the third film, we learn a bit more about Thursday’s past? I don’t know how much you can say about that?

Roger Allam: “Well it develops, I suppose, because this series starts off with Endeavour coming back to Cowley station, having been wounded at the end of the last series – and also the death of his father at the end of the last series. So I think there’s concern on Thursday’s part about whether he’s going to be up to speed, match fit, as sharp as he was. Because as imaginative as he was in the right way…in the way that I think attracted Thursday to begin with, about Endeavour…that here was someone who had a particular way of working which wasn’t usual in the police but it would be a very good ability to have in your police station, in your squad of men. To have someone with that imagination and intelligence. So there’s concern to begin with about whether he’s going to quite get back to that and some anxiety around there. And even those comfortable little pegs that you have, those everyday things like those jokes – he always knows what is in my sandwich…so there’s anxiety both trivial like that but fun and also larger. And then, of course, he gets back and it’s fine.”

Shaun Evans: “I think also you’ve got in this as well…as it develops they flip. At the beginning you have the Endeavour character thinking, ‘Is this the right place for me? Am I in the right job?’ But by the end of the fourth one it’s Thursday who’s questioning whether he’s in the right place, whether he has a future. So there’s like an about face from both characters. I think that’s what’s interesting as it develops. That you see that they need each other in order to move forward.”

Roger Allam: “And in film three, as well, I suppose Endeavour finds out something about Thursday’s past. Something specific about Thursday’s past which I can’t, alas, reveal to you now, (laughter) that adds very much to his knowledge of Thursday as well. So as you go on in time, like you do with anyone, they’re finding out more about each other.”

Russell Lewis: “I think that what we didn’t want to do is just let it fall into a too comfortable relationship. That it became predictable, week in, week out, how they were going to be with one another. So it’s the stronger for it, that it’s not just rubbing along like an old married couple. They’re constantly finding out things about each other.”

Shaun Evans as Endeavour.

Q: Endeavour has gone back to work and is almost learning again. Is that nice for you to almost go back to a blank canvas?

Shaun Evans: “Yeah. It’s funny because obviously you’ve done it before but it has to be brand new and you have to find all of those things again. So, yeah, this time I was going back for this first one – you’re re-evaluating your role in it and what the stories are as they develop. And also, one of the great things about this is it’s constantly evolving. And even while we may have done one there’s still things that need to be finished on the ones that come prior to it. So it is a funny, constantly evolving thing. And yeah, you are learning. I’m learning doing it. So it’s good that that’s reflected in it.”

Q: Grown-up drama to bring Freemasons in as well. Do we go further into that. The tension at the police station between those who are and those who aren’t?

Russell Lewis: “Yeah, we do. It’s canon really. Morse’s relationship with that fraternity. And we thought it would be interesting to look at that a little across these stories.”

Roger Allam as Det Insp Fred Thursday.

Q: Roger – Thursday seems to have many lines of wisdom in every episode. Do you have any favourite lines from this series?

Roger Allam: “I can’t remember any from this episode now. There are a lot. Not necessarily to do with wisdom but certainly in the way that Russell writes for Thursday, which is a slightly older generation way of speaking. They’re lovely to play and I find them deeply charming, to me, personally. Because Thursday is roughly around the age of my father, I would guess. He would have been born around about the same time as my father. Maybe my uncle, maybe his younger brother, who was also, curiously, called Fred. That way of speaking…London…lower working class thing, I have great love for. So I like that. Not just the wisdom but that way of speaking is a way, I think, of recapturing that time.”

Russell Lewis: “Very much he’s drawing on my own father…fundamental decency of his class and putting him into Thursday a little.”

Q: Shaun – how would you define the way in which Endeavour’s working method was different to other police inspectors? What makes him attractive in the way he works?

Shaun Evans: “Great question. I think there’s an imagination and an intuitiveness. But also an intelligence. He’s probably not particularly well suited to being a policeman but to that cryptic way of working things out. I think that’s what sets him apart from others. I would say.”

Q: Shaun – because you’re a young man, do you find it a problem to throw yourself back into the Sixties and the way people used to act as police officers in those days, entirely different to today?

Shaun Evans: “Whenever you take a job, if it’s set in a different period it gives you an opportunity to learn a little bit more about it. I think specifically for this, I don’t think the character is particularly in tune with his time. So how people are behaving in the Sixties isn’t that so important for me, to copy the mannerisms of that, if you know what I mean? But I think that for any job it is only really ever an opportunity for you to see that new…if it’s set in a new place, in a new time…People did have those attitudes. You just have to trust that. You have to trust that in the writing. Sometimes you think, ‘That’s perhaps a little sexist’ or whatever. But you have to trust that it’s there in the writing. And it is. Again, it’s just an opportunity to think, ‘Oh God, look how far we’ve come in that respect.’ In some ways.”

Q: Shaun – did you go back to looking at the old Morse and John Thaw or..?

Shaun Evans: “No, I didn’t. I didn’t think that would be useful for this. Because when the scripts arrive you have to depend largely upon your imagination to recreate something. That’s not to do down anything that’s gone before. It’s only with the greatest amount of respect. Plus if I’m going to sit here and talk about something I want it to be something that’s come from me versus something that’s been a copy of something else. So, no I didn’t. Perhaps I should have.” (laughs)

Anton Lesser as Chief Supt Reginald Bright.

Q: Shaun – could you summarise Endeavour’s state of mind at the beginning of this episode?

Shaun Evans: “At the beginning, when we return, it’s been four months since losing his dad and being shot. He’s been seconded to another station and he’s had a bit of time out of work. The first day back is the first day of this film. So you see him coming into the station, sort of brand new, not feeling a hundred per cent. I hestiated to say ‘post-traumatic stress’ but along the lines of being in deep shock and probably needing a little bit more time off. But that’s where we find them at the beginning. The interesting thing about that is that then you have a crime which occurs and it needs to be solved. He needs to solve it in a particular way to get himself back. And needs to be back in this groove in order to heal himself, in a way. I think that’s where we are at the beginning. I don’t want to spoil it but when you get to the end it’s in a very different place. By the end of the fourth film it’s in a very different place in terms of his relationship both to Thursday, to the job, to the station and to himself as well.”

Q: How are we going to see the relationship between Morse and Monica develop?

Shaun Evans: “That’s an interesting one. In a way I wish, and I think we all do as well…you could dedicate a whole film, or a large portion, to who this person is and how they relate, especially to a woman. But we just haven’t got the time and there’s so much other stuff to fit in. How it develops though, which I think we’ve achieved in this, is a relationship begins to blossom. Ultimately we know, having seen them and knowing that this guy (John Thaw’s Morse series) dies in the end on his own. So it’s not going to work out. But I think that creates a certain amount of conflict and drama. By the end of it, I feel like she’s probably slightly more keen than he is. In the third one we get to see that as he’s slightly fallen in love with her, his work is suffering. And so then – off screen – you have to make that choice. ‘How can I have both? And if I can’t have both, which one will I choose? Will I choose a happy relationship and try to emulate Thursday and his wife? Or will I go down another path?’ All of these subconscious as well. But that’s at least what we’ve attempted to achieve in both the third and the fourth (film) and as it progresses.”

Russell Lewis: “I think it weighs quite heavily on him, his great intellect. There’s a warning giving to him in Fugue, in the second film of the first series by the villain, which is, ‘That to be intelligent is to always be alone.’ And I think across this run of films there’s almost a push from him to try and reach for normality, to fit in, to be a regular guy. And given his nature we know that’s something that, although he’s going to strive for, it really does go against his better nature, which is solitary and thoughtful. But he’s certainly reaching for that, in places across these four.”

Q: It’s difficult to imagine any other actors playing Morse and Thursday. What was the point when you both knew that you had the key to playing your characters?

Roger Allam: “Listen…when you put on a hat and smoke a pipe and, to some extent, wear a coat and stuff like that, it gives you a feeling of the period, which is one thing. And another thing is that it gives you a habit. Often those tiny things can be like a kind of portal into something else about the character. They’re not the character but they become like a sign of the character, in a way. And they’re very, very helpful. It would be foolish to deny. Also they’re very enjoyable to play with. Once you feel at home…for Thursday, I think it’s very different for Endeavour, but for me and Thursday, once you feel at home with those things, once you feel comfortable, you feel like you’re wearing the clothes of the man and you can go further in from there.”

Shaun Evans: “I think the feeling of ownership comes and goes. You attack each day and each scene in a script as best you can. Sometimes you think, ‘Oh yeah, I achieved what I set to do there more than I did yesterday,’ or whatever. I think it’s an ongoing thing. But then by the same token, we’ve made nine thus far with the same creative team. And so you hope you’re starting to get into a groove a bit more. But it still feels like it comes and goes, to be honest. For me, at least.”

Beth Goodard as Barbara Batten and Jonathan Coy as Archie Batten.

Q: Shaun – what does Endeavour’s version of romance looks like? Will we see him get quite romantic?

Shaun Evans: (Laughs) “I actually think that’s a question for Russ, more than it is for me. Whmat Endevour’s idea of romance would be.”

Russell Lewis: “Well, he’s a well read man. But I think it’s the disconnect between his own family life, which was fairly unhappy and I don’t imagine there was a great deal of romance going on in the Morse household, to the ideals of romantic love that he’ll have read about and studied, doing grades. So it’s almost like a Haynes Manual to life, really. That this is how things are meant to be, according to the books. And I think there’s a falling short for anyone that tries to make life conform to that written ideal. But, yeah, he’s a romantic.”

Roger Allam: “It’s obvious though, isn’t it? He’d stay in, they’d read Henry James aloud whilst listening to Tannhauser. It’s the perfect romantic evening.” (laughter)

Jessie Buckley as Kitty Batten.

Q: Were there little Mad Men references in there at all?

Russell Lewis: “Might have been. I think that we have a lot of fun with hiding things across all the films, to a greater and larger extent. Some you are meant to catch first time around and some…they’re just a little added bonus, really, as a kind of nod to…because we can’t set you a crossword at the start of each film, we hide little clues to other things that hopefully inform the drama and fun of it across the four. But well spotted.”

Q: Shaun – you said you didn’t watch the Morse tapes but you read the books. You’ve got the voice exactly right…

Shaun Evans: “I listened a lot to Michael Palin, who was from the north and went to Oxford and was alive around that time. I imagine his voice would be…that’s how I imagine the voice to be. So I listened more to that versus trying to capture something else. Only because it’s easier to get Michael Palin’s voice as well. I don’t know why. I’m glad that it works.”

Abigail Thaw as Dorothea Frazil.

Q: Are you planning for Endeavour to run for years like Morse?

Russell Lewis: “Well it’s very much down to how long the audience wants to see them and very much down to Roger and Shaun for how long they want to remain as Endeavour and Thursday. But yes. There’s never going to be a shortage of stories to do because each year we move on and draw on the events of real world, in one way or another, and pull those through the Endeavour filter. So we’re never going to run out of ideas. But it really is very much down to the audience.”

Q: Shaun – Endeavour takes quite a hiding in this first one. Is there more of that to come throughout the series and did you incur any real injuries?

Shaun Evans: “I didn’t incur any real injuries. But yes there is more to come. There is more to come for both of us, in fact. A bit of fisticuffs. I like those scenes because it’s so different from the rest of the stuff that we do in these stories. I do like them, just the pure physical stuff. It’s good.”

Pooky Quesnel as Muriel Todd.

Q: (I started so I finished): Two questions: I don’t know where it was filmed, but was filming the underground river scene particularly memorable? And I know there’s an episode including the 1966 World Cup Final, which I think Morse isn’t bothered about at all. Does that go against the grain for you in real life, Shuan, or not?

Shaun Evans: “It’s underneath Finsbury Park that place and it’s an incredible…”

Roger Allam: “It’s extraordinary.”

Shaun Evans: “Isn’t it? It’s a Victorian reservoir but cavernous and so well designed.”

Roger Allam: “Just under the park. It’s like this huge cathedral. Vast. It’s amazing.”

Shaun Evans: “Yeah, definitely one of the highlights. Football? Yeah, I can take it or leave it. I’ll go to the game occasionally but I’m more into boxing than I am into football. So, not too much of a stretch.”

ITV Drama

Mammoth Screen

Inspector Morse

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“SAVING lives, to save their own.”

The Crimson Field begins on BBC1 at 9pm next Sunday (April 6).

A six episode drama series about volunteer British nurses at a field hospital in northern France.

Part of the BBC’s First World War season, it features a strong cast including Hermione Norris, Suranne Jones, Kerry Fox, Oona Chaplin and Kevin Doyle.

Starting in 1915 with the arrival of new VADs – Voluntary Aid Detachment – to join professional military nurses like Matron Grace Carter, played by Hermione.

With Oona as Kitty Trevelyan, Alice St Clair as Flora Marshall and Marianne Oldham as Rosalie Berwick.

Kevin Doyle is Lieutenant-Colonel Roland Brett, the man in charge of the hospital.

But even he has to answer to others higher up the Army command ladder.

Earlier this month I attended a London preview screening of the first episode plus later series highlights.

You can read my transcript of the post-screening Q&A with the cast plus creator and lead writer Sarah Phelps below.

The Crimson Field explores the horrors of The Great War from a different perspective.

While also shining a light of the lives of women from different backgrounds, their reasons for volunteering and how they cope with what they find just a few miles from the Front.

When they were also facing a time of huge social change.

If you’ve got the time to read the Q&A, it contains some fascinating insights from Sarah and the cast members who took part.

I’ve also added links at the very bottom of the transcript to some of the material they refer to.

BBC Drama boss Ben Stephenson introduced the screening and said:

“The Crimson Field is a really unique way into the First World War that shows it from an angle we probably haven’t seen before. Which is the role of, in the main, the women on the Front Line doing the nursing. A combination of professionals and amateurs who are brought in. So not only is it a real insight into the factual realities of the war but it’s also an imaginative insight into what it’s like to be plucked out of England and thrown into this extraordinary world on the Front Line in France.”

Hermione Norris as Matron Grace Carter.

Q&A with Suranne Jones (Sister Joan Livesey) / Hermione Norris (Matron Grace Carter) / Kerry Fox (Sister Margaret Quayle) / Kevin Doyle (Lieutenant-Colonel Roland Brett) / Sarah Phelps (Creator and lead writer).

Chaired by James Rampton, with other cast members in the audience.

Q: Sarah – tell us what gave you idea for this great drama in the first place?

Sarah Phelps: “I read a book called ‘The Roses Of No Man’s Land’ by Lyn Macdonald, who is a very eminent historian in every aspect of the First World War. It’s a historical account of the nurses, both military, civilian reservist and volunteer during the First World War at Field Hospitals like the one here, hospitals at home and hospital barges and ships.

“And it sounds really mental because you feel like that you know a lot about the First World War and you know about the casualties and you’re very familiar with a certain series of images of the First World War and the kind of injuries and the casualties and the terrible deaths. And yet my brain hadn’t made that kind of leap into, ‘Well I knew all this stuff happened but I never even thought about the women who had done the nursing.’

“So this book really opened a door into this subject matter and on to both the military nurses and also on to these girls who came from these Edwardian drawing rooms and were thrown into this extraordinary, explosive and horrifying and exhilarating world.”

Suranne Jones as Sister Joan Livesey.

Q: Suranne – when you first read it, what appealed to you about this?

Suranne Jones: “Well, firstly I loved the scripts. So when I went to the meeting and David (Evans), who had directed me in Unforgiven, was there I got very excited. And I think when I left the room I said, ‘Oh, good luck with this.’ Thinking I’d just watch it, anyway, whether I got the part or not. Because I just thought it was beautiful. The way Sarah just drew the characters.

“I remember I read a book called ‘A VAD in France’ and Sarah told me to read a book about Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker and it was wonderful. Then Sarah called me, because obviously I’m just at the end of ep one (when her character arrives)…and Sarah spent 20 minutes on the phone telling me what would happen in the rest of the episodes…and didn’t breathe once. At the end of the conversation she went, ‘Are you still there?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, I’m still here. Oh my God!’

“Having seen it for the first time, it’s a wonderful mix of the girls and you smile at them and go, ‘Oh my God they’e just experiencing this for the first time.’ And then the heartbreaking stuff with Adam James and Karl Davies – (Colonel Charles) Purbright and (Corporal) Prentice – that makes you think, ‘That’s what it’s about as well.’ I think it’s just beautiful. I really, really enjoyed it and I think Sarah’s wonderful.”

Q: Hermione – was one of the attractions the fact it was a narrative about female contributions to the war. We’ve seen so many stories about the men and the trenches. But this was a different perspective?

Hermione Norris: “I’ve always had a passion about World War One. An absolutely fascinating period of history. A time of huge social change, for women in particular. But, again, it wasn’t really gender based for me. It was Sarah’s script. The characters were so beautifully drawn. It wasn’t about whether this was about the men in the trenches or the women in the field hospital, actually. The characters really spoke to me. Even the stage directions made me cry. And it was quite visceral and real. So it wasn’t gender based. I loved Sarah’s script.”

Kerry Fox as Sister Margaret Quayle.

Q: These nurses are flawed. They are human beings who make mistakes?

Kerry Fox: “Strangely, I came at it from a different angle and David (Evans – one of the directors) turned it around for me…I love the fact that Margaret is so bitter and foul. She is such a cow. So I had a ball doing it. It’s also quite rare to have scenes between or among women. It gets rarer. And the joy of that was really fulfilling.”

Suranne Jones: “With different ages and different social backgrounds, all in one place. Because these people wouldn’t meet and it’s under this circumstance that they meet. I think it was great.”

Kevin Doyle as Lieutenant-Colonel Roland Brett.

Q: Kevin – there are no goodies and baddies in this?

Kevin Doyle: “I think that’s something that David wanted to emphasise from the off. There are pressures on everbody. And you begin to understand the pressures from on high. If you’re born from a certain generation you’re so used to a particular narrative of the First World War, which is ‘Lions led by donkeys.’ And I think we’re beginning to see a different opinion of that being told now. I’m not one to echo the philosophy of Michael Gove but there was certainly something about…there were pressures on everyone. There were pressures on the generals.

“By the time this episode is screened, 1915, the British Expeditionary Force, which was 200,000, we thought we’d walk in there, save Belgium and everything would be fine. The Germans would go back home. But within months the 200,000 soldiers had been killed or captured or wounded and that Army was completely wiped out. And so they had to first of all ask for volunteers, and there were two and a half million volunteers. But then it became about conscription.

“So people were being wounded and dying in such extraordinary numbers that there was no room for people to go back home. Unless you were dying, really. Certainly I began to realise that it’s good to show a different perspective, to show Purbright’s need to get men back. It’s a very important story to tell.”

Oona Chaplin as Kitty Trevelyan.

Q: Sarah – you made the decision not to go to the trenches at all in this series. Why was that?

Sarah Phelps: “Who says we’re not going to go to the trenches?”

Q: Well certainly in the first episode?

Sarah Phelps: “One of the things that was really important – from a production point of view you have to have a fixed set. You have to have somewhere where we can get used to or we can go to our world. If we go to the trenches, that’s not to devalue what’s going on there. But we can’t go there with our women. Women didn’t go into the trenches. You could have them a step back at the casualty clearing station and at the field hospitals.

“But if we go to the trenches, we don’t go with the majority of our characters and we lose telling this side of the story, which I think hasn’t been told. There’s no reason why we can’t go to the trenches if we get series two…” (laughter)

Alice St Clair as Flora Marshall.

Q: Suranne – could you talk a bit about your character because she comes in at the end of the first episode? Could you fill in her background a bit and how she fits into the jigsaw of the hospital?

Suranne Jones: “She’s a reservist from Liverpool and she’s never worked in an Army hospital. But she arrives in France. She’s told the girls that she doesn’t have a partner but obviously we’ve just seen that she is wearing an engagement ring. So we will find out a little bit more about who is her partner.

“She rides a motorcycle, she’s had her hair chopped off. She’s quite modern. She’s a suffragist and she’s a very modern forward thinker. She thinks it’s wonderful that there are VADs and that they should have more work and more chores and more hands on.

“That clashes with, particularly, Margaret’s rules and regulations. So she causes a bit of stir. And then we will find out about her background which I’m not really allowed to say…no spoilers.”

Q: Hermione – could you fill is in a bit on your character? She seems very pursed-lipped and quite severe but, obviously, that’s never the full picture, is it?

Hermione Norris: “No. Grace has been recently appointed Matron and I think episode one shows her wrangling with the difficulty of embracing that authority. She has been very much Margaret’s protege and has been quite manipulated by Margaret over the years. We find out everybody’s manipulated by Margaret. Something in a name.

“So you see her being stringy-lipped and strict and a disciplinarian, which was absolutely required. To have discipline and a correct uniform in amongst such carnage, I think the rule was that that made everybody feel safe. But you very much see Grace’s compassion and here struggle with the decisions that she has to make as Matron. As the story moves along, more and more so.”

Q: Kerry – in some ways then, is it like any other workplace drama with the tensions and rivalries that are always visited. Is that an element of it?

Kerry Fox: “It’s quite interesting watching that (the episode) now because sometimes you think that rivalry and bitterness and the fake camaraderie, friendship between women, seems a lot more interesting often than we get the chance to see between men. It isn’t so submerged and hidden and complicated. So there’s a lot more of that, really. Of course Margaret is sweet and innocent and loving and kind and warm and supportive and generous and works really hard.” (laughter)

Marianne Oldham as Rosalie Berwick.

Q: Kevin – it was a time of immense social change, within three years women over 30 got the vote for the first time. Do you think that’s reflected in the drama as well? The end of the Edwardian era, the end of the British Empire? All those elements in there?

Kevin Doyle: “Yes. It was a massive catalyst for change. There were a lot of pressures before the war for women’s suffrage and the contribution that they made during the war, back home, in the hospitals, it spoke very eloquently to the Establishment about the rightful place for women in the workplace. It had a massive bearing on the next generation. They began to feel the change when they got back home.”

Q: Did you want to bring that in to the drama, the backdrop of what was happening in Britain, the cataclysmic social changes that were occurring?

Sarah Phelps: “I did a lot of research about what Britain was like before the war. I wanted to read a lot about the Edwardian period before, so I knew what kind of world everyone was coming from. I read loads of stuff. Edwardian ladies’ diaries and all their experiments.

“They were so bored. There was a kind of like End of Days scenario, like the last days of the Roman Empire. They weren’t exactly throwing members of their family on to the rocks in Capri but they were so bored. There was a sense of something glorious having been ended with Victoria’s reign, the end of the 19th century and they’re all waiting for something to explode and catapult them into the next stage.

“I read all these Edwardian ladies’ diaries and they used to have morphine parties and have their friends round. A nice cup of Lapsang Souchong and a bit of gossip about who’s got the best hat and then they’d roll up their sleeves and give each other injections of morphine. I read one lady – she experimented with Chloroform. And she’d say, ‘Oh dear old Chloro, dear old familiar friend.’

“This was an absolutely schizophrenic society. Sexually schizophrenic, bored and there’s almost a level of depravity in how bored they are. And at the same time, malnutrition and poverty which is absolutely unimaginable.

“There’s a really shocking statistic from medical officers and recruiting officers when they had all these young guys volunteering to go to war. Not always from patriotic duty but a job, money in their pocket, a pair of their own boots, a nice good bit of cloth on their back, a gun, off in a foreign country with your mates, a sexual freedom and licence that they would never have at home. Three meals a day. And there’s an amazing statistic which just shocks you to your core about the level of serious malnutrition in volunteers coming forward. Not your communal garden malnutrition – bad teeth and a bit skinny. Serious malnutrition.

“Those two extremes. You’ve got to remember that the world that they were coming from, in 1905 you’d already had a revolution in Russia which had scared the crap out of people at home. By the time we’re in 1915 we’ve already got Gandhi in India organising the protests against the Land Taxes. We have, in this period, the absolute seeds of the end of Empire, right now when they’re all fighting for Empire.

“Everybody in the world comes to this line, to the Western Front, everybody in the world. It’s incredible. I’ve found photos of Zulu warriors at the Western Front. They were there. 1918. And it’s extraordinary that at this time when everyone’s talking about Empire and who is on who’s side, the absolute seeds of the end of it are now flourishing – in Ireland, in India, everywhere. It has obsessed me.

“But we’re talking here about women getting the vote. It was kind of a trade off because no-one went, ‘Up the women,’ in 1918. They were all back, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen so the men can have the jobs back. So let’s not kid ourselves.”

Q: Suranne – it’s an amazing set. Can you talk a bit about it and did help you to get into character?

Suranne Jones: “Yeah. We went for a read through and it was half built and we were in one of the huts. And so we could see what was about to be built by the wonderful crew. And then we went back a couple of weeks later…well, the guys had started two weeks before me actually because Joan comes in later. When I got there it was just amazing because they planted actual corn..wheat…”

Sarah Phelps: “A strain from a hundred years ago so it looked right.”

Suranne Jones: “When I first got the job I thought, ‘Great, I’m going to France!’ And then I got on a train to Wiltshire. But it was beautiful. So where the cemetery was they planted wheat – a hundred year old wheat. Then we would have tents. So the scale and the depth of what the cameras could catch was absolutely amazing.

“And then, of course, we’d have the main hospital. Add on to that your carts and horses and vintage vehicles – we were getting out of our trailers every day and it was very easy to just walk down to the field and be in our uniforms in the actual place. So thank you to all the wonderful crew. It was beautiful.”

Kevin Doyle: “It must have been months before – they built an allotment for the camp kitchen. I don’t know if it was ever seen. But it just looked beautiful. The field of corn – it’s only used in one scene. We’re walking by on the way and back from a cemetery. And there are two or three guys scything the wheat. It’s just for that moment. But they planted it months in advance. Having that kind of expertise.

“When you went into the pharmacy or the wards, just the level of contribution from the art department was just extraordinary. Everything was there that you needed. If we were trained doctors we could have taken people in. It was extraordinary. So hats off to them.”

Suranne Jones: “And also the fact we started in summer, so we had wasps everywhere. Then we went into fields of mud and then rain and wind. So our dresses, for the nurses, were covered in mud up to here. We went through all that. And the set just got better and better looking. It was amazing.”

Suranne Jones as Sister Joan Livesey.

Q: Why are we still so fixated by the First World War?

Hermione Norris: “For me – I can’t speak for anyone else – but it’s a generation that I remember. I remember the smell of that generation, the attitude of that generation. And I think the scale of loss and devastation is beyond comprehension.

“I became interested in it about 20 years ago, I suppose, and read the Pat Barker trilogy and went to Flanders. Just the psychological effect and impact on us as a nation, I think we’re still living in the consequences of that. When Sarah’s script came along…‘We will remember them’…it was just on a very small scale from my point of view, a small act of remembrance every day. ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.’ And you really did feel that there.

“I hope for people on a Sunday night it’s a small act of remembrance. ‘Small’ without sounding pompous or sombre about it. It was a hugely significant war and it was a huge privilege to be a part of that.”

Rosalie Berwick (MARIANNE OLDHAM), Kitty Trevelyan (OONA CHAPLIN), Flora Marshall (ALICE ST CLAIR)

Q: Can I ask about the costumes. Did they also help to get into the characters?

Alice St Clair, who plays Flora Marshall: “Yes, they really did. Mainly because the corsets were quite restricting and you couldn’t believe that you had to do all the work – we only had to do it in the scene, like the bed making scene, which was exhausting. In a corset it was really difficult to bend over even. They were so upright in their beliefs and way of being as well and the costumes really helped you remember that all the time.”

Richard Rankin as Captain Thomas Gillan.

Richard Rankin, who plays Captain Thomas Gillan: “Just going back to discussing the set, it was really easy to immerse yourself in the part and in the environment because the entire set was there. Like Kevin says, you could pretty much start bringing in patients. The level of detail was so great. And then add to that the costumes and the level of detail, it was brilliant.”

Alex Wyndham as Captain Miles Hesketh-Thorne.

Alex Wyndham, who plays Captain Miles Hesketh-Thorne: “Watching that, it was really interesting being the love interest – it wasn’t a man’s story. And I was thinking, ‘Oh gosh, this is what it must be like for all those girls when they go to screenings, ‘Oh yeah, here I come and I just hit on the guy a little bit and then I’m off screen.’ I just was really struck by the strength of it. The women’s stories. Actually drawing the attention to female inter-personal relationships and making them really compelling and dynamic and fascinating. Not just a side story. It was just really wonderful to see women’s stories told incredibly strongly and vibrantly, at the forefront of things.”

Jack Gordon as Orderly Corporal Peter Fowley.

James then opened up questions to other members of the media in the audience.

Q: (From me) Following on from what Sarah was saying – was there anything about the day to day lives of the real people who worked at hospitals like this that took you aback or surprised you? That you didn’t expect?

Sarah Phelps: “You don’t even imagine for a moment just how hard they worked. One of the things that took me aback was the fact that the nurses would make a point – if they could – about making sure that dying men were what they called ‘specialled’. That they didn’t die on their own. And that every man would get a letter from that special nurse back to their families. Because obviously if a man died on a field then his commanding officer would generally write to the family. But they’re not in the field, they’re in the field hospital. So you have all these nurses writing back. And at the same time nursing men in the most appalling injuries.

“There’s one nurse’s book, Sister Edith Appleton, who’s quite a girl. And she’s alarmingly chuffed when spies are marched out to be hung and shot. But apart from that she’s fabulous. And she describes – and a lot of nurses and volunteers describe – having to to sit with men who are dying from their injuries. There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. One of the things that just made me go shivering was about Sister Edith Appleton, sitting next to a patient’s bed, who took upwards of five days to die from an appalling head injury. And her description of listening to him trying to breathe through the brain matter dripping down the back of his throat.

“This is what they did. And made beds. And poured bleach over their hands to get rid of any infection because a grain of dirt under your nail was the difference between a man’s life and his death. So over raw hands you’d pour bleach so that you be aseptic to deal with your patient. Then you would sit by their beds and hold their hands and talk to them as they died. They went without sleep and their hands and feet split.

“Those tents – they lived in them in freezing northern French winters. You’re just staggered. And listening to the description about how many of layers of clothes they had to wear in order just to not freeze to death in their beds. And going to work and having to try and wash men who came from the Front, in those winters, clarted from head to foot in poisonous mud and suffering from hypothermia and God knows what. You’re staggered. Honestly, every single detail of it knocks me off my feet.”

Arrival: Rosalie Berwick (MARIANNE OLDHAM), Flora Marshall (ALICE ST CLAIR)

Q: Suranne touched on this a little earlier, about the wet conditions. How difficult did it get? How boggy did it get? And the missing toes that we saw – I wonder what they were in real life?

Suranne Jones: “They used to be kept in the fridge in make up with the ears. So we’d go in to get some milk and the wonderful make up designers and girls that did all the injuries, brilliantly…and there were teams and teams of make up girls when the troops were out…there would be a second make up van that were in at the crack of dawn with all these wonderful supporting artists. So the toes were kept in the fridge.

“Our conditions? When you hear Sarah talk about that and the couple of books that I read, the chilblains and the tiredness…we have to put into perspective that we’re a bunch of actors making a drama and we work long hours and I remember doing a shower scene in the middle of the forest and it was quite cold – it was open top…but you do then have to remember that it ain’t nothing compared to what Sarah’s just described. But it was cold and boggy and we are actors and we do like a moan.” (laughter)

Adam James as Colonel Charles Purbright.

Kerry Fox: The thing that strikes me from reading about it was what Sarah said about – they had nothing. The fall back of their medical care was so limited. Don’t forget that Penicillin was used for the first time in the First World War. Because my children’s great grandfather was one of the first recipients of Penicillin on the beach and he had always said how much it hurt. He thought it was going to kill him. The Penicillin injection was the most painful thing he’d ever experienced – and he’d had half his arse blown off. That was one of the first times it was used. I just always had the feeling that there was so little they could do.”

Sarah Phelps: “At this stage of the war…you think about now what happens with any kind of traumatic injury. You have blood transfusions, you have ways of treating shock. At this stage, not until 1917 did they have any way of storing blood for blood transfusions. It is astonishing when you read the descriptions that anybody survives these kind of injuries. How they survived gas gangrene, how they survived shock, how they survived people coming in with virtually almost no blood left in their body – and they managed to operate on them.

“The anaesthetic at the time is really, seriously brutal. I’ve read descriptions of operations where the only way of giving a man anaesthesia is to basically shove it up his bum. And it’s really alarming. I’m stunned that men made it through. But made it through they did. And the reason they made it through is because of women and men like the ones I’m writing about. That’s how they made it through.”

Hermione Norris and Kerry Fox.

Q: Could I ask the ladies what it meant to you to play such forward-thinking women? Because this is really the start of women doing proper jobs and being accepted by men. What does it mean to you to play those roles that focus on that?

Hermione Norris: “Obviously that’s a huge privilege. It was a time of huge social change for women. Of course working class women had always worked…but for middle class and the upper class women, as these VADs were, they were doing jobs that were beyond comprehension. Men didn’t think…women probably didn’t think that they were capable of working in a munitions factory, being nurses, working in hospitals, doing any work at all. Literally they were deemed incapable of work like that. So obviously as an actor or as a woman full stop, that is a huge privilege to be a part of that.”

Kerry Fox: “The nurses that we are…at the beginning of the war there were 400 of them and by the end of the First World War there were 4000. There is a storyline later, which I don’t think is a spoiler, but my character is very old school. She sees herself as a soldier. It’s a calling very much like a career and she’s recognised as a soldier – she had worked in earlier wars. So she was that sort of type.”

Hermione Norris: “For the first time women had careers and being a nurse was, I suppose, the first career a woman was allowed to have.”

Suranne Jones: “It’s difficult without Sarah shouting ‘spoiler alert’, for me, but my character…I always try to do jobs, scripts that have some kind of conscience about them and are important. So it was great that this came up. And it was from the women’s perspective. Joan is not only politically forward thinking, socially forward thinking, she sees herself as an equal. She has a love of people and human beings and I think that when you get to episode three and four you’ll see how wide reaching that is. And that was the discussion with Sarah that I had about the end of the series. About how something huge and traumatic that happens to us as human beings can also make you see and bring people together.”

Q: She’s also quite forward thinking in that she’s got short hair and wears trousers. Were you surprised how controversial that was or how that would be seen by other characters?

Suranne Jones: “Yeah. Sergeant Soper (Jeremy Swift), as you saw there. I remember the actor saying to me, ‘You look great, quite sexy, actually.’ But obviously as a character back then he would have been absolutely horrified that this woman turned up in a gentleman’s greatcoat on a bike. Again the costume department…they did a great job. You watch the girls out of uniform, not only when we’re all in uniform, and the detail is wonderful. Although the goggles were made for men. Women have smaller faces so when you put the goggles on they go to either side, like Toad of Toad Hall. So the girls that we had to do the stunt riding couldn’t actually see very well. So it was very dangerous for them. But they did brilliantly. Obviously it wasn’t me!”

Q: To confirm the time and place of the drama?

Sarah Phelps: “We’re in Northern France and we start in 1915 because that was when the first wave of volunteer nurses went over to France. Obviously prior to that they thought it was going to be a two month exercise in spanking the Hun’s arse and sending him home without his tea. And everyone home in time for Christmas.

“By the time that it became violently obvious that not only was this entrenched warfare and that they were swiftly running out of medical personnel to deal with the extraordinary levels of casualties and in time to put the call out in Britain and train all those girls…so this is summer, June 1915. And it’s Northern France. I took some inspiration from a very similar hospital that was based near Etaples. So that’s where we are. About 30 or 40 miles back from the line.”

Q: Sarah – the conditions for all these volunteers, nurses, sound really horrific. What was it that motivated them to go over there?

Sarah Phelps: “So much motivated them. A load of people might have said it’s duty, patriotism, it’s being fired up. But also I think that at a very much deeper level it felt like a door being opened and there are loads of reasons. The same reason that loads of young men were clamouring to sign up to join the Army – for money, for a gun to be with their mates, for a good pair of boots and for adventure and thrill.

“I think a lot of women joined up for the freedoms, for getting out of these bloody claustrophobic drawing rooms where you were expected to behave in a certain way and the pressures were on you to be a wife and a mother or do good works and things like that. And then this thing happened and it was the call, ‘Rise up women of Britain and stand shoulder to shoulder with your menfolk.’

“It must have been like a blast going through the blood. I’d have dropped everything like a shot and gone. Just to do something. See a different country, to wear a uniform, a sense of pride to be active. And adventure and men and friendship and comradeship and all those different things.

“I think there’s loads of reasons why people join up. Lots of people could have put their hand on their heart and said, ‘For King and country,’ and they might have got there and been bloody useless. Some people might have gone, ‘I want to go because I want to meet men.’ And they might have got there and been bloody brilliant. It doesn’t matter why you go. It only matters what you do when you get there.”

BBC The Crimson Field

World War One at the BBC

The Roses of No Man’s Land

A V.a.d.in France

Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm

Pat Barker trilogy

Edith Appleton

Ian Wylie on Twitter

Jessica Brown Findlay as Mary Yellan.

“THERE’S nothing so dangerous as a headstrong girl who knows her own mind.”

Jessica Brown Findlay is mean, moody and muddy as Mary Yellan in a terrific three-part BBC1 adaptation of Jamaica Inn.

The former Downton Abbey star deserves to shake off all mentions of Lady Sybil and sentences that begin like this one after her dark and brooding performance as Mary.

Screenwriter Emma Frost stays faithful to Daphne du Maurier’s novel while adding her own stamp on the Cornish classic.

With BAFTA award-winning director Philippa Lowthorpe weaving yet more screen magic across three hours of drama.

Jamaica Inn begins at 9pm on Easter Monday and continues at the same time on the following two nights.

Co-starring Sean Harris as Jamaica Inn landlord Joss Merlyn, Matthew McNulty as his younger brother Jem Merlyn, Joanne Whalley as Aunt Patience, Ben Daniels as vicar Francis Davey and Shirley Henderson as his sister Hannah Davey.

If you’re read the book, you’ll know this is a thrilling tale of Cornish smugglers and much more set in 1821

Spirited Mary is forced to leave home after her mother dies and journeys “to the ends of the Earth” to live with her aunt and uncle in Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor.

“I never thought I’d struggle with telling good from evil,” explains Mary at the outset of a beautifully photographed epic.

Right from the opening shot of Mary dragging a heavy wooden trunk along a beaten track.

Here’s just a small flavour:

Last month I attended the London press launch of Jamaica Inn.

My full transcript of the post-screening Q&A is below, edited to remove a few sentences that would give just a little too much information for those who have not read the book, or investigated the story via Mr Google.

Taking part were Jessica Brown Findlay (Mary Yellan), Emma Frost (screenwriter), David Thompson (Producer, with Dan Winch), Philippa Lowthorpe (Director) plus chairman James Rampton.

As Philippa said: “It’s so wonderful to have a female heroine forging ahead in an adventure story, which is usually the preserve of boys’ stuff.

“I love Treasure Island – but this was wonderful to have a female heroine at the heart of it.”

While Jessica – known as Jessie – spoke about filming the role and then watching herself on the big screen at the preview:

“I was watching one scene and I almost started laughing because I remembered I stomped off and then immediately fell over flat on my face in the mud. And that’s not in there.”

Mary en route to Jamaica Inn.

All the photos on this page are by Robert Viglasky. There are links to him and lots more at the end of the Q&A below.

BBC Drama boss Ben Stephenson introduced the screening:

“I’ve always been a massive fan of Daphne du Maurier and have long wanted to bring Jamaica Inn to the screen. But Hollywood rights…you know what it’s like. So it’s been really, really difficult. So when David Thompson came and said that he thought it was going to be possible to make it, it was really exciting because she’s such an extraordinary writer. Tells popular stories but with real depth. And they always, I think, were perfect for TV. So it was a real honour to be able to bring this brilliant book to screen. I think it’s a really epic, exciting, moving story, led brilliantly by Jessica Brown Findlay who really gives a…well she’s already a star, but if she wasn’t, I would say star making performance. It’s a massive part and a massive journey that she goes on and she does it beautifully.”

The Q&A:

Q: Jess – what was your first reaction when you were offered the role of Mary?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “I was elated. I read the first script and just thought it was incredible. And then I couldn’t help myself, between auditioning and finding out I went straight to the book and started reading. And then I realised maybe that was a bad idea because I’d be really envious if anyone else got to play Mary. I really, really, really wanted to. I thought she was incredible. And I was really happy.”

Q: What is it about her that makes her such a special character?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “So many things but…the thing that struck me immediately and the most refreshing thing was that – for the story that it’s telling, it’s led by a heroine, led by a woman. But you could change her name to a male name and you’d have the same story, almost. And that was so exciting. It wasn’t just fluffy, girly, boring stuff…it was so exciting and I’d never read anything like it. And it was dark. I just think she’s incredible. She’s really stubborn, sometimes to a fault. There was so much there.”

Sean Harris as Joss Merlyn.

Q: Emma – for you, was that one of the appeals, that it’s an adventure story that traditionally, maybe, has been led by a male character but this has an astonishing female in the lead?

Emma Frost: “I think part of the appeal for me is that it’s the perfect fusion between…it’s a Gothic romance, it’s in the vein of Twilight, Wuthering Heights, The Piano, so many amazing films or books. But I think it’s the perfect fusion between an emotional interior story – it’s a big love story for Mary – but also that’s dramatised externally through this huge adventure in the wrecking. In the end it all comes down to…for me, when I read it, what made sense of it was that there’s central metaphor…in the wrecking they use false lights to lure ships to their destruction on their rocks. And I think the metaphor, for me, that Du Maurier is using is that she’s sort of comparing that to love and she’s saying, ‘We’re drawn to this bright light of what we’re attracted to and what you have to do is negotiate the rocks and see if you can find a way to get to what you desire without destroying yourself in the process. So there was this perfect parallel for me of the love story and this huge adventure story. And in the end the piece, for me, is a perfect triangle between desire, survival and morality. So there are people in this amazing epic physical environment who are trying to survive. Physically as well. They’re smuggling because there’s no money. There are no jobs, there is no way to survive. But, for Mary, it’s about trying to retain her own identity and her own integrity in the face of falling in love with a man who might destroy her because he might turn out to be the most criminal, worst person she’s ever met. So there’s this wonderful tension between those two things.”

Matthew McNulty as Jem Merlyn.

Q: Philippa – beforehand you said to me, ‘It’s not a period drama, it’s a drama.’ Was one of the attractions for you that the characters seemed very contemporary in some ways?

Philippa Lowthorpe: “I think the characters do feel very contemporary and starting with Daphne du Maurier’s novel, Mary feels like a very modern heroine in that. And then Emma’s interpretation of that was fantastically vivid and very strikingly modern. I think all period drama should just be dramas and the word ‘period’ should be dropped. Because unless they live and breathe, for me, as real people with real passions and real faults, it doesn’t feel like you should bother making them. But that’s the wonderful thing about Mary as a character – she’s just so flawed but so full of drive and passion. She’s very attractive. She’s like any young modern woman would be.”

Joanne Whalley as Aunt Patience.

Q: David – I know you’ve been involved with Jamaica Inn for some time, what has made you feel that it was so right to bring to the screen?

David Thompson: “Well I first started work on this some years ago with Hilary Heath. We were thinking of making it into a movie. But as we pursued it we realised there was so much material here it worked much better in a longer form television piece, where you’d have space and scope to deal with all the elements of the story. But what really drew me to it was, I wanted to make a really passionate, epic love story. And it’s so hard to find love stories which are set in a contemporary setting because there’s much less at stake. What you get in the period stories is this incredible number of impediments, which is what you’ve got here. So that’s what really drew me to it – this mixture, as Emma was saying. Intense romantic love and a really tense, dangerous, mystery story. And that’s the kind of web that Daphne Du Maurier wove in her book. And I thought it would be a really great, exciting challenge to bring that to the screen.”

Q: One of the appeals of Mary is her complexity and that is manifested in her attraction towards Jem – because she’s not quite sure who he is? Was that one of the things that drew you to it?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “Yeah, I suppose. It’s far more complicated than first meets the eye and also compared to many other things. Her attraction to Jem…she suppresses it hugely and hates herself for it. She’s – despite her best efforts – drawn to him and then various things come into play. She has questions about how good is he? How bad is he? What will it mean for her life to follow her heart? But also to deny her love for him, as well. It’s very complicated in that sense. But also what really attracted me and what was so exciting was the extraordinary people involved. Starting with Du Maurier, an incredible book written by an incredible woman, adapted by an incredible woman, directed by an incredible woman. It just felt really exciting and driven in a way and had something about that I’d never read before and never thought I’d even be allowed to be a part of. So that was a huge draw. It was really exciting.”

Q: Emma – you had a rather unconventional way of preparing to write this?

Emma Frost: “I don’t know if it’s unconventional. I went and stayed in a yurt on Bodmin Moor because in the book…the landscape is a character. So that has to feel real, it has to feel alive. I had to know what it smelled like and felt like. I’ve actually got family in Cornwall so then I wrote most of the first episode in a place called Trevoole Farm, which is in a weird named place called Praze-an-Beeble, in the middle of Cornwall. I also made a point of meeting Kits Browning, who is Daphne du Maurier’s son. He still lives in Fowey, in the house where Daphne lived. There’s amazing big portraits of her everywhere. It’s really incredible. And Kits was brilliant. He told me all the stuff about how Daphne du Maurier had been reading Treasure Island just before she wrote this. And so she was very excited about wanting to write a really big epic action adventure but to give it to a girl as the central character because it’s obviously what her preoccupations were as well. And Kits was really amazing in helping me understand his mum’s own response to what she’d written and being really supportive as well. The whole family, they really loved the scripts and gave it their seal of approval. And gave me a watch. It’s a du Maurier watch – there’s a reason I’m showing you. It says ‘du Maurier’.”

Q: Philippa – some very challenging scenes. The filming in the sea must have been quite difficult?

Philippa Lowthorpe: “The filming in the sea was extremely exhilarating but very scary – because I’m actually a bit of a wimp. I’m not very brave. We wanted to go to Cornwall to do the majority of the exteriors to make it feel very authentic, as Emma was saying. And following in her footsteps, I think you wrote some of it at Rough Tor, didn’t you?”

Emma Frost: “Yes.”

Philippa Lowthorpe: “We just wanted to go to the placed where Daphne du Maurier had been and then Emma had been. And then go and film in these extraordinary places. The landscape in Cornwall is quite extraordinary and Bodmin Moor is this great flat plain with these funny conical tors on it. Amazing. And the beaches there, obviously, are perfect for smuggling stories. But we spent a long time, five days I think, filming in and out of the sea. Poor Jessie was in there. We were all in there. The whole crew were in there and we all had to have an individual life guard to prop us up because it was a surfing beach and the waves were very high. It was a real adventure. But we wanted to go there and feel what they’d felt, when smugglers really had operated there.”

Emma Frost: “And you can’t shoot anywhere else for Cornwall, can you? There are certain really iconic bits of the landscape that you’d just know if it was somewhere else.”

Philippa Lowthorpe: “Absolutely. These weird hills are sort of made out rocks and they’re conical shaped. Up on those we went and filmed the final scenes in episode three up there. And it took 45 minutes to walk up. The 4x4s could only take us half way up. You came there didn’t you, Emma, to the filming? We trekked up to the top of this hill. Thank goodness it wasn’t too windy.”

Emma Frost: “And Jessie was amazing. The more difficult anything was, the more keen you were, weren’t you?”

Q: Jessie – can you give us your recollections of filming in the sea? Did you find it actually quite exhilarating?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “Er, yeah. It’s ridiculous. Well the thing is, at the end of day you do get to go home and have a nice cup of tea and a warm dinner, so it’s fine. But it was exhilarating and really special because if it had been in a studio or pretend…you were able to get to a place so far beyond where you would. Where it feels pretend, I hate that. It’s weird and I can’t do it. So it’s real and there is a certain level of fear. And working with Sean (Harris, who plays Joss Merlyn) was amazing and he just brought this…you were in the sea and everyone disappeared and you are there and you may drown. You wouldn’t but…you go under and for a second you can’t see where up is. But obviously within about half a second someone is like, ‘There you are, you’re fine.’ But it was extraordinary. I’d never worked in that way before. And it was great to be able to be allowed to be in that situation. And the rest of the time the landscape is so integral to the story. You get the sense that there’s a reason why Mary…she tries, numerous times, to leave but where will she go? There is nowhere. She could walk for hours and hours and hours and days and get nowhere. So it was an important thing to feel really isolated. And the way it’s described in the book, it feels desolate. At the end of the Earth, as she says.”

Q: Did you identify with Mary?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “Yeah. It’s not necessarily similarities between you and your character that’s interesting. In fact the more different the better. But you find things within those characters that you can relate to that excite you. I loved her stubborness, stomping around. She’s always off on some stomp somewhere. And then reluctantly goes back. But I love that she trusts her gut and goes with it and tries and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But she’s headstrong and believes in something even if she starts believing in exactly what she thinks she knows and she ends up changed but still with that central core there. It’s still unshaken but shaped, maybe, by the people in her life and what’s happened. And I love that. I love that she comes out at the end of it and she has changed but she embraces the fact that it may not be for the better. She’s really flawed.”

Shirley Henderson as Hannah Davey and Ben Daniels as Vicar Francis Davey.

Q: Emma – there is a famous 1939 Hitchcock film of Jamaica Inn. Did you worry about following in his footsteps?

Emma Frost: “No. It’s the only time you can re-make something Hitchcock did and people don’t throw bricks at you. Ther Hitchcock film is terrible. I don’t know if anyone has seen it. It’s a terrible film where Charles Laughton just grandstands and just goes, ‘It’s all about me.’ It couldn’t be more different. Daphne du Maurier hated it. It’s not even a story about Mary, is it? She’s kind of a bit part with a balsa wood trunk that gets thrown on the carriage and off again, and is so obviously really light. It’s a really bad film. Which is great for us.”

Q: Philippa – what is it that makes du Maurier’s writing so special and how did Emma render that in the script?

Philippa Lowthorpe: “Well I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t read the book before I read Emma’s script. What I loved about Emma’s script is that it was so visual, which is a very rare thing in a lot of writing. It was just so visual and so atmospheric and felt like something that was very, very different from a lot of normal television stuff. It was just so exciting to read it. And then, obviously, after reading Emma’s script I did go back to the novel and I thought how beautifully Emma had captured the heart and soul of the book, which is just so full of excitement and atmosphere. Like everybody’s being saying, it’s so wonderful to have a female heroine forging ahead in an adventure story, which is usually the preserve of boys’ stuff. I love Treasure Island and books like this. But this was wonderful to have a female heroine at the heart of it.”

Q: David – without embarrassing Jessie too much, could you say why you think she’s so right for this role?

David Thompson: “This is an incredibly dangerous, sexually-charged and emotionally overwhelming story and Jessie just seems to have that kind of strength, solidity and power and also – this will embarrass her – beauty, which is very important for this. Because this is a heroine who has to hold the screen across three hours. And Jessie does that quite amazingly well. In so many little facets and aspects. Whether she’s plunging in the water – and incidentally those scenes are usually filmed in a tank in the studio. So it was quite a challenge for an actress to do that. We did it all in the sea. Whether she’s in the water or riding across the moors – an incredible prowess on a horse. Have you ever ridden before?”

Jessica Brown Findlay: “Not really.”

David Thompson: “Well she’s extraordinary on a horse. It’s an incredibly dynamic…and that’s the whole thing about the story, Philippa and Emma have brought this to the screen…it’s a very dynamic and visual evocation of the story. So in just that scene of her charging across the moors it’s incredibly evocative of her emotional state. And above all, Jessie has the emotional range as an actress. An incredible amount she has to do by saying very little often, actually. Just by reacting and responding. So she’s got the subtlety and that emotional intensity to really convey this dangerous and sexually charged story. And I would say that all the actors were in some danger at various moments. The great thing about the film was…I guess the elements work for the story but they were also very challenging for the production. At one stage the inn, which is a real inn, threatened to blow down in the hurricane. So we had to stop filming because bits of the roof went hurtling across the front of it. So it was quite a challenge to film, given all the elements working against us and also with us.”

Q: Jessie – excellent accent. How did you go about nailing that?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “We had a week of rehearsals in London, where we got to talk through everything with Philippa and Emma was there as well some days. And we had a voice coach for all of us for a week. We were also given some actors who are based in Cornwall. They recorded a lot of the script, just repeating certain words that are quite hard to say. It was just really useful. Now everything is quite distilled and we all travel, whereas this is a point in time where you grew up in one place and you stayed there pretty much. And so sounds are a lot stronger and far more specific to certain areas. So you had to find a balance between what was right for the time, which would have been really strong, but also so that everyone can understand what you’re saying. Which is useful. But also because of the landscape and the world in which you’re in, you don’t waste time with warmth of vowels and things like that. You’re shouting across moors, so thinks are shorter and harsher. And with Mary’s character as well, for me I found she suddenly started taking on a really deep voice. So yeah. Another masking quality of Mary’s.”

Questions were then opened up to other members of the media in the audience:

Q: Emma – I found the psychology of the ‘sexual’ relationships very interesting. Particularly between Mary and her uncle. I’ve not read the book, I wondered how much you brought out from the book or whether it is actually already there?

Emma Frost: “I think there is a lot of it in the book. Daphne du Maurier always comes back to as central theme – gender battles and gender roles. She very famously said that she perceived herself as being half male, half female and it was the male part of her that actually writes and where the creativity was vested. It was something she struggled with enormously, her own sexuality, her own response to gender. So her books are always very full of it. And Mary, in the book, says she’d rather be a boy, she’d like to go and do man’s work on a farm. When she falls in love with Jem she says she doesn’t want to love like a woman because she perceives that to be weakness. So there’s a really strong seam through the book of Mary recognising her limitations as female and feeling that to fall in love is to lose herself and lose her identity. I think what du Maurier does between Jem and Joss, who obviously are brothers, is there’s this splitting of the same character almost. And Jem is the version of him when he was good or still redeemable. And Joss represents what Jem might turn out to be. So Mary and Jem could turn out to be Patience and Joss down the line and that’s the horrible spectre that she’s dealing with. He (Joss) does, I think, in the book say…he holds his finger out and says is she tame or does she bite? She doesn’t bite in the book but I felt she should. Which is about her ballsy-ness. It’s about her saying, ‘Don’t dismiss me just because you think I’m a girl. I’m equal to you, mate.’ The whole journey for Mary that feeds into that is about her being so sure. And so she thinks she knows what the difference is between right and wrong. She thinks she knows who she is. She thinks she knows everything and she’s challenged on it at every single stage. And the sexual challenge I think is part of that. In the book…she’s completely repulsed by Joss. He hits her aunt, he’s brutal, he’s vile, he’s horrible. And yet there’s a certain magnetism about that and, obviously, he echoes Jem. So there’s this man she’s really attracted to and Joss is like the dark side of that. So it’s confusing and dangerous.”

Q: (From me) Jessie – you touched on it earlier on when you were talking about the sea scenes and David also mentioned the weather, which you can see a lot of on screen. Can you talk a little more about acting in all that mud and rain? And does it add to how you play the character in terms of how earthy it is and her predicament?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “Yeah. It helps pretty much in every single way. It was really incredibly muddy outside the Inn. It changes how you walk. You can’t just elegantly walk down the road. It’s a massive effort. Whoever invented those dresses, I don’t know what they were thinking. They’re really long and so as soon as you step outdoors it just drinks mud and rain. So it changes how you walk, how you hold yourself. It starts pouring with rain and you’re cold. We had no hair and no make-up. Well I obviously had hair. We just kept everything incredibly minimal. So if it was cold and windy and raining, normally there would be someone running and and making your nose as if you’re not cold at all. Whereas if you are, you’ve got a bright red nose and blotched cheeks, blue lips quite often. And that’s fantastic because it looks how it would. You wouldn’t look perfect. I hate that, ‘Oh look, it’s raining,’ but she’s come inside and her hair is lovely and she’s had a manicure. How convenient. So all that helps. You’re just grubby for seven weeks. I don’t know how many people would like that. But I liked it.”

Philippa Lowthorpe: “Jessie told me a very funny story…because she was very dirty for the whole shoot…and going into the chemist to buy some aspirin or something and giving you very funny looks. You still had all your dirt ingrained into your hands.”

Jessica Brown Findlay: “They asked me, ‘Do you pay for your prescriptions?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, I do.’ And they said, ‘Are you sure?’ Because I had mud all over my face and a cut lip. I was like, ‘That’s really weird. I am willing to pay.’ Then later I looked in the mirror and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I understand maybe why the might have asked me.’”

Q: Where was the real Inn?

David Thompson: “The real inn was actually in Yorkshire, because we had some investment from Yorkshire. In a very wild location. We hadn’t quite realised how wild it was until we started shooting, it’s fair to say. To light these night scenes you had to put up these great cherry pickers, which are kind of cranes. And Sod’s Law, the nights we were filming it the wind really whipped up to an incredible speed to the point where it was too dangerous to have these great big crane lights up. So we had to bring them down. So there were a lot of production problems. We had to build a road to get the equipment to the Inn. But Philippa, quite rightly, wanted it to feel really authentically remote and wild. Of course that did present a lot of production challenges. And the mud, of course. Great on screen, it looks really authentic. But unfortunately bloody hard for the actors to move in – and the crew. The actors might have sucked down into the mud, it was so thick.”

Q: Getting the rights to the book?

David Thompson: “For many years it was held by a studio and eventually Hilary Heath got the rights and then we worked together with Hilary to turn into a television drama. So it had been something we’d been tracking for a long time. A lot of people have been tracking it for a long time. But the moment just seemed right. As I said before, the story seems to lend itself best to television adaptation, to give it that long form treatment and to really let it burn with that kind of intensity.”

Q: Jessie – what was it like knowing that you were going to be make-up free on HD TV and what was it like watching yourself?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “I wasn’t fussed at all. Nick, who was our head of hair and make-up, she called me and said that herself and Philippa had been talking and asked how I felt about minimal and I said that I hoped that it would be nothing. And then it was. So that was good. It fitted the story. It would be ridiculous if everything else was as it was but everyone looked perfect and clearly wearing make-up, mascara and whatever. We had mud added and Sean was covered in tattoos and broken skin, which was fantastic. So there was plenty of work to be done. But just not prettifying. Whatever, it’s fine!” (laughs)

Q: Lady Sybil was quite headstrong when it came to men. Did you draw on that character at all for this or did you find it completely different?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “No it’s totally irrelevant. Just the book and the scripts. That’s all you needed. I went back to the book, read it once, picked out some key paragraphs or moments of description or conversations or whatever that related, that I wanted to go back to. And then it was just the scripts. But everything was there. She was so fully formed. As soon as you met her she was just an absolute real, round, whole person. So not at all.”

Q: Are you quite Tomboyish yourself?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “I don’t know. I just think there was so much within this story. There’s a love story side to it but there’s struggle emotionally. Everyone has something…no-one’s just good or bad. Everyone has this other side to them that slowly starts to come out or in certain situations are challenged. Even Joss. Mary says at one point, ‘There must be good in you. I know there is.’ There were so many elements within the story.”

Q: Philippa – the shipwreck scenes look amazing. How did you realise them?

Philippa Lowthorpe: “We had to film massive great plate shots and then we had a fantastic production company called ‘BlueBolt’ who created the ships and put all the mist in. It’s their fantastic work that’s enabled those ship scenes to look so brilliant. They’re very hard to do. And then the actors had an incredibly hard…all my lovely smugglers, and Jessie as well and obviously Sean, had to act as if the ship was breaking up, just with their imaginations. Because obviously there was nothing to see. We were at the beach. And I thought they did that particularly well, to have to inhabit the world of fear and tension just before you were going to kill people or whatever. It was hard for them but they did it brilliantly.”

Q: Do you think there are any resonances of this having been made during a recession, that people feel desperate to learn a living?

Philippa Lowthorpe: “I think what Emma was saying is very true – that these people had no living, so how did they survive? And it’s about survival, really. They’re not bad people although they do very bad things. I remember Sean Harris was very, very interesting about his character Joss. He said that he felt like he was a working man. I think that’s very true. They had to do that to survive. There was no work. no food. So how else would they have kept going?”

Q: In the book, the vicar is an albino. Is there a reason why you didn’t make him an albino in this?

Emma Frost: “From the script point of view…it’s interesting…the thing about him being an albino is, it’s a physical manifestation of his freakishness. And that’s how it’s described. And he says in the novel that he’s a freak of nature. He’s actually described almost as a hermaphrodite. He has a soft voice like a woman and he has long eye lashes like a woman. So du Maurier kind of fuses male and female into one and that’s sort of the basis of his freakishness and it’s also why Mary doesn’t find him threatening at all. What was important for me was to try and find a different way to dramatise what du Maurier does within one character, which you can do in a novel because it’s all in the description and in how Mary responds to him. So actually in my version he’s sort of split into two. So he’s split back into the male and female version. So that’s why his sister appears, so that there is still the male and female and they’re transgressive and threating and slightly sexually odd in a slightly different way.”

Philippa Lowthorpe: “Ben Daniels (who plays the vicar)…it was a nod to the albino. He is blond himself and he’s got very, very pale blue eyes in real life. And that seemed to be enough of a nod to the albino. I agree with Emma’s decision.”

David Thompson: “Generally speaking the television drama is pretty close to the book but there have been some changes, particularly in the third episode. Necessary changes to make the story unfold over three hours. But I think both Philippa and Emma have been really truthful to the spirit and elemental qualities of the book. Whilst from time to time making the kind of adaptations that are necessary to make the drama really work.”

Jessica Brown Findlay as Mary Yellan.

Q: Jessie – I noticed a couple of times while you were watching, you were hands over your face…how did you find watching it and how do you find that in general? Can you watch yourself, do you watch yourself?

Jessica Brown Findlay: “Yeah. It’s fine. It’s a learning curve. You watch it a few times and think about what you’ve done. ‘Do that again, don’t do that again.’ And then move on. It was such an emotional incredible…the best job in the world. I can’t detach myself from it at all. I can’t be objective, whatsoever. And you watch it and certain things you can remember, like what happened that day and how that drives you. I was watching one scene and I almost started laughing because I remembered I stomped off and then immediately fell over flat on my face in the mud. And that’s not in there. But I know it’s there. So it’s a different experience. It’s always just a bit weird.”

Jamaica Inn begins on BBC1 at 9pm on Easter Monday and continues over the next two nights.

BBC Jamaica Inn

Character Biographies

Daphne du Maurier

Origin Pictures

Screen Yorkshire

Robert Viglasky

Visit Cornwall

Jamaica Inn Cornwall

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“IT was a very physical role, lots of running, hanging off bridges and climbing fences, hard work.

“But I must say I absolutely loved it.”

John Simm talking about his lead role as Det Sgt Marcus Farrow in Prey, a three-part ITV thriller written by Chris Lunt.

I spoke to John on location during filming on a cold and wet day at the start of January.

And again later when he had returned from making the first episodes of Intruders in Vancouver and was about to begin work on The Village 2.

While Chris and I chatted at ITV’s new Trafford / Media City HQ on January 6 – the official first day in that site’s history after the move from Quay Street in Manchester.

A fresh and exciting TV writer – currently bound for Hollywood – at the dawn of a new era for ITV in the North West.

You can read my interviews via the link to the ITV press pack / production notes below.

Including how John threw himself into the part and was injured during filming:

Prey Wylie ITV Interviews

Also scroll down the page here for some of the production photos by Ben Blackall and a short film by Tim Royle from the Royal Television Society preview screening.

I’ve seen all three episodes of Prey and they are superb.

Yet another TV gem from the Red Production Company.

Filmed – as I saw on location – using only natural light.

A fast-paced, edgy and compelling drama directed by Nick Murphy, whose previous credits include Occupation, The Awakening and Blood.

As you would expect, it’s a gripping performance from John.

Backed by a strong supporting cast, including Rosie Cavaliero, Craig Parkinson, Anastasia Hille, Benedict Wong, Heather Peace and Adrian Edmondson.

Prey begins on ITV at 9pm on Monday (April 28).

Update: Here’s a short five minute film taken at the Royal Television Society preview screening of Prey episode one in Manchester which features extracts from the panel Q&A discussion, including Chris Lunt, John Simm, Nick Murphy and Nicola Shindler. Film credit: Tim Royle of whitenosugarproductions

Heather Peace and John Simm as Abi and Marcus Farrow.

Marcus Farrow and his two young sons.

Anastasia Hille as Det Chief Insp Andrea Mackenzie and John Simm as Det Sgt Marcus Farrow.

Rosie Cavaliero as Acting Det Chief Insp Susan Reinhardt.

Craig Parkinson as Det Insp Sean Devlin.

Benedict Wong as Det Sgt Ash Chan.

Adrian Edmondson as Assistant Chief Constable Warner.

ITV

Red Production Company

John Simm

Chris Lunt

Nick Murphy

Ben Blackall

The Railway Arms

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“WE nearly died in there. Doesn’t it make you think?”

Daniel Cotton (Philip Glenister) asks the question of his father Samuel (Bernard Hill) in From There To Here.

The three part BBC1 drama, written by Peter Bowker, opens with the June 1996 Manchester bomb which destroyed a large part of the city centre.

But this is not a story about the IRA attack. It charts the ripples of that initial trigger on two families across Greater Manchester and Cheshire.

Last night I attended a screening of episode one at BAFTA in London followed by a Q&A, including Phil and Pete.

You can read my full transcript below, edited very slightly to remove any major spoilers.

Including Phil and Liz White talking about being reunited in Manchester where they, of course, filmed Life On Mars together.

And Phil’s response to an attempt to grab a cheap headline from him.

On the evidence of the first hour and the showreel of later highlights we were also shown, this is one of the best things Phil has done in recent years.

BBC Drama boss Ben Stephenson, who was at university in Manchester in 1996, described it as “a towering, moving, really surprising performance”.

Director James Strong, whose previous credits include Broadchurch, told the Q&A how he experienced the 1996 blast for real in Manchester that day.

He begins episode one with the closest look at Mr Glenister’s eyelashes you are every likely to get.

“Still alive,” Daniel remarks to wife Claire (Saskia Reeves).

Before he heads from their luxury Cheshire home to a Manchester city centre hotel where Daniel is hoping to broker a peace deal between his wayward brother Robbo (Steven Mackintosh) and their father Samuel.

Daniel having been adopted when he was around five years old.

It’s Saturday mid-morning and the hotel bar is otherwise empty, aside from cleaner Joanne, played by Liz White.

Who is a single mother of two boys.

Philip Glenister as Daniel and Liz White as Joanne.

You could hear that pin drop in the BAFTA auditorium when the bomb went off on screen.

Pete’s script then follows those ripples from that summer of football, through New Labour’s triumph in 1997 to the Millennium celebrations as 1999 turned into 2000.

There is much to love about From There To Here.

Not least the slices of humour, such as Daniel’s immediate thought after the explosion.

The music, including classics like I Wanna Be Adored by The Stone Roses and an original score by I Am Kloot.

Both of which capture the smell and feel of Manchester.

Samuel is the head of Cotton’s Confectionary, a Chadderton sweet factory, where Daniel also works.

With shades of Phil back in Clocking Off’s Mackintosh Textiles.

Daniel Rigby and Morven Christie co-starring as Daniel and Claire’s childen Charlie and Louise.

From There To Here begins on BBC1 at 9pm on Thursday May 22.

Will update this blog with more cast photos when the BBC embargo on them expires.

******************************************************************

Q&A with director James Strong / writer Peter Bowker / executive producer Derek Wax / Philip Glenister / Saskia Reeves / Liz White. Chaired by James Rampton.

Q: Derek – tell us how you developed this project?

Derek Wax: “Pete and I worked together on a show called Occupation, a three-parter also about the stresses of family and trauma within a family. We just started talking. Pete said he wanted write a big modern…like a modern Dickens novel, wasn’t it? A sort of tragi-comic modern epic about Manchester. This was just after Occupation came out about 2009, probably. We both talked about the novel American Pastoral by Philip Roth and we both loved that book and it was about a family that were involved in making something, a manufacturing business. And I remember you (Pete) wanted it to be a family sweet factory. And I said, ‘Couldn’t it be something a bit nobler than sweets? Couldn’t it be leather shoes or something?’ Sweets being something which you can feel pretty worthless but they’re fun. Out of that the thing was born. Pete came up with this fantastic story. Again about a family and all the epic canvas of Manchester. So the bomb was a trigger and a catalyst but not the story.”

Q: Obviously the bomb is a very dramatic opening. Why did you decide to use that as the opening and how did you develop it from there as a catalyst for the story?

Peter Bowker: “First, I wanted to write something about that summer because of the contradictions in it. You’ve got this very feelgood factor around Euro ’96. And then I remember the Manchester bomb happening. I’d mis-remembered it. I’d parked it. I didn’t think it was at the same time as the tournament. It happened some time that summer. And it was interesting that the Manchester re-build was done of the back of…riots or terrorism were the only way you could get a northern city re-built…but Scousers had already rioted. Is that potentially libellous? So there was an interesting contradiction. That you had a rock solid ‘Northern People’s Republic of Mancunia’ being invested…re-built itself in a very dynamic and capitalistic and entrepreneurial way. And the speed with which it all happened. There’s a great book called Rebuilding Manchester, written by an architect – the speed with which everything went through planning and everything. And being Manchester, rumours had started by that afternoon…by that afternoon there was a rumour. By Sunday it was an inside job. People in Manchester were saying, ‘How else are we going to get rid of the Arndale Centre?’ We tell stories. That’s what we do all the time. So there’s a kind of conspiracy theory. Part of Robbo’s character was that thing about the people outside the red line. The people whose businesses were still screwed but didn’t get compensation. The resentment of that as well. Obviously what I didn’t want to do was write a docu-drama about the day of the bomb and I didn’t want to belittle the experience of people who’d gone through that trauma. I suppose the central question is, ‘I could have died. How does that make me feel for the rest of my life? In that moment, if Robbo stood one side or the other he would have died, what does that do to you? And it takes them all off in different directions. That’s why it seemed such a powerful starting point.”

Q: Phil – what appealed to you when you first read Pete’s script?

Philip Glenister: “The script. For me it’s always in the writing. We all come from a perspective where we have something to work with. The writer comes with a blank page and we all work off that, whether directing, acting, set design, producing, whatever. Obviously I’ve known Pete for quite a few years. We’re neighbours, you see. So I just used to annoy him and knock on his door – play Knock Down Ginger until he gave me a part.”

Peter Bowker: “I used to hide behind the settee.”

Philip Glenister: “Yeah. I used to peer through. ‘Pete, Pete, can I have a job?’ (laughter) I think what I love about Peter’s writing is, the ambition is all his characterisation. It’s all in the characters. And for an actor it’s an absolute gift. You sit there in a read through and you don’t have to change pretty much anything. We had a week’s rehearsal where we just sat round and chatted and had quite a long lunch, courtesy of Derek. (laughter). It was a great part and a chance for me to go back to Manchester as well, which was a great appeal. Because obviously Manchester has been incredibly important for me as a city and for my career. It’s like my second home in many respects. I felt I’ve done some of my best work, without a doubt, there. Hopefully this adds to the gig. So it was a good gig. And obviously to get the chance to work with (comedy actory voice) marvellous, marvellous, darling actresses Saskia and Liz. Obviously Liz and I worked together on Life On Mars and so it was a really fantastic, enjoyable shoot. It was seven weeks and it flew by. Helmed by old ‘Strongy’ over there. All the elements just seemed to come together. It was just a really, happy, enjoyable…hard working. We did work hard. But it was great. Real fun.”

Bernard Hill as Samuel and Steven Mackintosh as Robbo.

Q: Saskia – what drew you to the project?

Saskia Reeves: “The same as Phil. The writing was so strong and I loved the humour – the complication and the confusion of it. Reading it knowing that I was possibly going to be playing Claire, it was sort of, ‘Oh no, he’s doing that. And he’s said that.’ For me, I really loved the way she ended up in the story. Which you’ll find out if you watch two and three. I just loved the dark humour and the clearly drawn characters from everybody. I loved also the family, just the lovely family set pieces which we did at the beginning of the shoot. It was great to have that as a feeling to carry through all the other scenes. They were great fun to do. The breadth of emotion as well.”

Philip Glenister: “It’s about families. The bottom line. It’s about family and the complexities and the heartache and the humour and the extraordinary thing that is family, which we can all relate to because we’re all from them. Well, most of us. (laughter) And it’s that depth and complexity that is so extraordinary and amazing.”

Derek Wax: “Without trying to analyse Pete’s writing…You (Peter) said when we were making Occupation, that was about the gap between what people experience and what they articulate. I think Pete writes those characters better than anyone. That sense that people are trying to articulate profound feelings but not being able to. And other people being able to articulate things just like that. Snapping ideas out as soon as they come into their heads. And you have that incredible contrast with Daniel, who’s going through all sorts of stuff, that only comes out very obliquely and it remains enigmatic. Capturing inarticulate characters is a great strength of Pete’s.”

Q: Is it particularly a problem with male inarticulacy do you think? Our inability to express what we’re really feeling?

Peter Bowker: “I think it’s general. I don’t think human beings are very good at communicating, full stop. And that’s good for me because it gives me a living. Humanity. I also just wanted to say about the family set pieces that it takes an incredibly skillful director to just let them sit. And there are a number of set pieces in this where the way James films those family moments. when everybody’s got an agenda, but he films it in such a way that they don’t put their agendas out there. This came together for me…the Euro ’96 thing helped because talking about football is another way about talking about emotion. I know my dad never said he loved me, because he was from Salford. But he took me to the match. And that’s what I confuse with love.”

Liz White as Joanne with her screen sons in the pub plus Philip Glenister as Daniel.

Q: Liz – tell us about your character (Joanne) and what appealed to you about her?

“The line that pinged out when we were watching it then was, again, ‘I don’t need saving.’ I loved that about her character and the fact that she’d brought up these boys by herself and she’d reached a point in her life where it seemed on paper that she was functioning brilliantly and she certainly didn’t need anybody in her life. But along came this guy under these circumstances and it’s almost like it was the fairytale that we’ve all got within us. Which was, perhaps this knight in shining armour has come and knocked at my door? And in this circumstance, there’s just been a bomb and death is a bit of an aphrodisiac and so why not? You really lose potentially everything. It was a great woman on the page and I really wanted to play her. I was so thrilled to get that opportunity.”

Q: James – you were there in Manchester on the day of the bombing?

James Strong: “Yeah, I was training as a director at Granada and I went into Manchester, I think in an England shirt. And I was walking down Deansgate and it was a beautiful sunny morning. Then I remember right at the other end there was this bang and then the windows started going out at the other end of the road. And then I was lying on the floor. I got up and it was silent after that for about a minute. Then all the sirens and police and stuff. So when I got the script – well, I think I can bring along some experience. So we had to read it and then go to meet everybody and then know I was there. Also living in Manchester, that actually by the afternoon it was more about England v Scotland than what had happened.”

Peter Bowker: “What’s remarkable is that Old Trafford did host a match on the Sunday afternoon…that says something about the era that, I think, is very different to where we are now. I just can’t imagine that being cancelled or more being made of the fact it went on. It was under-reported. It (the bombing) felt nationally under-reported because there was this other big narrative going on and nothing was going to interrupt that. Even for the people involved. And when Samuel, the Bernard Hill character, says, ‘Make sure you’re home for the match,’ that seems entirely believable to me. That’s where your priorities would be.”

Derek Wax: “And given the circumstances, 80,000 people were actually evacuated in two hours. It could have been a horrendous loss of life on that day. A mixture of the Greater Manchester Police and the extraordinary evacuation of the Arndale Centre. 80,000 people were evacuated. And it was, in terms of explosive energy, the largest peacetime bomb every exploded in the UK. An over 3,000 lb bomb. But no-one was killed.”

Q: Those scenes are very vivid and very powerful. Were they hard to make and were you aware of local sensibilities?

James Strong: “I think you have to be aware of getting it right and as accurate as you can. There’s lots of photographs and there’s lots of archive. The police have lots of records. And our brilliant production designer. We studied them all and we made it all as accurate as we could. You do feel a responsibility to get it as accurate as we can.”

Q: And I understand you had a very good reception in Manchester last night? What did people in Manchester say about it?

Peter Bowker: “As James said, people were mainly concerned that the detail and the feeling – the emotion of the immediate aftermath they were concerned about and once it was seen that we weren’t trying to trivialise it in any way. I think there was a general story of relief that we took the story off in the direction we did. I think if we’d done something that dwells on the day of the tragedy and maybe people not recovering or reacting in a more conventional way, it would have stirred up more local sensibilities. But there’s a sense of ownership around Manchester of portraying Manchester full stop. It’s getting that right. They’d have been as concerned if you’d used the wrong music in the club. It’s getting detail right. When you’re saying Manchester is a character in this drama, then you’ve got to get the detail right across the board. Otherwise you’re not doing your job.”

Liz White: “One woman said it was really nice to see a drama set in Manchester that didn’t involve someone getting murdered.”

Derek Wax: “Someone picked up on the fact that it was about the emotional ripples of the bomb. The shock waves. As Pete says, it’s not a story about post-traumatic stress or the obvious effects of the bomb. It’s about the emotional effects – effects that you don’t quite understand. It’s not an obvious consequence of the bomb.”

Saskia Reeves: “The bomb is like an outward expression of what happens to Daniel in his life. For me, also what was interesting about Claire is her marriage to Daniel and how much did she guess or not guess. I found it really interesting talking to myself about how much is she responsible in a relationship when something goes so off like that. I found all that really interesting to think about.”

Q: You called it a love letter to Manchester, Pete. Could you expand on that?

Peter Bowker: “Obviously everything I do is probably a love letter to Manchester in the end. Actually I wanted to capture something that was about the relationship between the suburbs and Manchester. I grew up in the suburbs and most people do – and that sense, if you grow up in the suburbs, that something very exciting is happening in that city centre and you want to be part of that. Whereas if you are part of it like Robbo, you’re probably ******. It’s that strange relationship between the allure of the dark streets and the danger that attracts you. Whilst living, actually, getting the night bus, the 192, to the suburbs. And again the way James has shot, the sense that you’re in green pastures. But feels that his (Daniel) life is essentially dull. One of the reasons he’s baling out his brother is he wants to feel he’s part of that. But in terms of Manchester city, it’s a kind of celebration of the spirit of the place and all these conflicting wishes. Tony Wilson was a great myth-maker for the city. And there’s all sort of (inaudible) in Manchester which basically claim that we invented everything – a picture of a cave man with a wheel is clearly Mancunian. (laughter) And, again, there’s a comedy to that local pride and I wanted to capture that. So in that respect, that’s how it’s a love letter and a love letter to that era and that summer.”

On Southport Pier.

James then opened up questions to the audience:

Q: (From me) While I perhaps should ask Pete why he didn’t use dramatic license to change the result of that (England v Germany) penalty shoot out…can you expand, Pete, on the themes of second chances or fresh chances?

Peter Bowker: “There’s a great irony at the centre of that day. And it’s that this terrible thing that happened in the morning, the bomb, allowed Manchester to re-invent itself yet again. And so this very bad thing caused good things to happen. And that the myth of Euro ’96 being a new start for English football and that was clearly the stepping stone and we were going to be winning the World Cup within four years…I’m not saying that they occupy a moral equivalence by the way…so I think this kind of irony. Sport is full of second chances and life is rarely full of second chances. So that’s the kind of parallel I’m trying to draw. I want people to judge particularly how the women are portrayed over the three hours, rather than the first hour. The women aren’t dupes. It’s not all about Daniel’s angst and, ‘Oh, this poor man torturing himself by doing what he likes.’ There is some comeback. There’s considerable comeback. And I suppose it’s wanting to portray that thing where you’ve taken for granted what you’ve got at home for a long time then something is shifted in you that allows certain other chances to be made. Robbo, in a way, is the comedic equivalent of that.”

Cotton’s Confectionary

Q: A question for Phil – a slightly nerdy, motor car question. How was this Audi to drive compared to the Quattro in Ashes To Ashes?

Philip Glenister: “She was a babe. Well it wasn’t as old, for a start. It didn’t break down as much. I don’t think it broke down at all, actually. For me, it was quite a recent car. The fact that it happened to be an Audi was purely co-incidental. It wasn’t planned. It was all right.”

Q: I wanted to ask Phil and Liz if they found it strange working in Manchester together again (after Life On Mars). Did they recognise many of the locations?

Liz White: “Yeah, we did. The street that Joanne lives on we used in Life On Mars. We’d often point out locations to each other and anyone else who wanted to listen.”

Philip Glenister: “It’s true. I remember I bored Daniel (Rigby) and whoever was in the van on the way to our house, which was in Cheshire…Knutsford…it was about 40 minutes. So we used to go past all these places and go, ‘That was series one, episode two…Manc Way…’ And I’d go into detail to Daniel and I’d just see him…the earphones would go on. Sorry Dan.”

Derek Wax: “I just want to pay tribute to the other fantastic cast members who are not on the panel but..Daniel Rigby, who plays Charlie, who’s here tonight and was in Manchester with us last night. And Morven Christie, who played Louise and Steven Mackintosh who is fliming away. And Bernard Hill, who is thousands of miles away in New Zealand.”

Peter Bowker: “The main thing about Bernard Hill is…so you’ve got two alpha males in Phil and Steven, and we needed someone who was going to scare even them. There’s only one man for the job. Bernard Hill.”

Philip Glenister: “He scared the life out of the crew when he parked his car on somebody’s lawn. Day one.”

Derek Wax: “It was the first day of the shoot. He insisted on driving to set and he drove straight on to the lawn.”

Philip Glenister: “Of his own (screen) house. The house you see him in…a beautifully manicured lawn. Straight in with this four by four.”

Peter Bowker: “He never smiles, Bernard, when he’s joking. So we were on set on the day we were doing the big set piece where the two…guys are looking at the plume of smoke. I was standing with Bernard and this real policeman was talking to him making small talk. And Bernard was giving nothing back. He said, ‘And how long is it since Boys From The Blackstuff?’ And Bernard went, ‘We’re not doing Boys From The Blackstuff.’ Then nothing. I’m going, ‘It’s 19 years, isn’t it…?’ Then Bernard got me by the arm and he walked me across and said, ‘I got you out of that…’” (laughter)

Q: The use of music is brilliant. Why is the music so important?

James Strong: “Well, it was so important to the era. Manchester was famous for its music and so that was something we had to get right. We had a lot of help from our music producer and I Am Kloot, who did the score. We wanted to get a modern Mancunian sound and so they gave us that, which was brilliant stuff. But then all the period music, obviously everyone knows and loves it. It was just a joy to get it all together. But, yeah, it’s very important to the Manchester of that time.”

Q: I apologise – this is another nerdy question for Phil. If Gene Hunt were around today, do you think he could be persuaded to stand for UKIP?

Philip Glenister: “Are you from the Daily Mail?’ (laughter)

Q: “No.”

Philip Glenister: “You should be….I don’t think I can answer that one, sir. God knows. No. In a word.”

BBC From There To Here

Kudos

Manchester 1996 Bomb

Occupation: My MEN feature

Life On Mars Blogs

Ashes To Ashes Blogs

The Railway Arms

Ian Wylie on Twitter

Sarah Lancashire as Catherine Cawood.

“I’LL make a note of the fact that you apologised profusely…in tears.”

Sarah Lancashire as Sergeant Catherine Cawood in tonight’s Happy Valley episode three. (BBC1 9pm)

Sally Wainwright’s brilliant script matched, yet again, by Sarah’s work on screen.

In a series reminding us that Sally’s writing CV includes dramas like Unforgiven, as well as Last Tango In Halifax, Scott and Bailey and At Home With The Braithwaites.

Back in March I attended the London launch of this six-part drama, followed by a Q&A.

A few hours later I wrote the story further down this page, which has not gone online – so best put that right now.

James Norton as Tommy Lee Royce.

I’ve now watched the first five episodes of Happy Valley – yet another gem from the Red Production Company – and cannot wait to see the finale.

We knew there were dark twists ahead but tonight’s episode contains some proper shocks.

While next week’s episode four – directed by Sally – has a stunning “bloody hell” conclusion.

Happy Valley is full of top class performances, including James Norton as psychopath Tommy Lee Royce and Steve Pemberton as accountant Kevin, trapped in a nightmare.

I could go on, but would just end up writing out the entire cast list.

While adding honourable mentions for directors Euros Lyn and Tim Fywell.

But when the 2015 BAFTA Television Awards come around, it would indeed be a crime if Sarah Lancashire’s name is not on the ‘Actress’ list.

Following on from her ‘Supporting Actress’ nomination for Last Tango In Halifax at the 2014 awards this Sunday.

Steve Pemberton as Kevin.

I have been lucky enough to interview Sarah many times since she decided to leave Raquel and Coronation Street behind.

Which despite lazy references in the press, is a very long time ago now.

A woman who ignores the nonsense sometimes written about her and gets on with the job.

Also appearing to know what is important in real life and what is not.

Her depiction of Coral Atkins in the 2000 ITV drama Seeing Red remains one of my all time favourite performances.

With, I suspect, flawed Catherine Cawood also destined to live long in the memory.

If you’ve missed Happy Valley, there’s still time to catch up via the BBC iPlayer.

And if you’re already hooked like me, just hang on for the ride.

Happy Valley continues on BBC1 at 9pm tonight (Tuesday)

The British Academy Television Awards 2014 are on BBC1 at 8pm on Sunday.

LAST Tango In Halifax star Sarah Lancashire witnessed the daily violence police face when she went on patrol with officers.

“We were called out to a house where the bailiffs had turned up and they needed to take some belongings away,” revealed the actress.

“I didn’t get out of the van because I was a bit bothered.

“It turned into the filthiest, dirtiest fight. That’s when I stayed in the van. But that just happened in the course of five minutes. The whole day changed.”

Sarah, 49, was out with police near Halifax in Calderdale, West Yorkshire to research her latest role in BBC1 drama series Happy Valley.

She plays Catherine, a no-nonsense police sergeant who is also a bereaved and divorced mother after her young daughter killed herself following a brutal rape attack.

“I’ve great admiration for the police but I’ve learned I really don’t want to be a police officer. It’s interesting but it’s not for me.

“I also learned when I went out with them just how undermanned they are.”

The former Paradise actress joined the police patrol during the day but had to step aside at nightfall.

“They didn’t want to take me out at night because things change. They felt I would be very compromised.

“During the evenings they’re dealing with a lot of drug issues, much more violent cases and I would have been a complete liability.”

Siobham Finneran as Clare.

Happy Valley executive producer Nicola Shindler said police had inspired the title of the six-part drama, which begins next month (April) and co-stars Siobhan Finneran and Steve Pemberton.

“It’s a nickname the police have for the Calder Valley because of the drug taking. 

“It’s an extraordinarily damaged area because of drugs trafficking and drug taking. So they call it Happy Valley.”

Award-winning writer Sally Wainwright added: “It’s a nice place to live and it’s full of drugs as well.”

Joe Armstrong as Ashley.

Sarah, playing her first ever police officer role, said she found her time on patrol very useful.

“I’d always imagined that police officers are just people and that’s exactly what they are.

“One minute you’re on the radio and coming out with all this police jargon and then you’re suddenly saying, ‘Do you want to go to Tescos and grab a sandwich?’

“We also had a police advisor on set. She was fantastic with the prodecural stuff and had a very keen eye on making sure everything was accurate.

“There’s one scene where Catherine delivers bad news to somebody and she said, ‘It’s OK to cry. That’s what we do. It’s OK to hug them. It’s fine.’

“Which is a huge relief because that’s what you want to do, that’s what human nature is telling you to do. It’s everything in your instinct. But it tends not to be how we see that world portrayed.”

Sophie Rundle as Kirsten.

Added Sarah: “But it’s really not about a police officer at all. 

“It’s about a woman who is clearly very damaged by her experiences of losing her daughter – where she’s trying to get by day to day.

“She’s a bit ****** up. And I like that. But we all are, whether we like to admit it or not.

“Catherine does have an incredibly emotional story – it turns into an emotional marathon.

“But she carries on. We all do it every day, just getting through life the best we can, the only way we know how.

“She’s a very compassionate character but she’s also cruel and parts of her character are particularly ugly at times. But it’s real.

“She wants revenge for her daughter. But she’s not doing it as a police officer. It’s as a mother. And I do admire the way that she does the things that she does.”

George Costigan as Nevison.

Sarah returns later this year to her role as Caroline in a third series of Last Tango In Halifax, also written by Sally, with Sir Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid as a couple reunited in their 70s.

“We overlook how interesting older people are because of the wealth of their experience,” said Sarah.

“Also they’ve got great faces to look at, which move. I’m very keen on that. Mobile faces. Almost a thing of the past.

“Sally’s made a love affair between older people something that we want to watch.

“She is never afraid, especially with women, to portray their flaws. Which is great, because we’re all flawed.”

Adam Long as Lewis.

BBC Happy Valley

Red Production Company

Sarah Lancashire

Sally Wainwright

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“IT was just like getting a fantastic present.

“It’s so rare to find a crime book that’s so beautifully written and so rich and deep and complex.”

Screenwriter Andrew Davies talking about adapting Benjamin Black’s Quirke novels for BBC1.

The first of three 90-minute Quirke film – Christine Falls – was screened at the BFI in London all of 11 months ago in June 2013, followed by a Q&A.

But as is sometimes the way with TV schedules and dramas that don’t fit into neat one hour slots, the start of the series was delayed until now.

With that first Quirke story on BBC1 at 9pm tomorrow (Sunday May 25).

Having already been screened in Ireland and New Zealand.

Set in the Dublin of 1956, it stars Gabriel Byrne as Quirke, the chief pathologist in the Dublin city morgue.

With Aisling Franciosi, Michael Gambon, Geraldine Somerville, Nick Dunning and Stanley Townsend among the cast.

The books are actually written by award-winning Irish author John Banville, using the pseudonym of Benjamin Black.

Against the “Dublin Noir” backdrop of what producer Lisa Osborne describes as “the peaty, smoky, whiskey-glimmering bars and drawing rooms of Black’s imagination”.

Happy Valley actress Charlie Murphy and Inspector George Gently’s Lee Ingleby feature in next Sunday’s second film Silver Swan.

With Merlin’s Colin Morgan playing Jimmy Minor in the third story, Elegy For April, adapted for the screen by Conor McPherson.

And while the story in the first film moves from Dublin to the outskirts of Boston, it was all filmed in an around Dublin.

My edited highlights from that Quirke Q&A are below.

Followed by a separate quick chat I had with Aisling Franciosi, who you may recognise from series one of The Fall.

Aisling Franciosi as Phoebe.

BBC Drama boss Ben Stephenson introduced the screening by talking about John Banville, who won The Booker Prize in 2005 for his 14th novel, The Sea.

“What a phenomenal writer. I’ve always been such a huge fan of his vast collection of wonderful literature. So it’s a real honour for the BBC to be able to be pairing up with him to bring his fantastic Quirke books to the screen. I was addicted to them when I first read them. They’re wonderfully characterfull and create this extraordinarily, atmospheric, engaging, complex world. And they’ve got great plots with real complexity as well. So they felt like a real must for television.

“Andrew Davies is a really phenomenal talent. There aren’t many writers in this country who when you say the name of the writer it speaks volumes about their work and it will actually get people to tune into their work. There’s absolutely no question that Andrew Davies, across his extraordinary career, is one of those. He wrote my favourite ever TV series House of Cards.

“Gabriel Byrne is an extraordinary actor. We’ve all watched him in movies and American TV shows and we are so thrilled to have him on the BBC. I think it’s a part that he just absolutely inhabits and like a true movie star he has to do very little with his face for you to utterly engage with him.”

Gabriel Byrne as Quirke.

Q&A with John Banville / Andrew Davies / Aisling Franciosi (Phoebe) / John Alexander (who directed the first episode):

Aisling Franciosi:

Q: Playing Phoebe in Quirke?

“I was really nervous about watching it but I think it’s great. It came together so well. It’s quite difficult to be objective about yourself.

“I had only seen an article online about the production saying that Gabriel was going to be Quirke. So when I got an audition I just straight away went to read the books because I wanted to know more about Phoebe and I read the scripts, obviously, as well. I tried to find out as much as I could.”

Aisling Franciosi as Phoebe.

Q: You were born in Italy but raised in Dublin, where Quirke it set, from the age of five?

“It certainly helped. I was a student when I took the part. I left university for the part. I think there’s a sense of where it’s set. But obviously it was in the 1950s so I had to find out a little bit about what was going on at the time.”

“I can’t speak highly enough of Gabriel. I was so lucky to get a chance to work with him. He’s like a mentor to me – and I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor.

“I cried when it finished. I didn’t want the job to end. It was really an amazing experience.

“Her world is turned upside down in the first film. And there are repercussions. Phoebe has a lots of interesting twists and turns.”

Nick Dunning as Malachy Griffin.

Andrew Davies:

Q: How did you become involved in adapting Quirke for the screen?

“It was sheer luck. I’d read John’s literary novels before. I wasn’t aware of the Benjamin Black novels. So it was just like getting a fantastic present. I loved it. It’s so rare to find a crime book that’s so beautifully written and so rich and deep and complex.

“I think audiences are cleverer than we often think they are. And they don’t like to be too spoon-fed about all that kind of thing.

“As for staying very close to the original, I would always say that if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it. It seemed fine to me. I would just put the book down there and copy it out. (laughter). Sorry!

“I’d met John once decades before on a rather drunken day in London. I met him in Dublin when I was half way through the first draft and we liked each other enough to meet one to one and so I had a long lunch with him and then he showed me around some of the key places for him in Dublin, which was very useful to me.

“Then I actually, without telling anybody, the producer or anybody on the show, sent him the first draft when I’d finished it because I was a bit worried about whether I’d got the Dublin idioms right or not. I just wanted him to like it or at least say it was OK.

“And both those things happened. He corrected my Dublin idioms and he gave the script his blessing. So that was the extent of our collaboration. It was all there in the book, you see. Sometimes – when I was adapting Tipping The Velvet, I really needed to consult Sarah Walters about some technical aspects that I didn’t have any experience of. (laughter) But I thought – this is all about stuff that I’m deeply into myself.”

Aisling Franciosi and Colin Morgan.

Q: The character of Phoebe?

“Phoebe gets pushed through some terrible stuff. The character of Phoebe is like a little ray of light at the centre of it. We finish this episode with her really down but we can’t imagine her being down forever. She’s always lit like some lovely Fifties’ movie heroine in those dark bars. You get that and focus on her like she’s a guiding light.”

Q: Gabriel Byrne?

“He always seems to have had this curious integrity. You just trust him. I knew he was attached when I started writing and I was just thrilled. If you read the books attentively, Quirke is described as being a very big man, six foot four or something like that and fair-haired. And I never believed that. No – Quirke looks much more like Gabriel Byrne! So it was enormously helpful writing the script to think that’s who’s going to be playing it.”

Gabriel Byrne as Quirke and Michael Gambon as Judge Garret Griffin.

John Banville (Benjamin Black):

Q: Writing Quirke as Benjamin Black?

“I like the notion that people think that it was after I’d won the Booker. In fact, on the day that the Booker shortlist was announced in 2005 my agent was having lunch with my publisher and said, ‘By the way, here’s a new Banville novel. It’s rather different and it’s written under a different name.’ So I had become Benjamin Black before the Booker Prize. The problem with winning a prize like that is that people assume that your life began at that stage. I’m really only about seven. My life began when I won the Booker.

“I had written a script, oddly enough, for a mini series. It didn’t get made. I decided I would turn it into a novel because I’d begun to read Georges Simenon who greatly impressed me with what could be done with crime fiction. I’ve always read crime fiction all my life and admire it greatly. So I turned it into a novel. I didn’t know if I could do it. I went to Italy, a friend of mine lent me a room. One Monday morning at nine ‘o clock I sat down and thought, ‘Can I do this?’ And by lunchtime I’d written two and a half thousand words, which, for Banville, would be an absolute scandal. Because Banville, if you got 200 words done by lunchtime he’s feel he was doing well. And so Benjamin Black was born. He’s now free – I feel like Baron Frankenstein, the monster is now out in the world and he can’t be stopped.”

Stanley Townsend as Inspector Hackett.

Q: How much of you is Quirke and vice-versa?

“Oh nothing of me is Quirke. Of course they’re all me. All characters are oneself. I’m the only material I have to work with. My agent used to insist that I was in love with Phoebe. But it suddenly struck me one day that, in fact, I am Phoebe. If there’s anybody in the books that is me, then it’s Phoebe. Phoebe is strong. She’s stronger than Quirke.”

Q: The first story involves child trafficking which is a topical issue?

John Banville: “A lot of stuff had come out. All kinds of wriggling worms came out.” (re the church in Ireland in the 1990s)

“But we must not brand everybody in the church. There were very decent priests and nuns who did their best, who lived a religious life and who educated the country. They did it for free. So we must not forget that.

“But there were a lot of very bad people and Rome essentially covered up for them. But we had learned a lot of that – certainly by 2003 / 2004 when I started these books. But more and more came out. Everybody knew in Ireland when I was growing up. They knew and they didn’t know. Ambiguity, for me, is the essence of life and certainly the essence of fiction.”

Geraldnie Somerville as Sarah.

Q: Quirke’s intake of alcohol and cigarettes?

John Alexander: “We got through an awful lot of grape juice and herbal cigarettes. It’s part of the depiction of the period.”

Q: What was your inspiration for these sometimes dark and sinister stories?

John Banville: “Like all writers, I looked into my own dark heart and up popped Quirke. I don’t see myself as a particularly nice person. We all carry our secrets with us. We all carry our strange, dark urges that we don’t express – we can’t afford to express. Life would be unbearable. The world would not work if we did.

“But that’s what writers do. We are given license to betray our worst selves. Quirke is a damaged person. He drinks even more than I do, which is saying a lot. But I’ve done dreadful things in my life, as I’m sure we all have. Aisling’s too young but give it time.

“The world is a strange and dark place. It’s also an exquisite and luminous place. When I handed the latest novel into my Spanish publisher, who is absolutely crazy about Quirke – I think he’s the love of her life – she said, ‘Oh this is wonderful. But could you please lighten up a little bit.’ So I said, ‘Alright. Next time I’ll send him on a holiday to Spain.’ The world is rustic-coloured, like those Boston leaves.”

Colin Morgan as Jimmy.

Q: What does Gabriel Byrne bring to the character?

John Alexander: He’s got an amazing stillness and integrity. He plays the complexity of the character so well. You always trust that he’s trying to do the best and he has his dark secrets and his past.”

Q: What do you think of the end result on screen?

John Banville: “I’m completely screen struck. So when I see real people embodying my characters I’m completely undone. I’m just thrilled by it. Always am. Have been from the very start.

“I’m very impatient with writers who constantly whine about Hollywood and how they were betrayed and so on. Gore Vidal beautifully said, ‘Hollywood never destroyed anybody who was worth saving.’

“If you give your book up to the screen to be made into this big popular medium then that’s what you do – you don’t complain about it. My policy always is – it’s now your baby. You’re translating this into a different medium. And it fascinates me to watch the way that it’s done.

“Of course to some extent I watch it through splayed fingers. But I recognise after two or three minutes that this is now translated into a completely new and different medium. It’s mine in a peculiar way but it’s also not mine at all.”

Aisling Franciosi as Phoebe.

After the Q&A I spoke to Aisling Franciosi:

Q: Your take on Phoebe?

“Phoebe is a really interesting character. I was really attracted to the role because there aren’t a huge number of female parts that get you excited. And when I saw this part I said, ‘Oh my God, she’s so multi-faceted as a character.’ She’s from a wealthy background but is attracted by Quirke who is this loner who goes against the grain. So she wants to stoop to that level and try out the things that he tries out – goes drinking with him. She is asked to deal with a huge upheval in her life and in later episodes you see how complex a character she is in the way that she deals with the repercussions of how crazy her family is, without her having known for so many years.”

Q: What does she see in Quirke?

“He represents to her the excitement that she maybe doesn’t have at home. You can see from Mal (Malachy played by Nick Dunning) and Sarah (Geraldine Somerville), as many people were in the Fifties, they’re conservative. They don’t drink or smoke, they’re very religious and she’s a normal teen – she wants to rebel a bit. And Quike is this figure in her life who lets her do things like that. He brings her out to pubs and bars where she meets shady characters. How could you not fall in love with someone who show you the exciting side of life? And that’s what he does.”

Q: Working with Gabriel? Did he give you any advice?

“I said early on, ‘Please feel free – if you see any way you could help me, please I’d really appreciate it.” And he said, ‘What? Most actors would hate that.’ And I said, ‘I’m in the position here where I don’t want to screw up. So all the information I can get and all the learning I can do is only a good thing.’ He was really kind. He always knew when to say something and when to just leave me be. He didn’t really give me notes but we’d talk about scripts. He talked about the scenes with me a lot and we’d decide things between the two of us.”

Q: You said in the Q&A that you left university for this?

“I did The Fall in my third year of university and I just juggled the two. And when I found out I got this, I’d actually just missed the first three weeks of college anyway because I was doing Romeo and Juliet down in Cork, so I wasn’t particularly in favour at the university! But I couldn’t pass up on doing a job like this. So I thought, ‘You know what, university can wait for a bit.’” (laughs)

Q: What is it like to watch yourself on a big screen?

“I wouldn’t say it’s very pleasant. Of course I’m really proud to be part of something like that but you’re obviously going to always be a little less objective than other people. We all see things in ourselves that you don’t like. I guess it’s just part of the learning process. I’m starting out so I have to make myself watch it and go, ‘OK, I’m going to learn from that, what I just saw there and try and do better the next time.’”

Q: There is scope to see more of Phoebe in a possible second series?

“There are more books than the first three so I can’t actually honestly say whether they’re going to be going back or not. I would love to see them and there’s potential there for the Phoebe character. So I would definitely say yes.”

Q: The Fall?

“I couldn’t believe the reaction! It really got people talking, which was a great reaction to have. Again, that was, for me, quite a different experience to Quirke. It was great but I really felt a little bit like a rabbit in the headlights. I just had to deal with my first TV job. But, again, it was a great script. Both The Fall and Quirke had really good scripts.”

Aisling has since gone on to make her big screen debut in the new Ken Loach film Jimmy’s Hall and this week attended the Cannes premiere ahead of the UK release on May 30.

Charlie Murphy as Deirdre.

Quirke: BBC Drama

John Banville

Benjamin Black

Ian Wylie on Twitter

YOU might have guessed by now that I’m a big fan of TV drama.

So I was delighted to be asked to write the interviews for the launch of ITV Encore.

A new top quality drama channel launching on Sky Channel 123 at 7pm tonight (Monday June 9).

I spoke at length to ITV Director of Television Peter Fincham.

And to Broadchurch producer Richard Stokes who had some interesting revelations.

Including details of a series one scene that never made the screen during the original run.

Plus other details about the series you might not know.

Broadchurch series one begins on ITV Encore at 9pm tonight with a double episode each night until Thursday’s extended finale.

In the meantime, you can read those interviews via the link below:

Wylie ITV Encore Interviews

Other highlights will include Mrs Biggs, The Bletchley Circle, Breathless, Lucan, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, DCI Banks and Vera.

ITV Encore

Ian Wylie on Twitter

TWO sons. Two mothers.

“I thought they were going for a pizza…”

If you have plans for Sunday night, cancel them now.

Common (BBC1, 9pm Sunday) is yet another classic drama by writer Jimmy McGovern.

Matched by the talents of a cast including Nico Mirallegro, Susan Lynch, Daniel Mays and Jodhi May, plus director David Blair.

The 90-minute film tells the story of Johnjo O’Shea, played by Nico, who gives his cousin and two mates a lift to get a pizza.

But Johnjo is unaware his three passengers are going to “have a word” with a local loudmouth.

As he sits outside waiting in the car for his pizza, one of the trio takes offence to a young innocent bystander and stabs him.

What happens next is an eye-opening look at the UK’s controversial Joint Enterprise Law.

Which means you can end up serving life in prison, even if you had nothing to do with a murder and weren’t even at the scene.

If you’re thinking “grim and worthy” think again.

Common is a brilliant drama of twists and turns with award-winning performances from the ensemble cast.

Susan and Daniel play Margaret and Tommy, the divorced parents of murder victim Thomas Ward (Harry McMullen).

With Jodhi May and Andrew Tiernan as Coleen and Pete, the parents of 17-year-old Johnjo.

The LA Productions drama was screened at BAFTA in London yesterday (Wednesday).

My transcript of the post-screening Q&A is below, edited to remove content that would result in major spoilers.

Although I have left in the discussion around a searing scene of grief involving Susan Lynch and Daniel Mays as Margaret sees her son’s body in a mortuary.

Once seen, never forgotten.

Common is on BBC1 at 9pm on Sunday (July 6).

Nico Mirallegro as Johnjo.

BAFTA Q&A with Jimmy McGovern (writer and executive producer), David Blair (director), Daniel Mays (Tommy), Andrew Tiernan (Pete), Robert Pugh (DI Hastings) and chaired by LA Productions boss Colin McKeown (producer and executive producer) who asked the questions before opening it up to the audience:

Q: Jimmy – do these subject matters find you or do you find them? And if you could tell us how it all started in the first place?

Jimmy McGovern: “This one found me, actually. I’ve just received a message, ‘Jimmy, don’t know whether you want to mention this at the Q@A but we’ve just heard in Liverpool today, those five lads have been sentenced.’ This is one about a group of lads who chased a boy up to a launderette and there was a stabbing in the yard. It’s a typical case of Joint Enterprise. The eldest aged 19 – this is just today – jailed for life with an 18 years’ minimum term. Two 15-year-olds got life with a minimum of nine and 12 years and a 14-year-old got life with a minimum of nine years. Another, who was only 13 at the time of the incident, received a six years’ minimum sentence. And that’s only today on Merseyside.

“This came about because I opened up a letter and it was a woman explaining that this person she loved was inside and he was totally innocent. I was just about to write back and say, ‘Sorry, I’m too busy, too tired, too lazy…’ And then I looked and it was written four months previously or something. She’d put the wrong post code on the envelope and it had taken months to get to me. And so I didn’t want her to think I had sat on her letter for months while this precious boy was inside. So I snatched up the phone and phoned her. And as soon as I got a human voice at the other end of the phone, that was it. I was sucked in. You can’t say no to a woman, pleading. So that was the reason. This one did find me, yes.”

Susan Lynch as Margaret.

Q: David – I was shocked when I saw the rushes, particularly over the Susan Lynch scene. I wonder if you could just describe how that came about? Tell us how it happened?

David Blair: “It was a strange one, actually, because the early part of it wasn’t in the script. What Jimmy had written originally was the main scene that follows. And I was a bit worried that we were going to come into something feeling that we’d missed something. At that point there wasn’t a scene with Susan seeing the body. She’d passed that responsibility on to Danny (playing Tommy) earlier in the scene. Really it was a belt and braces moment when we shot it, to be honest, because I just wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t be sitting in the cutting room thinking what I felt before. We rehearsed it but kept the body out of the room until we shot it. So that kind of raw reaction that she gives there is absolutely spontaneous and indeed is Danny’s also. We had spoken to the guy who ran the mortuary before we shot the scene and he said the really most difficult circumstances involved estranged couples. Because everything that you would spontaneously do in such a circumstance, you couldn’t. You couldn’t put your arm round somebody or share in that grief. It was a strange…two separate griefs. And that made it a challenge and I thought, ultimately, made it worthwhile having it in the film.”

Daniel Mays as Tommy.

Q: Daniel, if you were one of these actors who did a page count and said, ‘I don’t think I’ll take this part because I’ve only got whatever the quantity is to say’…if you were weighing up the amount of your contribution in those ways, you might well have been put off and said, ‘There’s not a phenomenal amount on paper for me to do.’ But in reality there was an enormous amount to do. What drew you into it?

Daniel Mays: “First and foremost, it’s a Jimmy McGovern drama. I did an episode of The Street in the past. I know the quality of the stuff. So that immediately sparks your interest. But in the audition was the reconciliation speech that you see. That in itself is just a phenomenal piece of writing. Just to be a small part of the cast and to contribute means the world to me, really. Watching it again, what strikes me is it truly is an ensemble piece. Every actor, no matter how small their part, contributes massively. You just want to be a part of it, really. I can recognise good quality writing and the message behind the drama I think was a really important thing to be part of.”

Andrew Tiernan as Pete.

Q: Andrew – what attracted you?

Andrew Tiernan: “I’ve worked with Jimmy before and it was just straight away, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to do this.’ And obviously then researching into Joint Enterprise and what was going on there. And obviously gone out and spoken about it, it’s just surprising that the general public out there and family and friends don’t actually know about this thing. So it’s a very important film to be a part of.”

Robert Pugh as DI Hastings.

Q: Bob – did you do any research or feel the need to do any research? All of the cast, when I spoke to them, they hadn’t heard about Joint Enterprise at all.

Robert Pugh: “Same here. I don’t think I needed to do research. Initially again, like the lads said, it’s a Jimmy McGovern script and that is incredibly appealing in itself with the bonus of David there. The research came afterwards and during, actually, talking to the mothers particularly, who were victims of this…and it was quite eye-opening. I don’t still quite understand the minutiae of it. But the general message of it, as we’ve seen here, it is quite a bad thing. And the fact that it hasn’t gone through Parliament, it’s all set by precedent, is an iniquitous thing, actually. It just indicates the more and more police state that I think we are heading for. And the people who are the most vulnerable are the people who are the most ignorant of it. IE The kids on the streets.”

Jodhi May as Coleen.

Q: Jim – I know you feel a big responsibility to all your dramas but in particular dramas like this which affect so many people. What we all feel about a lot of your writing is, there’s not much of it. The words are very, very thin and there always seems to be a tremendous space there. Is that something really deliberate from your point of view?

Jimmy McGovern: “It’s a strange thing, that. There was once…I tried to shorten the scene. You’ve come across this David, haven’t you? I took words out. And what was left became even more pregnant. And the scene was longer. It was just strange. That’s what aim for as a writer. It’s not always there.

“But on that point Bob made before, just think of the enormity of getting sentenced to life imprisonment on a ‘law’ that has never been passed by the British Parliament? That’s extraordinary. Your democratically elected representatives have had nothing to do with this law and yet it sends you to prison for the rest of your life. It’s extraordinary. It’s a doctrine, a concept.”

Colin then opened up questions to the audience:

Q (From me, as it happens) Jimmy, we saw the information flash up on screen at the end about the Commons’ Select Committee looking into this. What are the prospects for some action being taken, as far as you can see?

Jimmy McGovern: “I don’t know. I just hope maybe there’s a question asked in Parliament or something like that. It’s a TV drama. It might just pass. You never know. I’m never optmistic about changes to British law.”

Colin McKeown: “What we can say, though, it has been seen by the Select Committee. It’s the first gig I’ve ever been to in my life where the Houses of Parliament have watched a movie before the public have.”

Q: And did you get any reaction from them?

Colin McKeown: “They’re not there to give reaction, really. But I think they did genuinely appreciate that it was done.”

Q: (Still from me) Can I ask Danny to talk about filming that searing scene with Susan in the mortuary?

Daniel Mays: “It was exhausting. Full on. Susan Lynch in an absolutely phenomenal actor. It was quite spaced out, my days of filming. So to work with someone as good as Susan, she was so ‘in it.’ Even off camera. I’m not saying method acting or anything, but you could see that she was completely focused and concentrated. So when you work with someone as brilliant as that, it helps. I don’t know, you just have to embrace it and give it your all. But we were aided every step of the way with the brilliant direction of David. He dropped in fantastic notes along the way so you’ve got to be able to respond to the notes that you get and try and lay down a performance. But that’s true…when she ‘smashed’ the glass, that was never scripted. She kind of just did it in the wide shot. And I can remember I just wanted to put my arm around her. I actually found it so upsetting. And yet when you’re in character it completely makes sense that he is unable to do that. That’s the great thing about the writing again, is the fact that they are in this horrendously fractured relationship and somehow these two people have to connect again through the loss of their son. It’s a really interesting dynamic that relationship and to play it out was thrilling. You just want to do stuff like that as an actor.”

Sir Michael Gambon as the judge.

Q: What was the biggest challenge for you while working on this film? That’s a question for Jimmy and for the actors as well.

Jimmy McGovern: “Me, personally, I wanted to be even-handed. The enormity of murder has to be addressed. There is no greater injustice than murder. Every other injustice pales into insignificance besides having your life snatched away from you. So that was the main one from me. Even-handedness was the main challenge.”

Andrew Tiernan: “I think it was just having the responsibility of meeting the mums from JENGbA (Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association) and hearing all their stories. So obviously representing that and trying to get the reality of that over.”

Daniel Mays: “We did the read-through at Liverpool Town Hall and all the mothers were there and they heard the script for the first time. It was the most profound experience to go through because as it progressed they were getting more and more upset. You could just feel the emotion in the room that was pouring off of them. It just fuelled that responsibility that you had to bring it to life.”

Robert Pugh: “Absolutely. When you saw that response from the reading in Liverpool Town Hall, you were a part of this, it was going to be a tremendous privilege to be a part of it and to fight for the truth of it. And great responsibility, definitely. And therefore a great challenge. It was very moving during it. And the whole thing of talking to the mothers was a bit of an immense experience.”

Q: How do these prisoners serve time and be guilty for something they didn’t do?

Jimmy McGovern: “The awful thing as well, is part of the process of getting out of there is to acknowledge your guilt. If you don’t acknowledge your guilt, you don’t get out. So how can you acknowledge your guilt when you’re not guilty? There are people languishing in prison. That guy from Liverpool, an awful murder in Lodge Lane. Everybody knows he’s innocent. He’s been inside for 33 years and he’s totally innocent. (Having been given a 15-year tariff).

Q: What effect do you think the film will have on bringing attention to Joint Enterprise, in the sense of making more scared of it or to go against it and stand up to it and not accepting it as a given?

Jimmy McGovern: “I don’t know how it will be received. I’ve never thought about it would frighten people more. I’ve never thought about it in those terms. It will be changed by people like Glo (JENGbA Campaign Co-ordinator Gloria Morrison). In my experience that’s how laws are changed. People campaign against them and get them changed. Look, I could give you chapter and verse on Jack Straw, a Labour Justice minister. And he was an absolute disgrace. He let people languish in prison knowing they were totally innocent. Never lifted a finger to help the Hillsborough families. In fact, went out of his way to hinder them. He and Tony Blair. That’s a Labour guy. They won’t do anything. It’s people like Gloria campaigning. That’s how you get laws changed.”

BBC One Common

Jimmy McGovern

LA Productions

JENGbA

Ian Wylie on Twitter

THE opening titles and theme music remain reassuringly unchanged.

Unlike the world around Downton Abbey.

It’s 1924 with a Labour government in Britain for the first time in history.

Lord Granthan (Hugh Bonneville) is convinced this threatens the Downton way of life as never before with that modern world continuing to encroach on the family.

I attended the London launch today of Downton Abbey series five – eight episodes plus a Christmas special, all written by Julian Fellowes.

Due on screen in the UK next month and in the USA in January.

We were shown the opening 90-minute ITV episode plus a teaser trail from episode two.

Followed by a 30 minute press conference, which I can report. My edited transcript is further down the page.

Although subsequent interviews with a total of 17 cast members over a number of hours are subject to an embargo.

Mr Carson (Jim Carter) and Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan).

Episode one includes Lady Edith’s (Laura Carmichael) maternal torment. So close and yet so far from her secret daughter Marigold.

Having handed the child into the care of Downton farmer Tim Drewe (Andrew Scarborough) and his wife.

With still no news of Marigold’s father – newspaper editor lover Michael Gregson, who is assumed to be dead.

Robert and Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) are about to celebrate their 34th wedding anniversary.

While Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is embracing life once again and, perhaps, Lord Gillingham (Tom Cullen).

Along with lines like: “I’m going upstairs to take off my hat.”

Downstairs Daisy (Sophie McShera) announces: “I want to be grown up.”

Keen to better herself, she sends off for some mathematics books.

Other things in the house that didn’t add up become clearer as lady’s maid Baxter (Raquel Cassidy) makes a decision about that “secret” of hers.

Before Edith’s anguish leads to a fire at Downton with smoke and flames engulfing her bedroom.

Tom Branson (Allen Leech), Lord Gillingham (Tom Cullen) and Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).

As ever, Violet’s (Maggie Smith) one-liners sparked the most laughs at the press screening.

Julian also up to mischief with the return of Dame Harriet Walter as Lady Shackleton and Isobel’s (Penelope Wilton) prospective love life.

Other delights include Molesley’s (Kevin Doyle) efforts to catch Baxter’s eye.

Jeremy Swift doing his usual superb turn as Violet’s butler Spratt.

And Anna Chancellor as Lady Anstruther, former employer of Jimmy (Ed Speleers) – a woman who won’t take no for an answer.

Did John Bates (Brendan Coyle) kill Green, the visiting valet who raped his wife Anna (Joanne Froggatt)?

After the first episode we’re still none the wiser.

But I have a feeling we’re going to find out before series five is done.

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The 17 cast members who took part in the series of embargoed round table interviews were (in alphabetical order): Hugh Bonneville; Laura Carmichael; Jim Carter; Raquel Cassidy; Brendan Coyle; Michelle Dockery; Kevin Doyle; Joanne Froggatt; Lily James; Rob James-Collier; Allen Leech; Daisy Lewis; Phyllis Logan; Elizabeth McGovern; Sophie McShera; Lesley Nicol and Penelope Wilton.

*****************************************************************

Introducing the screening, Steve November, ITV Director of Drama, said:

“There are some wonderful, surprising stories in this series and some really spectacular set pieces, I think. Probably some of the best we’ve seen.”

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John Bates (Brendan Coyle) and Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt).

My edited transcript of some of the highlights of the Q&A with Executive Producers Gareth Neame and Liz Trubridge, Joanne Froggatt (Anna) and Allen Leech (Tom Branson):

Gareth Neame: “The show right from the beginning has been about the dying of the light. It’s the end of this era. We started in 1912 because it was really the apogee of the aristocracy, the country house, everything about the world at the height of its powers. And slowly we’ve seen that decline, largely as a result of the First World War. So it was inevitable that we would use the first ever socialist government. Because, of course, those who are above stairs see it as a direct threat to their way of life. The characters below stairs see it as an opportunity for huge change. And a character like Tom Branson, as ever, is caught in a no-man’s world between his own political views and the life that he’s adopted.

‘Our approach is to show that these characters are more like us than they are different to us. We as human beings are motivated by showbusiness, celebrity, politics, culture, we’re befuddled by technology. The experiences that these characters go through are very similar to the experiences we go through. So showing real events and having characters comment on politicians who are long since forgotten shows that they’re very like us.”

Daisy (Sophie McShera).

Liz Trubridge: “We’re very lucky. We have lots of actors who say, ‘I’d love to be in Downton.’ And they’re great actors that we’d love to work with. But we won’t be led by that. It’s got to come out, it’s got to be organic in the story. We have a very well established world and we have rules and regulations within that.”

Allen Leech: “It’s a very exciting time for Branson in the fact that you constantly see the blurring of these lines between the classes and the fact the first socialist government comes into power. He has an opportunity to see change from the inside out. It’s definitely the challenge for Branson this year, the fact he has to decide not only where he sits within these class systems but what kind of man he wants to be and what kind of father he wants to be for his daughter.

“I think he’s such a changed man through his circumstance, it would be impossible for him to go back to the man he was. I think he’s not as naive as he was when he first arrived. He’s completely changed his outlook. He’s still very strongly politically minded – but he was a bit of a firebrand and very strong in his views. He’s more educated now than he ever was before.”

Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) and Simon Bricker (Richard E. Grant).

Q: (From me, as it happens): We saw a glimpse of Richard E. Grant as Simon Bricker in the trail at the end of episode one. Can you talk a little bit about his character and some of the other new faces we’ll see throughout the series?

Liz Trubridge: “Simon Bricker plays an art historian. We know that Downton Abbey has some rather beautiful paintings in it. So he’s introduced through a character and he stays with us for a few episodes. There are several guest cast this year and, particularly as the series has progressed, there have been more. I can’t say too much about any of them without giving the storylines away. We are very lucky on this show. We can attract incredible actors to come and play guest roles, which you would think that in many shows they wouldn’t look at. And Julian’s writing is such – I think this is part of the reason we attract them – that he has a great skill in economy of writing. That he writes very satisfying stories in a very short space of time. So you can have three cracking scenes that means that we get the pick of casting.”

Q: How many series can you go on for?

Gareth Neame: “We think season five is a really fantastic season. We’re very focused on this. We hope to be back again next year. We think one year to the next and we’ll see. I think we have to make that judgement. That’s all of us. It’s the producers, it’s the cast, everyone. We’re all in this thing together. The strange effect that this show has..it’s a show about a family, a soap if you will, that this community of characters…the more that you get to know them, the more of a journey that you go on with these characters and all the others, somehow I find myself more compelled by them. I don’t find myself getting bored or feeling that their stories are told. The more I’m feeling that I’m living my life with those characters, the more compelling I find them.”

Thomas (Rob James-Collier).

Q: Is there going to be anything shocking this year, like the series four rape?

Gareth Neame: “Each season there’s, hopefully, one of those right angle moments that you don’t really expect to happen. It’s an effective part of the storytelling. So I hope you’ll think so.”

Q: Are you recognised on the streets of America?

Joanne Froggatt: “None of us would have dared expect the success of Downton as it’s become. When we’re in America we’re often doing press trips and stuff and there’s often a group of us. So as a group we’re quite conspicuous. I remember one night we went to see Dan Stevens’ show on Broadway and I think we caused more of an attraction than the show did that night because we couldn’t leave our seats for people stopping us. It was lovely. Again very positive.”

Isobel (Penelope Wilton).

Q: Is this series happier than the last?

Liz Trubridge: “There is in all our series a good mix of high drama and laughs. And there is certainly that mix this time. Of course the last series was straight after Matthew’s death. We couldn’t go in with great fun from that. But we do not have that this year and there is, you will be happy to hear I’m sure, great rivalry again between Mary and Edith.”

Q: Shooting the Downton fire scene?

Liz Trubridge: “The house, because of the very nature of a stately home, you can’t have smoke because it causes damage. And although they did say we could have smoke on their gallery, by the very nature of it being a gallery it’s open and you can’t contain it. So actually our designer re-built the galleries on the stages at Ealing. So we did some of the sequences at Highclere and we built a room which we could burn at Ealing – Edith’s bedroom. And so it was a mixture of both with obvious VFX. So we had special effects, visual effects and we built up during the day to…because we had gas bars everywhere…so that we got worse and worse and worse. And then the cameramen at the very end, they got themselves in complete waterproof gear and were hosed down.”

Q: Joanne – would you like to see Anna happy and settled down with a baby?

Joanne Froggatt: “I don’t think Anna thinks for a moment that Bates is a serial killer. What I’d like to see for Anna and Bates as a viewer is probably different as what I’d like to see as an actress. Because as an actor you like to play the drama. But it’s also important to have the fun times and the nice times and the happy times inbetween as well to earn those moments. So I’d like to see a mixture of the two. And I think that’s what they get in season five. They’re trying to move forward and there are certainly moments of happiness and positivity for them. But obviously that’s not going to be an easy journey.”

Downton Abbey ITV

Carnival Films

Downton Abbey Blogs

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“IT’S chilling how many people go missing every year.”

Reece Shearsmith talking about his role as DS Sean Stone in new ITV drama Chasing Shadows.

The four-part series is based around a Missing Persons Unit and the hunt for serial killers who prey on the vulnerable.

Co-starring Alex Kingston as civilian analyst Ruth Hattersley and Noel Clarke as DI Carl Prior.

I had the pleasure of interviewing all three leading cast members on location earlier this year.

You can read those interviews via the link to the ITV press pack / production notes below:

Chasing Shadows Wylie ITV Interviews

I’ve now seen the first two episodes of the series, written and created by Rob Williams, having also read all four scripts at the outset.

Sean is a fascinating character in a world of darkness and light with the potential for many different stories.

There are terrific performances from Reece, Alex and Noel as the relationships of their characters develop.

Against a backdrop of locations adding to the “lost” feel of those the team are seeking to find before it’s too late.

By the end of the second episode you may find yourself agreeing with Rob that this is not “just another crime show”.

Check out the press pack link, along with more pics and links further down this page.

Chasing Shadows begins on ITV at 9pm this Thursday (Sept 4).

ITV Drama

Reece Shearsmith

Alex Kingston

Noel Clarke

Ian Wylie on Twitter

STEP inside love…

We’ll get to my ITV interviews for their new three-part 1960s’ drama a little further down. But first:

I was just a little lad when I first saw Cilla.

My mum and dad and I were on an annual holiday to Blackpool, staying on the top floor of a packed bed and breakfast establishment.

The climb up the towering staircase was broken half way up by a penny ‘Testo Reaction Meter’.

In plain language, a test your reaction coin drop machine mounted on a wall.

I don’t remember the landlady but I do recall the eccentric Irish “maid” who slept in a bath – along with several bottles of Guinness – as her room was required for paying guests.

Never having been to the theatre before, I viewed the special treat of an evening out to see The Bachelors live at Blackpool’s ABC Theatre as on a par with Christmas morning.

Also taking into account the added bonus of two more chances to test my reaction.

Cilla co-starred on that 1966 ‘Holiday Startime’ bill, which also included Mrs Mills and Freddie “Parrot Face” Davies.

I didn’t realise it at the time but despite my dad’s endless supply of pennies, we were relatively poor.

So the cheapest seats in the back row of the upper stalls must have accounted for a significant slice of my parents’ holiday budget.

Whatever it cost, it was worth it.

As soon as Cilla – aged 23 – appeared on stage, I was in love.

I have no memory of what she sang that night but I do have a vivid recollection of Cilla gazing up from the stage and asking, ‘Are you all right up thurr in the gods?’

Feeling sure she was talking directly to me.

Some 18 months later, allowed to stay up on a school night, I sat transfixed in front of our Rediffusion black and white TV.

When Cilla walked on to our screens in her first ever television show – BBC TV’s ‘Cilla’ – on the evening of Tuesday January 30 1968.

It was over 25 years later when I next saw Cilla “live” – in rather different circumstances to Holiday Startime.

The venue was the Penthouse Suite of London’s Dorchester Hotel.

Cilla sparkled like the champagne that flowed during our interview.

With her husband Bobby standing at the back of the room and within her direct eyeline.

Fast forward to 2014…

Sheridan Smith gives, perhaps, her finest ever screen performance as Cilla in ITV’s drama of the same name, which begins at 9pm on Monday (Sept 15).

Not least in an astonishingly good vocal performance, singing live on set throughout.

A perfect piece of storytelling from writing genius Jeff Pope.

At its heart the love story of Cilla and Bobby Willis, the fellow “scally” who later became her husband and manager.

As well as their relationship with The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein who guided her to stardom and died in tragic circumstances.

I cried when I read the scripts several months ago.

With no further need to test my reaction every time I watch the three completed episodes.

Which will be five times to date.

One of the best television dramas I have ever seen.

I still have no real idea why this wonderful production brings me – and others – to tears.

Except to say Cilla is a hugely entertaining, beautiful and truthful story about life, love, heartbreak and the wonders of a red telephone box.

With thanks to all involved from a little lad in the back row of the gods.

Holiday Startime 1966 Programme

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It was an honour to be asked by ITV to write the cast interviews for Cilla, which I completed earlier this year.

Sheridan Smith (Cilla), Aneurin Barnard (Bobby), Ed Stoppard (Brian Epstein), Melanie Hill (Big Cilla) and John Henshaw (John White) all give award-winning performances.

In yet another stunning drama project from writer and executive producer Jeff Pope, director Paul Whittington and producer Kwadjo Dajan.

The team behind Mrs Biggs – also starring Sheridan – and much more.

Click on the link below to read my Cilla cast interviews in the ITV Press Pack / Production Notes.

Cilla ITV Wylie Interviews

And scroll down for my Q&A transcript from the later London press launch – held on Friday August 15 2014 – where all three episodes were screened, as in a feature film.

Younger readers who only know Cilla from her Blind Date and Surprise Suprise era may not realise just what a hugely successful singing star she was in the 1960s.

With a remarkable voice.

Listen, for example, to this recording of her singing a demo for Step Inside Love, written by Paul McCartney as the opening and closing theme song to that first BBC TV series.

You can also hear Paul on guitar, both guiding her through this new song and humming along, with the voices of legendary Beatles producer George Martin and Cilla at the end:

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Q&A at the Soho Hotel in London with Sheridan Smith, Aneurin Barnard, Ed Stoppard, Jeff Pope, Kwadjo Dajan plus Cilla and Bobby’s son Robert, who was an executive producer on the drama, in the audience:

Q: From me, as it happens – could I ask Jeff what stories he set out to tell and the themes he wanted to explore?

Jeff Pope: “What happened, Ian, I was just in that mode when I was thinking about what I wanted to do next and it’s very unlike anything I’ve ever done before. I can’t remember the first thing that I was reading or what exactly it was hooked me. But I went to the end first. And I think it was when I discovered – which is true – that next to Brian Epstein’s body when he died was a contract for Cilla, the entertainment show. I knew that was my end because I thought from there onwards is the Cilla I know and most of us know. And I thought that earlier bit was worth looking into and I was hoping was going to be interesting. I think the theme of a non-patronising look at the working class. Also we live in an age now, The X Factor age. But I thought it was interesting to see how someone like Cilla had come up from literally nowhere and how she’d made it. But at it’s heart it was a love story, I think, between Cilla and Bobby but also Cilla and Brian as well.”

Q: Sheridan – how many hours of research did you have to do? It must have taken months?

Sheridan Smith: “The great thing with working with Jeff and Kwadjo and Paul Whittington the director is they give you a research pack early on. So I think it was a few months before – seven months. And we had all the footage, every interview from ’64…so I spent a lot of time watching them. There’s loads on YouTube and so much in the archives. So I tried to watch. Obviously there’s only one Cilla. And when you think of Cilla everyone does an impression of her, don’t they? And I thought, ‘Well I don’t want to do her a disservice and I’m not an impersonator. So I just wanted to try and get little mannerisms, like where she touches the hair and how she sings. I had a few singing lessons leading up to it. I was singing with my mouth wide and Cilla sings with it quite closed. So little things like that I was picking up along the way. Even during it, me and Paul Whittington were having lots of conversations. I kept kind of doubting it, going, ‘Should I be doing more Cilla?’ But then you can get trapped with every single decision you make when you’re doing a scene and you don’t really want to be over thinking that. So, hopefully, it’s enough as a nod to her. I know I don’t have Cilla’s voice but I, hopefully, got some bits of her.”

Jeff Pope: “You worked really hard on getting two voices, didn’t you? I remember talking to you about it.”

Sheridan Smith: “Yeah. When she was singing in the Cavern Club – Cilla told me this herself as well – because it was so loud and there was no ‘foldback’ (monitors on stage) you just whack it out, those rock ‘n roll songs. And then when she got in the studio and put the headphones on, she realised she had this little soft voice as well. So that’s when she started doing the ballads. That was fun to play around with. The soft voice and then the Cilla ‘honk’ – the big belting sound that comes out of her little frame. So that was fun to play around with.”

Q: Research, Aneurin and Ed?

Aneurin Barnard: “With Bobby it was a bit different. Because he was the man in the shadows, there was no footage. Which was very difficult. And sadly because we lost Bobby in ’99, I couldn’t go and talk to the man either. So it was very difficult to try to figure out, ‘Right, where do I place his voice? Where do I find his stature,’ and all this. So I had to home in on information that Jeff and Kwadjo and Paul had ‘stolen’ from Cilla’s family and Robert, the son of Bobby, who was very helpful in giving me some personal information about how his father led as a man but also as a brutal manager. So, for me, it was a lot to do with talking to people that knew him or watching interviews of people that were around him or interviewed him. And then there was a very small documentary piece where he actually talked. That was my reference to the way his mannerisms were and the way he talked. But that was later in life. This was when he was in his 50s. So I had to then reverse that into a young man and remember that he’s had 40 years of smoking cigarettes and smoking 25 a day. So then the voice changes, later in life as it does to when you’re younger. So I had to reverse the cycle, in essence. And then it was…like Sheridan is saying, you’ve got to have licence then to play the scenes and you don’t want to get too entrapped with trying to impersonate someone and you want to create the essence of what that person stood for and how they represented themselves. So, hopefully, I found a young Bobby. I’ll never know.”

Ed Stoppard: “There’s a little bit more on Brian than Bobby, obviously. I read a couple of biographies. One of which was very helpful which had extracts from his diaries and also had people’s impressions of him, their memories of him. There are also a couple of interviews on YouTube, one on British television, one on American television, both from 1964, which were useful in terms of the sort of cadence of his voice and his energy and his physicality. He appears quite circumspect. But it’s a bit of a false friend those things, because you have to remember that that is a person who is consciously on camera and so almost by definition is not behaving in a naturalistic way. So you have to take that and distill it a little bit. But once you’ve made your choice based more or less on what you might find, you’re then at the mercy of what the writer has given you. And if you feel for whatever reason that the writer hasn’t given you enough or what you were hoping for, then you’re furiously digging away. But the reverse is that if you feel that the writer has given you more than you hoped for then you just let him do the hard work and don’t worry too much about it. Which is obviously the better place to be. And because Jeff – thank you Jeff – gave us so much more than we could really have had any reason to hope for, you didn’t worry too much about portraying this real personage because it was there on the page. And as long as you got his words out in the right order then you were probably going to be all right.”

Jeff Pope: “I will add that Ed was King of the Curling Tongs on set, though. Because he has naturally straight hair and spent hours and hours waking around…”

Ed Stoppard: “That’s true. Actually, joking apart, when I first spoke to the make-up artist I said, ‘Look…’ Because he did have this very characteristic wave. And I said, ‘It’s useful for me, if no-one else, because he looks like someone who’s trying to re-invent himself.’ His hair is the hair of someone who is trying to re-invent himself. He’s got this curly Jewish hair and he’s furiously doing this to it, trying to tame it and straighten it out and be someone else. That was very helpful for me. It was very informative.”

Jeff Pope: “Aneurin had some bad hair days as well…”

Sheridan Smith: “Hairgate.”

Jeff Pope: “He couldn’t be a more dark, Celtic person…”

Aneurin Barnard: “I know. It was quite a wake-up call for a young Welsh man when he has to completely transform his mop into this bright blond, which was bleaching it every seven days for two months and having your eyebrows done every three days. It kind of questions a lot of things in a young man. But it was a good experience. It added to the experience – like Ed and Sheridan would have experienced – just kind of throw yourself into the people you were becoming.”

Sheridan Smith: “I just had to whack my teeth in, I was away. I had it easy. (laughs) The boys had the hard part.”

Jeff Pope: “She sang with her teeth in as well. That’s the thing that amazed me.”

Sheridan Smith: “Well they change the shape of your mouth so it really helped with the accent and the ‘thur’ and ‘curr’. The way that she speaks was from the mouth. So the teeth really helped. They weren’t…I hope Cilla likes them.”

Q: Has Cilla seen it yet? And if she hasn’t, what do you think she is likely to make of it? Because there are times where she comes across as being quite an unsympathetic character. People may not know that that’s how she was?

Jeff Pope: “Cilla was very frank and very open with me in the research phase. I spoke to Robert first and once we’d agreed to meet and to start to talk it through, it took her a little while. But in the end she was very frank. And she was very insistent that we go into areas that weren’t…that it wasn’t viewed through rosey spectacles. She was very upfront about how determined she was and how sharp her elbows were – and had to be in those days. I couldn’t have wished for more, really. One of my fears was that for a woman that spent so long being so successful in the field of light entertainment, would this be too left field for her? Would her tendency be, like in her shows, to smooth everything out and present a kind of wonderful face to the world? But no. I found the opposite. With Robert as well. One of the first things Robert said to me was that his father had said to him, ‘Behind every good woman is a good man.’ And Robert’s phrase – a great phrase – was that in an era when things like this just didn’t happen, he was very happy to carry the handbag. So the scripting process – and I went through the scripts with her…not only was she very receptive to those areas that you talk about where you could look at it and think, ‘That’s not presenting her in the greatest light.’ Not only was she OK, she understood what was going on there, she helped me a lot with the vernacular, a lot of the sound and the rhythms. We finished. Then, I had underestimated how stressful watching it was going to be. She makes a joke out of it and says, ‘This normally happens when someone’s kicked the bucket.’ But the answer is – and I was talking to Rob today – is that she’s seen little bits. But the emotion of seeing the love of her life Bobby, and her, go through all they went through is massive. Rob will give you the latest. We’re hoping this weekend she’s going to watch.”

Robert Willis: “We’ve obviously just got the final cut. We wanted her to watch the finished cut with the grading and the CGI and all those bits. She’s seen tasters, so she gets it and she really has enjoyed it. She’s going to watch it this weekend. It was better for her to see the finshed version with the sound right, the grading right, all those bits and bobs.”

Q: Three quick questions: Was there ever a suggestion that Cilla might have a cameo role in the film..?

Jeff Pope: “I’ll come straight in there. Very quick answer to that – no. Because, as Rob said, if Cilla came up to set and just had one line, the idea of her standing there watching and Sheridan singing all her songs, she’d have turned round and gone away again. So no. She didn’t. I think she wanted to let us do and she didn’t want to put her footprint on it.”

Q: Any suggestion that Sheridan might now do an album of Cilla covers? And would you possibly reprise your role with Cilla now later in her career maybe…

Sheridan Smith: “And go into Blind Date and Surprise Surprise? (laughs) Oh, I’d love to. (laughs) No. I don’t know about that. Do you know what I think is great is that the younger generation have got no clue about this. They know Blind Date, Surprise Surprise onwards, so they’re going to get to see this incredible singing career that she had and then your generation can re-live it, hopefully. But no plans for an album! There’s only one Cilla, come on.”

Q: Sheridan – what impact did playing Cilla have on you? How did you feel when you were playing her?

Sheridan Smith: “When you’ve watched someone that long…and also I’ve grown up watching her so…I was in awe of her. Whenever you’re playing somebody…it sound weird saying you fall in love with them, but you kind of become obsessed with them because you’re watching them every day and reading their autobiography. So when I went to dinner and Robert was there and Aneurin was there, we all went…I was really starstruck and really nervous. And I think I babbled away at her going, ‘In the 1964 interview when you said this I thought it was really ballsy of you.’ And she couldn’t quite catch up with what I was saying. But when you meet them in person – it’s a huge responsibility because you just don’t want to let them down. And as far as the moments that might seem unsympathetic, to me it was like she was in a man’s world. I just admired her strength. She was up against The Beatles and all these male bands. She was the only female to come out of Liverpool and she’s much more of a tough cookie than me. And I just admire that. So it was pressure but just an honour to play her because I’m a huge fan of her.”

Q: Did she give you any tips?

Sheridan Smith: “She was lovely. She gave me her phone number and said to ring. But I was too shy to ring. I was too nervous. What do you ask? I was like, ‘I can’t keep bothering her every day.’ So I didn’t ring her. But I hopefully did her story justice and I’ll hopefully see her again. Maybe I’ll ring her now, once it’s over.” (laughs)

Q: The Cavern Club in Liverpool was such an iconic moment in time in music history. How was it for all of you re-creating that time and that atmosphere?

Sheridan Smith: “The best. The Sixties era is the best era. I wish I was born then. So re-creating all that, to me, was just the biggest buzz.”

Kwadjo Dajan: “For us it was fantastic. We went to the original Cavern Club and also a museum called The Beatles Story where they replicated it to the exact spec. And just being in that environment, it’s almost something in the air, something of the walls that you pick up. But as a practical filming space it’s very difficult because the ceilings are really low and there’s not a lot of movement in there. And so in the end, just by a stroke of luck, at the bottom of the production office where we were based there was a massive space where we could re-create our own Cavern. And so we designed it and re-created it to the exact spec of the real Cavern. But with higher ceilings and a bit more movement on the edges. And I just think, the accuracy from the designer, everybody involved, the accuracy in that re-creation just almost by osmosis I think you pick something up just by being there. You were almost transported into another world and everyone who came in, you could see them being affected by that. And I think that the way the performances came out in that environment added to it. We actually had the real owners of the Cavern come down as well and asked, ‘What are you going to do with this set when you’re finished?’ And we said, ‘Well, we’re going to knock it down and build Abbey Road.’ And they actually wanted to take the set and transport it. But for practical reasons they left it.”

Q: For Jeff and Sheridan – you, of course, collaborated together on Mrs Biggs famously. When you thought of doing Cilla, did you immediately think of Sheridan? And tell me about the genesis of the two of you getting together again on this new project.

Jeff Pope: “For me, I just think I’ve been extremely lucky to have worked with Sheridan just at this point in her career. She did some wonderful stuff before but the stuff that she’s done with me, she’’s just peaked and stayed there. So I instantly…there wasn’t really anyone else. Well there wasn’t anyone else that I was thinking of. Because…I knew she could sing. The only thing I didn’t know was how great she was as a singer. And that’s what I find the most exciting thing about this. Because I knew how great an actress Sheridan was but I didn’t know how great a singer she was. And Paul and Kwadjo’s decision that she would perform live on set, talking to Sheridan…what I thought was really interesting was she said that what it meant was that she wasn’t thinking about singing, she was thinking about where the character was in the story. That came through. I think you could see it. The big things like nerves but also further on when she’s in the Persian Room (in New York) and she’s singing and she’s a big star but she knows that they’re not really getting it, there’s something indefinable that will come through in your performance when you’re acting that. Rather than doing something on set and then over-dubbing it afterwards. I’d met Sheridan and knew her but hadn’t worked with her until Mrs Biggs. I just want to work with her all the time now. I couldn’t stop working with her.”

Q: In the drama we see how Cilla stops Bobby from having a recording career. Do you think that was for the best or do you think it was a missed opportunity?

Jeff Pope: “For me, I think ultimately it was (for the best) because Bobby was his own man. And I think, as Rob told me, he never regretted that. He was very happy to be the good man behind the good woman. I think he took as much pleasure out of her career for himself as she got out of it. So no. My instinct was I don’t think he did regret it. And in many respects he was a modern man. He was quite happy to put himself second. Classically, not so much now, but certainly 40s, 50s and 60s it was the man that had the career and the woman that trailed along behind. So Bobby…it was for real all that. I think his upbringing, the fact that he lost his mother…I found that all really fascinating when I talked to Rob and the Willis family. About how Bobby was really the…he was the householder. He made the meals for his brothers and for his sister. He made the school lunches and he did the washing and the ironing. I think he liked looking after people and when he met Cilla he met someone who really wanted looking after. He happened to be talented too. But I think he probably appreciated how blunt she was. That’s it. That’s how it’s going to be. She didn’t pull any punches. I think she knew exactly where she wanted to go and she knew what she had to do to get there. And she was quite prepared to do it.”

Robert Willis: “I think at that point in their relationship and their careers, I think his relationship with my mother was worth more than an opportunity of making it as a pop star. As he would have known, it’s quite a fickle business – still is and was then – and just having a shot doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get a hit. And so why would you risk all you’ve built up for the sake of ego? His ego was not that big where he would have sacrificed the relationship just for a hit at the pop charts. He had lots of other opportunities throughout their career which he didn’t take up. He knew where his priorities were and that was to be a team.”

Q: Jeff – so do you think that seeing Cilla’s more unsympathetic moments as unsympathetic would be too simple a reading? When people watch it, do you think that’s the wrong message to take from it?

Jeff Pope: “One of the reasons why I was keen to watch it in the round, watch the whole of it, was because I think if you place those moments when she is ruthless and she is determined, if you place them in context and you see that…it’s a whole story. So yes, she was ruthless, she was determined and she got where she wanted to get to. But realised that that wasn’t everything. And like everyone else in life, it’s a balance. You need to have your life and your work. She was only young and she was trying to find that balance. What will people take from it? I don’t mind if people think watching it that at certain points in her life, in her career, she was ruthless. I think it’s the truth. And it’s as she told it to me. She would say it to me now, like, ‘What a cow I was. But that’s what I said.’ She didn’t flinch from it. I think when you watch the truth, I think that’s OK.”

Q: Did you get the feeling that she regretted these hard moments at all or is she comfortable with them even now?

Jeff Pope: “It’s a good question. No, I wouldn’t say she was uncomfortable with them. Look at the amazing career she had. And I don’t think she would have had one tenth of that without the attitude she had, the determination. So no, I don’t think she regretted it. I think she thought that was how she had to be at that point. Because I honestly believe that if somehow the Bobby and Cilla thing had been defused by it being the two of them, maybe it would have frittered away. Maybe she wouldn’t have had the career she went on to have. I remember as a young researcher…I joined what was LWT in 1983 and I didn’t know him to speak to but Cilla was, if not at her height approaching the absolute peak of her career then…so I used to watch on the ring main Surprise Surprise and Blind Date and I knew Bobby. I’d see them together and I could see how tight they were. It was just the way he looked after her. So I could see what a pair they were. It was talking to Robert and finding out the history of it and all the detail, it all clicked. I just thought, ‘I did see them.’ I could see the two of them. Just the way he’d hold her arm as they were walking along the corridor, going to the dressing rooms or where he’d stand on set just off to the side as she did what she did. And I think because of everything she did, she was free to do what she could do. She had that wonderful…he took all her problems away for her. He loved doing that and it allowed her to just do what she did.”

Cilla ITV photos by Stuart Wood

ITV Drama

Cilla ITV Wylie Interviews

Sheridan Smith

Aneurin Barnard

Ed Stoppard

Melanie Hill

John Henshaw

Jeff Pope

Mrs Biggs: Sheridan Smith

Holiday Startime 1966 Programme

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“I’LL be dandy…”

It’s farewell to footman Jimmy (Ed Speleers) in this Sunday’s second episode of Downton Abbey series five (ITV, 9pm).

And hello to Richard E. Grant as art expert Simon Bricker.

I’ve now seen the first four episodes of the new series with plenty for Downton fans to look forward to in the weeks ahead.

Including Lady Mary’s (Michelle Dockery) trip to Liverpool, the latest developments involving the late Mr Green and a surprising turn of events for Violet (Maggie Smith).

With all-time memorable Downton lines including: “One’s enough for now.”

Last week Robert (Hugh Bonneville) and Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary.

But as you may already have guessed from the trailers, Mr Bricker also has an expert eye for a beautiful Countess.

It’s good to see Julian Fellowes writing more for Cora, with Elizabeth McGovern’s talents often under-employed.

As regular readers will know, I have covered Downton Abbey since the very start, interviewing the cast ahead of each series.

Which this year involved a total of 17 cast members back in August.

Some of those 20,000 words of interviews have already been used by national newspapers or are being held for future use.

So I am currently restricted as to what I can publish in my TV blog.

But here are some edited highlights from round table chats with both Elizabeth McGovern and Hugh Bonneville.

With only mild spoilers as to what’s ahead.

And some advice from Hugh:

“When a man like Richard E. Grant comes over the horizon to look at your art work…you should check all your etchings.”

Elizabeth McGovern (Countess of Grantham, Cora):

Q: It’s good to explore Lord and Lady Grantham’s marriage?

“Oh it is. I wish we did that all the time. That would be my perfect show. We do a little of it. There is a sort of rockiness to the marriage, which I don’t think is untypical of any long term marriage.

“It was fun for me to play because not only is it exploring a long term marriage, slightly, but it’s also seeing another side to Cora’s character, which I really appreciated having the chance to play.

“She talks about herself, her own interests, as opposed to just reacting to everybody else. And that was the first time that had really happened in five years. You get to know where she comes from, a little bit, what she’s interested in. Slightly. And then the story moves on. But for that moment it was nice.”

Q: Cora has a more modern outlook compared to Robert?

“She gets quite annoyed with him because he’s such a stick in the mud and she comes from such a different place. So it sort of creates a wedge between them as well.”

Q: Art expert Simon Bricker?

“He’s a very seductive, other type of man that has so much in common with Cora in the way that Robert doesn’t. They both love art and are both fascinated by the history of the paintings. All stuff that Robert probably totally takes for granted. So I think that’s very seductive and a very heady thing for Cora.”

Q: You’ve been an American living in London for quite some time now?

“I’ve been here 21 years. And I actually haven’t even gone back to America all of that much in that time. But I, funnily enough, still feel very strongly connected to my identity as an American. I think that’s partly why I love doing this music that I do because it is very American in sound. And I think it’s sort of comforting to me.

“The day Starbucks arrived I got on my hands and my knees and I thanked God because that was a long time coming. All that’s happened. But I still feel I identify myself as being American and I’m not sure what that’s about. Maybe you never lose that. Because I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived in any other city.”

Q: Your band – Sadie And The Hotheads v acting?

“It’s just such a different world. It’s weird even for me. I can’t keep both in my head at once. So I tend to switch off totally from one and then switch off totally from another. But it’s nice also to have both going.”

Q: Downton’s huge success in America?

“I suspect that my friends who are actresses my age, who are American, are really envious because they don’t do shows like this in America. It’s not part of their culture. As much as I get frustrated because Cora is quite a passive character, you wouldn’t even have any characters that age that are in a mainstream TV show in America. They would be just so not interested. They don’t do that sort of period drama.”

Q: Lady Mary?

“I find her character so interesting because she’s right on the cusp of change and growth all the time. I love her story this year. She’s becoming an independent woman and exploring things for herself.”

Q: Aside from Cora and Robert, there are examinations of love in this fifth series?

“Well, there’s a thing that bubbles in different strands where people are touched by romantic love unexpectedly or the memory of romantic love comes back unexpectedly. And they sort of weave in and out. A bit like a Shakespeare play. There’s a repercussion of a romantic entanglement and it sort of very subtly works into the tapesty, the whole first beat of the season.”

Q: Working with Hugh Bonneville?

“He’s just lovely. I really love him. We’re just very comfortable. I feel very relaxed about saying whatever it is I need to say and he completely takes it in his stride. And I think he feels the same about me. There’s not a lot of heavy things to have to negotiate, which would be really exhausting if we had to do that for five years. We always had that shorthand. You can tell. He’s a very easy person to be around.”

*******************************************

Hugh Bonneville (Robert, Earl of Grantham):

Q: Robert?

“I’m very fond of Robert. He makes some mistakes here and there but he means well. We see in this series – I think he finds his feet, stands up for what he believes in.”

Q: The arrival of Richard E. Grant as art expert Simon Bricker?

“Well, put it this way, you’ve seen in episode one that they’ve (Robert & Cora) been married for 34 years and perhaps there’s an element of taking things for granted. And when a man like Richard E. Grant comes over the horizon to look at your art work…you should check all your etchings.” (laughs)

Q: Public reaction?

“The days of people asking if they can take your picture have gone, unfortunately. And that’s a sadness. I think everyone thinks they have the right for a selfie, whether you want to do it or not.

“I’ve been invited to someone’s wedding. Someone I had never met. I got an invitation to go to Florida. I was looking in the envelope for the air ticket but it wasn’t there. (laughs) And some Prince of somewhere was having a Downton-themed night and would I go along and stand around in my costume? No. So you do get a few odd things like that. But they’re all fairly good natured, I think.”

Q: Robert’s relationship with his daughters?

“I’m very protective of my girls. We all get on fantastically well and we hang out together off set as well as on. But I’m very protective of Michelle and Laura. Robert got it spectacularly wrong (with Mary) in the modern sense, on our perspective of how to cope with grief. And he completely cocooned her. Thought that was the most sensible way to get her through her grief. And, of course, it was just spectacularly inappropriate. But having come out of that mist and gloom, she’s back on the market. Robert wants her to be happy. And poor old Edith, still waiting for Michael Gregson to return from Germany. So he wants the best for his daughters.”

Q: The War Memorial story – Robert giving way to Mr Carson.

“It’s a fairly obvious point that Julian is making and he does it through the character of Violet who says, ‘In your father’s day he told the village what they thought.’ And now things are changing. Democracy is creeping into the estate. And obviously much more threatening is the potential of the Labour government to destroy houses and estates like Downton. That’s what Robert thinks is going to happen. And it’s all doom and gloom. And there was. There was a real sense that this strata of society was going to be smashed to bits. It didn’t happen as violently as that. There was no revolution. But the gradual dismantling of these estates through death duties and everything else was inevitable, really. Particularly after the Second World War. But family is everything for Robert.”

Q: The storyline about Russian refugees starting from episode three?

“I found that a really touching and delightful storyline that develops. It was great. You really felt the sense of this displaced community. It was almost Chekhovian with having all the Russians that came to visit the house and particularly to visit one of the characters. It brought the world at large – in the same way that the First World War had been such a major character, here you get a sense of the displaced people of Europe after the revolution, eking out their lives in a foreign country. Which unfortunately is horribly resonant today.”

Q: Working on The Monuments Men film. Were other cast already fans of Downton?

“I didn’t encourge them to watch it. What was interesting was, some of the crew, particularly the script supervisor, she was utterly obsessed. And because I was commuting back and forth between Downton and Monuments Men, she would literally pin me to the wall and demand to know what I’d been filming that week. I said, ‘I’m not going to tell you.’ Matt Damon’s wife is a great fan. They were going to watch it together, he said. But he came home one day and she’d watched eight episodes. And he said, ‘That’s annoying because I have to catch up.’ And she said, ‘Well I can tell you what happened.’ (laughs) So I don’t think he’s caught up. John Goodman watches it, I think. And I don’t think Bill Murray had even heard of it.”

Q: Do you watch Downton at home?

“I sit down and watch it live on a Sunday when it comes out because I won’t have seen it or heard it since the read through. We film obviously in isolation. I haven’t seen the downstairs scenes, what will have been going on with them. And sometimes you can lose track. Because we’re filming all out of sequence the whole time, you lose track of the thread of your own story. So it’s really lovely to sit down and watch it like anyone does. And to see what everyone else has been up to. I know what I’ve been up to but I don’t know about everyone else.”

Q: Downton’s filming schedule?

“Allen Leech (Tom Branson) is very good at keeping people’s spirits up because these are long punishing days for the crew. We work 11 day fortnights which, I think, is inhumane on a crew. We’ve got make-up starting at, say, half five in the morning and finishing at nine at night. So they’re pretty knackered. So to have someone with the energy and good nature of…well, I think everyone is pretty good natured, to be honest. But Allen’s the court jester.”

Q: A second series of W1A?

“We’re going to squeeze some more W1A in. We could only do four this year because of Downton. It had already bashed into Downton. So that was a shame. So we’re going to eke out a few more in January.”

ITV Downton Abbey

Carnival Films

Downton Abbey Series 5 Launch: Q&A

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“IT’S very important that Sidney has seen death. That he knows death.

“I remember my father said to me once:

‘I don’t suppose you’ve buried many of your friends?’

“Which is a very shocking sentence.”

Author James Runcie, son of the late Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, talking about his creation Sidney Chambers.

Grantchester is a new six-part series starting on ITV at 9pm on Monday (October 6).

Starring James Norton as Sidney.

Totally transformed from his no doubt future award-winning role as psychopath Tommy Lee Royce in BBC1’s Happy Valley.

At first glance Grantchester may appear to be a comfy chocolate box drama.

Featuring a 1950s’ vicar on a bike pedalling past lots of lovely backdrops.

And there are certainly elements of that.

But keep watching and Grantchester may surprise with the darkness of both Sidney’s past…and his present.

Together with some complex moral issues in among the crimes of passion.

Screenwriter Daisy Coulam has done a fabulous job with the scripts.

Based on James Runcie’s first novel in The Grantchester Mysteries’ series: The Shadow of Death.

With a sparkling cast drawing us into a totally believable world.

I could go on.

But perhaps best you read my interviews for ITV in the Grantchester press pack, which posh people call production notes.

I had the pleasure of talking to Morven Christie (Amanda Kendall), Tessa Peake-Jones (Mrs Maguire) and Al Weaver (Leonard Finch) on location during filming in Grantchester.

Watching James Norton at work in the Cambridgeshire village before chatting to him at length later in London.

Where I also caught up with Robson Green (Geordie Keating) and James Runcie.

Click on the link below to read the interviews:

Grantchester ITV Wylie Interviews

And feel free to scroll down this page to see more photos of the cast, taken by Patrick Redmond.

Not to mention playing with all the videos.

You might think I am biased, having written the interviews for ITV.

But I really do think there is something rather special about Grantchester.

The interviews in the PDF link above are well worth a read as all involved had some fascinating things to say.

Including James Runcie on James Norton’s change of roles from Happy Valley to Grantchester:

“From psychopath to vicar is probably better than vicar to psychopath.”

Morven Christie as Amanda Kendall.

Robson Green as Geordie Keating.

Tessa Peake-Jones as Mrs Maguire.

Al Weaver as Leonard Finch.

Pheline Roggan as Hildegard.

Kacey Ainsworth as Cathy and Robson Green as Geordie.

ITV Drama

Lovely Day

James Runcie

The Grantchester Mysteries

Grantchester Village Website

Patrick Redmond

Grantchester ITV Wylie Interviews

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“IT is an incredible undertaking to take on something as epic as this.”

The Great Fire executive producer Douglas Rae talking to me on location in Greenwich.

Filming scenes that day in the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College – one of the finest rooms in the world.

The next time we meet is somewhere in the countryside near Henley.

Where 1666 London and the River Thames have been re-created for the screen, along with the flames that will destroy a huge part of the city.

Epic indeed.

The four-part drama begins on ITV at 9pm this Thursday (October 16).

Telling the story of both the fire and the human stories within it.

From humble baker Thomas Farriner to King Charles II.

My interviews for ITV with Douglas Rae, Andrew Buchan (Thomas Farriner), Jack Huston (King Charles II), Rose Leslie (Sarah Farriner), Daniel Mays (Samuel Pepys), Charles Dance (Lord Denton) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (James, Duke of York) are at the link below.

The Great Fire Wylie ITV Interviews

Also scroll down for more pics from the production.

Thomas (Andrew Buchan), Hannah (Polly Dartford) and Mary (Trixiebelle Harrowell).

Rose Leslie as Sarah.

Jack Huston as King Charles II.

Charles Dance as Lord Denton.

Daniel Mays as Samuel Pepys.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen as James, Duke of York.

Sonya Cassidy as the Queen.

Joey Price as David.

ITV Drama

Ecosse Films

The Great Fire of London

The Painted Hall

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“DON’T wake mummy…”

The chilling, disturbing and fascinating series two of The Fall is due to begin on BBC2 next month (November).

As many fans of the drama will know, the premiere screening – hosted by BAFTA – was held at London’s Mayfair Hotel on September 23.

Below is the story I wrote for a national newspaper a few hours after that launch which was used the day after in the hard copy edition and online – the latter behind a paywall.

So for those who were unable to access at the time, here’s that report.

Followed by my transcript of the post-screening Q&A that night involving Jamie Dornan, Gillian Anderson and Allan Cubitt.

Edited to remove any major spoilers about the six-part series two.

*********************************************************

JAMIE Dornan has revealed how he was left “scarred” after playing the role of a sadistic serial killer.

The Fifty Shades Of Grey star will again shock and disturb viewers as psychopath Paul Spector in a second series of TV drama The Fall.

“You can’t fail to be left slightly scarred by inhabiting someone like that for two seasons now. I do carry elements of him with me,” explained Jamie.

Now one of the hottest properties in Hollywood, the Belfast-born actor said “in a worrying way” he could relate to the twisted killer who acts out his violent sexual fantasies.

“I did so much of the initial horrible research in the first series. A list of rotten books that I trudged my way through and read in bed with my wife.

“I think I have a deep understanding of him and why he is how he is. There are times when we’re filming, I would scare myself about how some of Jamie’s reactions would be similar…I mean Paul.

“My distaste for things would have built up over time of playing him because he has such a distaste for everything except his ‘project’, including family and everything. 

“I wouldn’t take it that far. But you do carry some of that anger and that hatred in you a little bit, especially towards the end of a few months of playing him.”

Fans of The Fall – the highest rated BBC2 drama in 20 years – have waited over a year to discover the fate of Spector, the “Belfast Strangler” who stalks his young female victims before murdering them in their own homes.

At the cliffhanger end of the first series, the bereavement counsellor and married father of two young children fled to Scotland.

Having told his wife an invented story about a three month affair with 15-year-old schoolgirl Katie (Aisling Franciosi).

Also making a chilling call to Det Supt Stella Gibson, played by The X-Files star Gillian Anderson, who is leading the hunt to identify the perverted murderer and bring him to justice.

The opening episode of the second series, on screen later this year, shows a bored, restless and frustrated Spector in his Scottish hideaway with his family back in Belfast.

At one stage lying in bed next to his young daughter’s naked Barbie dolls, their necks, hands and feet trussed together with string as his sadistic murderous fantasies return.

Said Jamie: “We don’t want the second series to be just a continuation of the first. You can’t do that to an audience. You’ve got to move it on. And it went beyond anything I had in my head. It was very exciting.

“It just transcended eveything that I thought it could be. It’s quite remarkable what it entails.”

The Northern Irishman has become a global superstar, even ahead of next year’s release of the film version of Fifty Shades of Grey.

He plays suave sexpot Christian Grey in the movie adaptation of the E.L. James hit novel with Dakota Johnson as the billionaire’s love interest Anastasia Steele.

Speaking after the London premiere of the new six-part TV series, having just stepped off a plane from Los Angeles, Jamie paid tribute to his breathrough role in The Fall.

“This job has totally transformed my professional horizons. It’s totally changed my life.”

And he teased about whether Stella Gibson would succeed in catching Spector in the drama, written and directed by Allan Cubitt, whose previous credits include Prime Suspect.

“I’ve always considered myself a very loyal person and, of course, if Allan wants to keep writing Spector, I’m in. If Spector is still around at the end of the second series.” 

Jamie also defended the drama against critics who claimed it was “disgusting”, pornographic and unnecessarily violent towards women.

“I have feminist values and I’m well aware of what my character is doing is wrong. It is clearly a depiction of violence against women but that is because it is a truth that occurs.

“There is violence against women and it’s often by men. We’re trying to get to the bottom of why men do that, rather than just showing that sort of brutality for the sake of it.”

Gillian, who played alien investigator Dana Scully in The X-Files, is cool and forensic as the detective on a mission.

Both hunter and hunted with a growing obession for each other.

“I thought it was one of the best things I’ve ever read. Extraordinary,” said Gillian, currently starring on the London stage as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

She also warned fans there were surprises ahead.

“I was slightly shocked at the direction that it took. I was extremely both moved and disturbed and impressed by how unpredictable some of the avenues are.”

Asked if she could see her character continuing in future series, she replied: “Definitely, yes. Hopefully so will you by the time you’ve seen the rest of the series.

“You come to understand a little bit more – and perhaps why she finds Spector, in particular, so compelling and serial killers so compelling.

“She’s a very interesting character on television.”

Creator Allan also hit back at critics, who he said had been in a minority.

“My mantra during the first season was we should neither sanitise nor sensationalise Spector. We cut away from the violence, in actual fact.

“Certainly nothing that I’ve ever written would have been written with some notion of degrading or demeaning women.”

******************************************************

BBC Drama boss Ben Stephenson introduced the screening, describing the first series of The Fall as “a phenomenon”.

Adding: “It was just brilliant. An incredibly bold and insightful and controversial in all the right ways drama.”

Moving on to series two he said it was “something really extraordinary. In all ways it’s gone up by a huge level”.

Ben continued: “Gillian Anderson was already one of the world’s most iconic actresses and I genuinely believe she and her blouses have taken this show on to a new level. Yet again her performance is extraordinary.

“And Jamie, who a few years ago was unknown and was relatively new to acting and is now a seasoned pro. In this series I just think goes from great things to great things.

“I think they’re an extraordinary team. Maybe they’ll meet in the show, maybe they won’t. Who knows?

“I do.”

Edited extracts (removing any major spoilers) from the Q&A with: Gillian Anderson (also an executive producer) / Jamie Dornan / Allan Cubitt (Writer, creator and director). Hosted by Benji Wilson:

Q: Allan – a second series is commissioned, you sit down at your writing desk. What decisions do you have to make?

Allan Cubitt: “It’s no secret that when we originally pitched the idea, we pitched for 12 parts. So there was always some story arc in my mind that would have taken us, and has taken us, into a second season. So it wasn’t entirely unchartered territory. I had ideas about where it was going to go. But we did start a process of deciding how we would develop things that we set running in the first season. Work with characters that we felt were particularly compelling in the first season and how we would carry them on into the second season.”

Q: Was there ever any question that you might take it away from Belfast?

Allan Cubitt: “No, there was never any question of that. In fact it’s the reverse for me. The trick is how to keep it in Belfast. Because it’s so integral to the show and so much part of the texture of the show and clearly the context and the history and the culture and so on. But also it’s just a great place to work. So I particularly love being there and I love working there.”

Q: Gillian – what was your reaction when you first read the scripts for series two?

Gillian Anderson: “I thought it was one of the best things I’ve ever read. And I was completely taken by Stella and it didn’t take much convincing. I just thought it was extraordinary and had extraordinary potential.”

Jamie Dornan: “Yeah, similar. I didn’t feel that you could move that substantially far forward in terms of what we did with the first series and how moved I was by the first series and how much I wanted to do it. But the second series was just like…when Allan first sent it to me…it just transcended everything that I thought it could be. You’ll see as the series goes on. It’s quite remarkable what it entails. So I just couldn’t wait to do it, really, when I got it.”

Q: Did any of you have any misgivings about going on?

Allan Cubitt: “No, because I hadn’t told the story. I suppose that might be something we might talk about at the end of the second season. The idea was always to try and tell the story and to delve sufficiently deep into the psychology of the characters to make it that bit different, maybe. And also that these cases are complex and take an enormous amount of time to solve. So I always thought it would be well served by running on, basically.”

Jamie Dornan: “We’d always had a very open conversation with Allan and everyone, all the powers that be, about that anyway. I guess if 17 people watched the first series we probably wouldn’t be sat here. But I think because of the enormity of the success of it, we always thought we’d do more and you (Allan) would do more, if given the opportunity. Which we obviously got.”

Gillian Anderson: “But also remember the first season had such a radical cliffhanger that it would have been near to impossible, unless 17 people saw it, to not go on with it. That was always certainly my understanding. That what I was signing up to, whether BBC2 liked it or not, was going to be beyond the five.”

Q: An interesting moment in that episode we just watched – where Stella Gibson makes a reference to her past. The first series avoided back story for her. She remained enigmatic. Are we going to find out more about what she’s been through in the past? And do you know her back story?

Gillian Anderson: “We’ve discussed aspects of her back story which have influenced aspects of ways that I’ve played certain moments. There are a small handful of, not even entire scenes, but moments when you understand her a little bit more. But if it were more than that I would certainly be disappointed. That’s not what we’ve set out and that’s not…she doesn’t reveal herself that much. And so the little bits that you do get feel quite large and I think that they are satisfactory and satisfying for the time being.”

Q: Can you say what you think is at the heart of the character?

Gillian Anderson: “I think that she innately knows that she’s good at it and is passionate about the work that she does. It is, as we see, her life. And she is happy in it. And she is particularly good at what she does. It’s a choice that she made early on. We don’t learn why she went into this particular field of work. I’m not sure whether it would help you to understand her any more to know that. You come to understand a little bit more about other aspects of how she goes about what she does and perhaps why she finds Spector in particular so compelling, perhaps serial killers so compelling.”

Q: You two can’t have had that many scenes together. Have you discussed the characters and the story much?

Gillian Anderson: “No.”

Jamie Dornan: “No. All of that we use Allan for.”

Gillian Anderson: “It’s all on the page.”

Jamie Dornan: “The mastery of his writing – a lot of it’s done for us. We also obviously see more than you see.”

Gillian Anderson: “But also how Spector operates, or how Jamie perceives Spector operating doesn’t really have anything to do with the choices that I make for Stella. Especially because of the fact that we are – we’re not a married couple that have to talk about our joint history and conversations that we might have had together. We’ve never had conversations so we’re coming to our relationship fresh and therefore I would imagine that the less talking we do, the better. The more accurate the dynamic.”

Allan Cubitt: “In season one we made a conscious effort to keep them apart, in actual fact. And then there was the short phone call. So there was a meeting, in a way, in the first season. But it as quite a conscious thing to try and stop you dialoguing very much up until that point. That seemed to work. But there is clearly an increasing fascination. He becomes fascinated by her in the first season and she becomes fascinated by him in the first season. Her whole crusade, in a sense, is to stop him doing what he’s doing. And she nails her colours to the mast very firmly in season one, saying, ‘I will stop you, for Fiona Gallagher, for Alice Monroe, for Sarah Kay. ‘I will stop you doing what you’re doing.’ And equally he, by virtue of calling her and so on, clearly becomes somewhat obsessed by her.

“So there’s a growing obsession between them which I think the second season – I don’t think I’m giving anything way by saying the second season develops that increased conflict between them but obsession that’s growing between the two characters. But I think that’s the nature of those investigations. Everything I’ve read suggests that that’s precisely what happens when a police officer sets out to try and stop a criminal from doing what they’re doing, particularly a multiple murderer. The only way they can do it is by becoming completely immersed in that world and their world and trying to understand their psychology in the hope that they might gain the upper hand, that they might gain some investigative insight and therefore be able to put a stop to this man and what he’s doing.”

Q: Jamie – how’s an actor supposed to get himself into the mind of a multiple murderer? What do you do to inhabit the head space of Paul Spector?

Jamie Dornan: “I did so much of the initial horrible research in the first series. Allan wrote me a list of rotten books that I trudged my way through and read in bed with my wife.

“You’re trying to find a common thread between all of these guys you’ve read about but not try to cling to any of them too firmly because I wanted to make him his own thing. He deserves that. And that’s what I tried to do. There’s lots out there. Anyone quite alarmingly quickly could get a good idea of what it’s like inside the mind of some of these guys. There’s plenty of interviews on YouTube of guys like Ted Bundy or whatever. And they are totally fascinating whether you’re planning on playing a serial killer or not, they are fascinating. And with this series I felt comfortable with what I’d done in the first series. And it was a development anyway. He’s in a different place to where we see him in the first series. And then there’s little personal things that helped me jump back in for the second series.”

Q: Does it have any impact on you playing a man like that for several months?

Jamie Dornan: “****, yeah, Definitely, yeah. Maybe not all positives. But you can’t fail to be left slightly scarred by inhabiting someone like that for two seasons now. I do carry elements of him with me. In a worrying way I find him relatable. You’re careful how I use that but I think I have a deep understanding of him and why he is how he is and we get a bit more of a glimpse of that in the second series as an audience. But I think there’s times, especially towards the end of series one and the end of series two when we’re filming, I would scare myself about how some of Jamie’s reactions would be similar….I mean Paul. My distaste for things would have built up over time of playing him because he has such a distaste for everything except his project, including family and everything and I wouldn’t take it that far. But you do carry some of that anger and that hatred in you a little bit, especially towards the end of a few months of playing him.”

Q: Gillian – do you think Stella Gibson is a character we might see more of? Obviously Allan has written for Jane Tennison before..?

Gillian Anderson: “Like an offshoot series?”

Q: Do you think you’d want to play her more, you could take her further in this series?

Gillian Anderson: “Definitely, yes. Hopefully so you will by the time you’ve seen the rest of the series.”

Q: Is that because she’s enigmatic and there’s lots to read into her – lots of questions to ask?

Gillian Anderson: “I think that potentially helps, yes. I just think she’s a very interesting character on television. Not just because she’s an island and enigmatic etc. But just who she is, everything that she stands for and how she operates. On the page I find that very compelling and I don’t feel like I’ve really seen that before. I like characters that are both recognisable and mysteries at the same time, to watch and to have an opportunity to play.”

Q: You mentioned what she stands for – what would you say that is?

Gillian Anderson: “She makes it very clear on a semi-regular basis how she feels about violence and violence against women and how these women are represented and how they are perceived and how it is more helpful to speak about them. And she really is a supporter of women and women being treated respectfully and rightfully. And I think she doesn’t mince words when she speaks about it and it feels like it’s in her bones. Not that she has a crusade of any kind but it goes with her in her work and everything that she does. And I like that about her.”

Q: It might seem ironic given the subject matter but would you say Allan…is this in some ways a feminist piece?

Allan Cubitt: “I’d like to think so. Obviously there were people who thought the diametric opposite of that. But there were plenty of people who did understand what I was trying to achieve in writing it. That it is, in a sense, a dissection of a certain kind of male view, an exploration of misogny. I think anything that sets out to explore a complex and difficult subject like that always runs the risk of being held up as being an example of it, rather than a critique of it.

“Obviously if you think that The Fall is misogynistic, if that was your conclusion at the end of watching the first season or the second season, I would have failed completely, abjectly. My feeling is that people who think that about it probably haven’t given it the closest reading, necessarily. It might be a knee jerk reaction to something that depicts violence against women. But, for me, the creation of the female characters within it and the entire ethos of the show and the entire argument, the dialectic, of the show I would have thought was completely clear. That actually it’s an attempt to take on a rather difficult subject, which is why it is that men turn so readily to violence and why it is that we see so many examples of violence against women perpertrated by men. And I think every beat of The Fall is really about trying to explain that.

“For example, even in the first episode you’ve just seen, what you get a very clear sense of, even when he’s alone in the Scottish farmhouse, is not just his unbelievable restlessness, his boredom at normal everyday life, but also by virtue of being alerted to the fact that his daughter has left her dolls behind and then he ties one up and fantasises about it, you get a very strong sense very early on that this man is driven by sadistic fantasies.

“And Gibson says during the course of the first episode, ‘It’s an addiction. He can’t stop himself from being drawn back into that cycle of fantasy that then…’ And the crucial difference that she points out in season one between normal male fantasies, if you like, and his violent sexual fantasies is that at some point he takes the step of putting his fantasies into a kind of reality. And that’s spoken about in this first episode and it will be spoken about more. So from that point of view, if you’re looking at the sorts of things that men think that sometimes lead them into those sorts of relationships with women where they are capable of perpetrating violence – they will think, for example, that women are dangerous. They will think that women are unknowable. They will think that the male sex urge is uncontrollable. All these sorts of things which will add up to a person who’s capable of acting like that. So I think that’s what The Fall is trying to dissect and explore. And I think it does it from a feminist point of view. I’m a bloke, so I can’t claim to be a feminist. But certainly nothing that I’ve ever written would have been written with some notion of degrading or demeaning women.

“Inevitably if you’re going to have a character like Spector, you’re going to be embracing taking on board some really very disturbing psychological dimensions to the character. And you’re playing them through. But at the same time you’re also saying that no-one, no criminal is just their criminality. They are all kinds of other things as well. And Spector is a great many other things beyond his criminal behaviour. But that’s disturbing.

“What Jamie had to get his head around was, what is his real feeling for his children and his daughter (Olivia)? And I hope that this first episode in the second season sets up that dilemma again right from the beginning. My heart is entirely with Olivia all the way through this thing. And she, for me, is the heartbeat of the thing. Because she’s a victim and she’s the most distressing victim in The Fall.”

Q: Jamie – you’re a Belfast boy. How important is the setting?

Jamie Dornan: “I just think it’s a very cool decision from Allan to set it there because there was no necessity to. But why not set it somewhere like Belfast? And by doing that you negate the connotations that Belfast has from people who aren’t from there – which is a place of bitter dispute, violence and needless killing. And people have a right to think that, because that’s what it kind of looks like from the outside. But growing up there you have a sense of that, of course, and you’re coloured by that and you carry that with you. But it’s not what the place is about. And when I first met Allan for this and auditioned, I said to him, ‘I’m just so relieved to read something that’s set in Northern Ireland that isn’t directly involving The Troubles.’ It was really genuinely refreshing. And it just serves as a great backdrop. It’s a cool looking place and I just think it’s a brave decision. But why not? Someone says in the first series, ‘We’ve had our share of murders in Belfast. Multiple murders. But we’ve never had a case like Spector. Nor should there be.”

Allan Cubitt: “I had in mind that thing where…if someone like Spector were to exist in a town that small, it sets up reverberations. It disturbs the entire community. Which is one of the things I was trying to capture. Hence the girl on the train (as seen in 2.1) who’s somewhat trepidatious about going back, has changed her hair colour. People get very scared by these sorts of events when they’re occurring and I wanted to try and capture something of that. Something of the panic that surrounds a person like Spector. You’ve seen it happen in London lots of times. But you do read about it when it’s in places where people go, ‘How can this be happening to us? How can this be happening here?’ And I wanted to try and get a little bit of that into The Fall.”

Questions were then opened up to the audience:

Q: Jamie – do you want to use this platform to say that you are a feminist yourself?

Jamie Dornan: “I have feminist values and I’m well aware of what my character is doing is wrong. We don’t see it maybe the way that many other people have seen the show – that it is misogynistic and unnecessarily violent towards women. I think it is clearly a depiction of violence against women but that is because it is a truth that occurs. There is violence against women and it’s often by men. We’re trying to get to the bottom of why men do that rather than just showing that sort of brutality for the sake of it.”

Q: (From me, as it happens): Jamie, you said earlier on that it’s quite remarkable what this second series entails. Obviously you can’t give anything away. But in terms of reading those scripts for the second series, were you shocked and / or surprised at the direction it takes and what’s in store for you character? And also perhaps if Gillian could answer that in terms of her character?

Gillian Anderson: I was…shocked is the wrong word. I was impressed and not surprised but pleased and slightly shocked at the direction that it took. I was extremely both moved and disturbed and impressed by how unpredictable some of the avenues are.”

Jamie Dornan: “I guess with the second series we don’t want it to be just a continuation of the first. You can’t do that to an audience. It’s not really fair. You’ve got to move it on. And I was expecting it to be moved on and we’d had many conversations about roughly the direction it would go and what would be the fate of Spector, particularly talking to Allan. And it went beyond anything I kind of had in my head that was capable story-wise. It was very exciting.”

Q: Allan – did your vision and the way you wrote series two, was it changed in any way by some of the things that were said after the first series?

Allan Cubitt: “No I didn’t. I wasn’t into self-censoring or anything as a result. I think we should be clear that there were some criticisms but they were by no means the majority of people or anything of that sort. One of the papers said it was the most disgusting drama ever made or pornographic or something. I just don’t think that there’s any possible way you can support that in an intelligent way. My mantra during the first season was we should neither sanitise nor sensationalise Spector. That’s a very difficult line to walk. I completely get that. And I didn’t direct the first season. So in the sense the second season that I’ve directed will I guess reflect, perhaps, even more my vision of the piece. But I made some conscious decisions. The body count, I decided, would be very low compared with most dramas. One woman was killed in season one. That was it. Three guys died in season one. That tends, of course, not to be mentioned. I made a conscious decision that we would not start with violence, we would get to know them. We cut away from the violence in actual fact. I’m not in any way attempting to minimise the impact of it because I think actually the more you draw the audience into a psychological relationship with the victims, the harder it’s going to be. Which is why, just seeing Olivia make a cup of tea upsets me. So the bigger your investment in the characters, the more impactful the dramatic moments will be. So you don’t have to cut people up to make that impact.”

Q: Jamie – this has been a breathrough role for you. What does it mean to you on a professional level?

Jamie Dornan: “This job has totally transformed my professional horizons. It’s totally changed my life. It’s all down to Allan and everyone else. But particularly Allan. I’ve always considered myself a very loyal person and, of course, I want to – if Allan wants to keep writing Spector I’m in. If Spector is still around at the end of the second series.” (laughter)

Q: Gillian – the effect on you of playing Stella?

Gillian Anderson: “The series as a whole has been miraculous from the very beginning for me. The production team, working with Allan and the whole crew. And the gentleness and the care with which it’s treated and the feeling on set and the ethos of the project. Just all of it is admirable. And coming down from Allan and his amazing mind but also his belief about what this piece is and what it represents. And so at varying times in filming the two seasons I’ve done quite a lot of other things, popping in and out. And it feels like such a gift in so many ways and exactly the kind of environment that I strive to work in and I feel very, very lucky to be a part of it and to have an opportunity to live in the shoes of Stella because I really enjoyed playing her. And to get to shoot in Belfast. Just all of it has been a joy.”

BBC The Fall

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Allan Cubitt

The Fall 1 Blog

Ian Wylie on Twitter

THE naked truth about the changing world around Downton Abbey is revealed in tonight’s episode. (Sunday October 19)
  
There are racy headlines in the library as Lady Rose (Lily James) reads out a magazine article about the opening of a “nudist colony” in Essex.
  
With writer Julian Fellowes making reference to the real life Moonella Group in Wickford, which in 1924 became the first naturist club in Britain with an established home.
  
The benefits of exercise, fresh air and “nude life culture” were promoted by the English Gymnosophist Society, founded after the Great War.
  
Members of the Moonella Group were carefully selected and members known by special club names – Moonella being the club name of the owner of the site, called The Camp.
  
“Some of the group’s rules are familiar in later naturist clubs,” according to the official history of British Naturism. 
  
“For example that the identity of members must not be revealed to others, that photographs and sketches must not be made without the approval of the committee and the subject. And that the location of the club site must not be revealed to others.”
  
Violet (Dame Maggie Smith) is not impressed with the idea of people taking all of their clothes off.
  
Neither is her son Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), still recovering from his latest dining room argument with teacher Sarah Bunting, who would no doubt approve of events in Essex.

  
Actress Daisy Lewis, who plays the trouble-making school mistress, has revealed she was not as calm as her outspoken character during filming.
  
She told me: “I do suffer from nerves so I sing to myself. Nursery rhymes. I find it strangely calming. If I sing. ‘Mary has a little lamb,’ under my breath in the corner, then I tend to calm down a bit.
  
“Where do the nerves come from? It’s a big spotlight. I’m very much aware that I want to do the best job that I possibly can. So the pressure if generally from me, as opposed to anyone else.
  
“It is a once in a lifetime opportunity and has been an amazing, very brave, character to play. I often wish that I was slightly braver in my own life and she has definitely made me think about what I believe in.”
   
Miss Bunting has been busy both downstairs and upstairs at Downton, giving lessons to assistant cook Daisy Mason (Sophie McShera) while confronting Lord Grantham about his establishment beliefs.  
  
“It’s a pretty terrifying prospect to come up against such a powerful, entrenched set of values. But I don’t think she is a trouble maker.

“She wants to see equality between the classes, equality for women and education for everyone despite their background. These are things that I think are good.”
  
Widower Tom Branson (Allen Leech) comes to a decision about his future with Sarah in tonight’s episode. But Daisy will not be among the millions tuning in.
  
“I can’t watch myself. I’m sure I could learn something from it. But I just find it excruciating. I have to retreat behind a cushion.”

In other Downton news tonight:

Robert is off out and away for the night.

All dressed up with somewhere to go.

Just as Simon Bricker (Richard E. Grant) makes a return visit.

Almost, but not quite, impressing Cora as a fetching silhouette upon arrival.

Lady Rose (Lily James) meets a rather dashing young man in the rain outside Bettys Tea Rooms.

On hand to ensure events Richard Harris sang about in MacArthur Park do not occur several decades ahead of their time.

There’s yet another delicious scene involving Spratt (Jeremy Swift) after his trip to Liverpool and subsequent return in 5.3.

I look forward to ITV’s eventual Men About The House spin-off, co-starring Mr Crabb (Ron Cook) from Mr Selfridge.

And Sgt Willis (Howard Ward) is back.

This time with a detective from London.

Sniffy critics may not agree.

But having now seen almost the entire series five of Downton Abbey, I still maintain Julian Fellowes is a genius.

*Downton Abbey is on ITV tonight at 9pm. 

ITV Drama

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Ian Wylie on Twitter

Graeme Hawley as Ken and Lisa Riley as Moira.

“WE always hear, ‘Golden age of British drama.’

“It’s not. It’s a golden age of British acting talent.

“We have never been so blessed in this country. It is incredible.”

Jimmy McGovern speaking at the London BAFTA launch of Moving On series six last month.

Five new stand alone dramas by up and coming writers starting on BBC1 at 2:15pm tomorrow (Monday Nov 10).

There’s a lot to like about both this series and the company behind it, Liverpool-based LA Productions led by Colin McKeown.

Monday’s first story – Madge – is written by Shaun Duggan, directed by actor Reece Dinsdale and stars Hayley Mills, Peter Egan and Kenneth Cranham.

The 45-minute tale of a woman in her late 60s living life to the full and hiding a big secret.

Tuesday is The Signature by Anthony Gannnie and stars Lisa Riley as Moira and Graeme Hawley as her husband Ken, struggling to pay their bills.

Full details of all five dramas are at this link.

Here’s the story I wrote immediately after the launch, followed by some Q&A material from those involved – including Hayley Mills:

FORMER Strictly star Lisa Riley “loved” being de-glammed for her latest gritty TV drama role.

The ex-Emmerdale actress plays Moira, a hard-up school dinner lady who also works in a corner shop to keep her family afloat, in BBC1’s Moving On.

Lisa revealed: “I look like I haven’t had a wash for 10 years. No glamour whatsoever. But I love it. You’ve got to get it right and I’m proud of the performance.”

2014 Strictly contestant Alison Hammond has revealed 2012 semi finalist Lisa inspired her to take to the dancefloor.

But there’s no sign of fake tan and sequins in the hard-hitting drama, which co-stars Graeme Hawley – Corrie killer John Stape – as Moira’s husband Ken, who suffers from MS.

Lisa explained: “When we were doing the school canteen scenes it was a freezing cold day but make-up were putting sweat on me because a big girl would be sweating.

“She’s an earthy northern woman. I wanted to look how she would look. You want to get it right. It’s important.

“There’s nothing that drives me more mental in British drama with certain actresses – I’m naming no names. But it drives me to distraction.

“If you can’t cry and you can’t feel it, don’t do it. Otherwise it’s fake. I like to shock people in my career.”

Lisa has also resumed her role as a behind-the-scenes reporter on Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two hosted by Zoe Ball.

She stars in the second of five new Moving On dramas on BBC1 this Tuesday. (Nov 11)

Hayley Mills as Madge and Peter Egan as Eric.

Damian Kavanagh, Controller of BBC Daytime, introduced the BAFTA screening by revealing he had already commissioned series seven:

“We’re six series in. Over 30 episodes. Personally I think it gets stronger all the time. It’s really hard always trying to keep a long running series fresh. But Colin and Jimmy and the team, every time they just pull together incredible actors, performers, directors and crew. And just raise the bar all the time.

“When I saw this series, I watched the five episodes back to back. And was so impressed by what I saw I straight away commissioned another five episodes. It’s an amazing piece of work. Something that we are absolutely proud to have on BBC1.”

Hayley Mills as Madge.

After a screening of the first two episodes, Colin McKeown said: “If you’ve seen two better female performances this year I will be very, very surprised.”

Jimmy McGovern: “What we have is a big team of writers and they all come with ideas and we simply pick eight ideas, do a wee bit of work on the story, try to improve the story, hopefully. and then pass on the eight ideas to Damian there, who then picks from maybe 12 ideas this time. So we put a fair bit of work into the initial story. And once you get a long short list, we then work harder on those stories. So it’s a team effort.

“On this I only work on the story. I get the writer into the room and we bash the stories around. So I don’t touch the script. Only in extreme circumstances, which haven’t really occurred. I think daytime drama must give you the right to fail. And as long as we’ve got the right to fail, that’s the way we should work with up and coming writers. They need the right to fail as well as the right to succeed or the opportunity to succeed. Whereas on Accused and The Street there’s no right to fail. You’ve got to succeed.”

Jimmy later commented: “It’s the curse of the industry – inflated language. A play can’t be good any more. It’s got to be brilliant. Well it isn’t brilliant. I’ve never seen a brilliant play. I’ve seen a good play, once or twice. But the inflated language gets in the way of honesty.”

Peter Egan as Eric.

Q: Hayley – what drew you to this?

Hayley Mills: “It was a bloody good script. And a wonderful part. Great pedigree. It was a gift. There was no question. It was a joy from start to finish. I don’t remember working so hard. It was really full on, non-stop. But it’s a great company. Committed, creative and passionate people. Just wonderful. I loved every minute of it.”

Colin McKeown: “And I’ll say this on Hayley’s behalf – she’s never worked as hard, or for as less.” (laughter)

Moving on 6.1 director Reece Dinsdale.

Q: The culture shock of shooting a script in six days and you’re in every single scene?

Hayley Mills: “Yes. A few sleepless nights, I have to say. Luckily I had a week away. I left the country. My brother had somewhere in Italy and my partner and I went to stay with him. And that’s all I did for a whole week, is learn my lines. And then when I arrived in Liverpool I met my director, Reece Dinsdale, who was so supportive and so encouraging. I felt he was like a forklift truck under me. He just swept me along. And the whole crew, the cast, everybody’s working together. It’s all a team effort and you just get swept along by it. It wasn’t until it’s all over that I got on the train back to London and collapsed.”

The Beneficiary: Paul (CHARLIE GALLAGHER), Derek (DOMINIC CARTER), Helen (KATY CARMICHAEL), Stephen (LUKE TITTENSOR)

Two Brothers: Lorraine (CARLA HENRY), Peter (WIL JOHNSON).

Blind: Terry (NEIL FITZMAURICE), Jenny (ANNA CRILLY), Daniel (CHRIS McCAUSLAND).

BBC Moving On

LA Productions

Moving On Blogs

Ian Wylie on Twitter

“WHAT’S the point of getting older if you can’t break the rules?”

I have been lucky enough to experience many magical moments in my career.

Discussing Tootsie over a Soho lunch with Dustin Hoffman in 1982 is one of thousands.

Another was just a few streets and 32 years away from there earlier this month.

The press premiere screening of a 90-minute adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot.

A heartwarming and joyous film set to be screened on BBC1 on Christmas Day or thereabouts.

Starring Dustin Hoffman as Mr Hoppy, Judi Dench as Mrs Silver and James Corden as the (in-vision) narrator.

With a screenplay by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, reunited for the first time since The Vicar of Dibley.

Resulting in a classic film to charm both adults and children.

A story of two people alone in their seventies…and a tortoise.

The hour-long Q&A after the screening is my favourite of 2014 to date.

Including a number of thoughtful, poignant and revealing quotes from Oscar winners Dustin and Judi.

For example, Dustin, 77, talking about moments that have changed his life, such as:

“Waking up and realising that you have not been living your life.”

And Judi – who will be 80 next month – on age discrimination.

The Q&A in full deserves a wider audience, which is why I’ve transcribed it all below.

Some 7000 words, with more production photos to be added when they are released.

But, in my humble opinion, worthy of your time.

Including reading to the end when there was a truly magical moment on stage in the cinema at London’s new Ham Yard Hotel.

As Paul Mayhew-Archer explains below:

“The whole purpose of the story, really, is to show that it’s never too late. And whatever happens to you, never give up.”

Or as Mrs Silver says: “Grab joy while you can.”

Richard Curtis introduced the screening:

“I always worry about people introducing things too enthusiastically. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my beautiful and intelligent wife.’ Oh! So I thought I’d say just one thing about the genesis of the film and how extraordinarily quick it was, in so far as I’m a huge fan of Roald Dahl. I do think he’s an absolute genius and like almost Dickens for our kids. And I’ve read all his…or most of his books to most of my children. And I did just read Esio Trot one day to my son Spike and then the next day started to think about it and it suddenly occurred to me that it was a romantic comedy. And I like those. About two older people. And I’d always wanted to write something about my mum and dad but never quite managed it. And it suddenly occurred to me that might be my personal, particular reason for working on it. Then I thought, ‘Oh I could do it with Hilary (Bevan Jones) who I’ve made two films with and then worked with since Not The Nine O’Clock News and she likes flowers, which is very relevant’, as you’ll see in the film. And then I thought, ‘And then I could do it with Paul Mayhew-Archer, who I did The Vicar of Dibley with, who is the nicest man in the world and has fun hair.’ And then I thought, ‘Well if we get lucky, we could do it with the BBC at Christmas.’

“In fact, the first thing I wrote longer than half an hour was something called Bernard And The Genie, a long time ago with the BBC. So long ago, I was just reflecting it was Alan Cumming who was the star of it, was married to a woman. And he’s now married to a man. And then that same afternoon I thought, ‘We must try and use the music of Louis Armstrong,’ who was my dad’s favourite musician and has this extraordinary mixture of heart and joy. After that afternoon it went through then the normal amazing journey that every film goes through and particularly we were lucky to get the fabulous Dearbhla Walsh on board to direct it, who’s been so passionate about it from the beginning. And then a couple of very good actors, unexpectedly. Although, of course, it’s lots and lots of very good actors.

“And I just want to say one thing – my favourite moment almost of the whole shoot is when James Corden finished shooting the film. I overheard him saying goodbye to Dustin Hoffman. And he said, ‘Dustin, it’s been a lovely experience. I’m going to spread the word. You’re a smashing little actor.’ So maybe Dustin will pick up some other jobs now.”

Charlotte Moore, the Controller of BBC1, added:

“A real jewel in the Christmas schedules. It really is a very special 90-minute drama, adapted by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, who have re-kindled their partnership to write Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot for the first time since The Vicar of Dibley.

“It was the highlight of my time on BBC1 so far to turn up one summer morning quite early in Stoke Newington and to walk into this old building on Newington Green and there before my eyes was Dame Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman dancing together. I was transported into a children’s book that I’d read to my children and suddenly there it was before my eyes. It was like stepping out into a story book. What Richard and Paul have done is really capture the magic of the story in a really exceptional way.”

Press Q&A with Richard Curtis / Judi Dench / Dustin Hoffman / Producer Hilary Bevan Jones / Director Dearbhla Walsh / Paul Mayhew-Archer – hosted by Richard Arnold.

Q: Richard – five years you’ve been pondering this tale of love in our dotage, if you like. Why so passionate about it?

Richard Curtis: “Oh, I mean lots of reasons. I wanted to do it because of the Roald Dahl connection. Because I loved it and I really have read those books to a succession of children. And I think particularly as we started to work on it, I was particularly in love with the idea of doing something about love between vaguely, slightly…”

Judi Dench: “Steady…”

Richard Curtis: “…minisculely, older people than me. My mum and dad had an incredibly happy marriage. So, as it were, they did what they did in 1952 or something like that. I remember seeing Judi in A Pack Of Lies (1983), which was the most extraordinary stage performance. Of a really, really sweet and gentle…”

Judi Dench: “She was sweet, wasn’t she?”

Richard Curtis: “…housewife. Not the extraordinary grand and exceptional figure she is. And just thinking, ‘That absolutely just is my mum and exactly how she would react to it.’”

Judi Dench: “It’s about the Krogers. It’s about the spies.”

Richard Curtis: “She’s in the lift and she says that she likes summer best and then spring best and then autumn best. And that, again, would have been exactly that optimistic spirit of my mum. My dad was a much shyer immigrant from Australia, was uncertain of his ground and of his accent and everything like that. So I found just a huge amount in my own life which I managed to put into it.”

Q: The choice of James Corden as the narrator?

Paul Mayhew-Archer: “Well we wanted someone who was very lively and sort of chirpy and a bit cheeky in that sense of the way Roald Dahl is. And also a storyteller that would draw us into the story of these two people. And also it enabled us to…he says, when they get into the lift at the end, he and his daughter at the end, ‘Not the ending you were expecting.’ And it gave us the opportunity to do a sort of Tale of the Unexpected with Roald Dahl’s story. And James has a natural…I’d seen him in One Man, Two Guvnors and he has that wonderful way of drawing an audience in. We thought that would be marvellous.”

Q: Hilary – Dame Judi, Dustin Hoffman…first choice?

Hilary Bevan Jones: “Of course. Absolutely first choice…”

Dustin Hoffman: “I thought Jennifer Lawrence was…”

Hilary Bevan Jones: “No it really was. It was, ‘Well, do you think? Dare we ask?’ And we just thought, ‘What have we got to lose?’ And, my goodness, they both said yes. And I honestly think for all of us it was the best days of our lives. So, yeah. First choice.”

Q: Judi – the appeal of the piece for you?

Judi Dench: “I knew the story. I’ve read it to children. Many, many children. And so I knew the story. And, well…they did say Dustin Hoffman’s name. So, I mean, it could have been Five On A Treasure Island or whatever. It could have been any of those things. It could have been just, ‘Would you like to come and walk down the street and Richard Curtis will watch you?’ I wanted to play Mrs Silver, unconditionally.”

Q: Is is true you got the reputation on set for being a bit of a tortoise whisperer?

Judi Dench: “I do get on very, very well with animals. My family said to me, because we have a lot of animals, they said, ‘Oh, you’re going to come home with a tortoise.’ I said, ‘No, I won’t come home with a tortoise.’ Because a tortoise won’t run towards you with that kind of smiley, fuzzy face, like the cats do and the dogs do. But I did get quite fond of it. Of a little tortoise called Alfie. And my character is too stupid to know it’s being changed all the time. It was Alfie all the time. But it did go into a kind of…after I’d said this poem backwards to it so many times, it went into a kind of stupor and then it yawned. And a tortoise yawning is all-encompassing.”

Q: So this is the first time you’ve form, Dustin, together, in terms of working together?

Dustin Hoffman: “Do you know, I saw Judi in Mrs Brown in the States and I was so taken with the performance – and I rarely do this – I said, ‘Is it possible to get her phone number?’ And I got her phone number and I called her and I start going on and on and on about how brilliant I thought she was in the film. And she keeps trying to interrupt me. And I keep going past the interruption. And finally she said, ‘I really have to be on stage now.’ (laughter) It was between the first and second act that I’d called her cellphone. She was on the West End. So that was the first encounter.”

Q: And you actually own a tortoise?

Dustin Hoffman: “Yes I do. I had another one. I had two. Be careful, because they’ll go underneath the fence. And he made his way out to traffic and got run over. And still lived and we had to put down. Until you’ve had to put down a tortoise…it was sad. But then the other other one has survived. His name is Seventy. Because I got it on my 70th birthday, about 25 years ago.” (laughter)

Richard Curtis: “We wanted to put on the credits, ‘No tortoises were harmed in the filming of this. Except by Judi Dench.’”

Q: Dearbhla – the perils of directing. How many tortoises were there?

Dearbhla Walsh: “There were 60 live ones and 40 models. And then a few reproduced ones. We had an animatronic one. We had every version of tortoise. I even wore a tortoise as a good luck charm. The costume lady gave all the ladies good luck charms of tortoises. So Dustin and Judi were so easy and the tortoises – they had such demands, they just needed to rest. Dustin and Judi turned up on set at eight in the morning and worked without breaks, through meal breaks, the whole lot. Never any demands. Just would do it again and again. And the tortoises had to have their breaks…we had a tortoise wrangler, an absolutely wonderful guy called Mark who just was…”

Dustin Hoffman: “You have to tell, you talked to him about was he married?”

Dearbhla Walsh: “When we went round all the various pet shops looking for the locations, they weren’t as I imagined from my childhood and my experience of being in pet shops. And, of course, health and safety now means no animals can be kept in the windows of pet shops as we remember growing up. Mark ran an exotic pet shop just outside London so I went out to him one day and, oh my God, there were exotic animals all through the pet shop. He brought me round to his house, his back garden had the owl from Harry Potter, there were tortoises the size of this table, there were ferrets…then he took me through his house and I said, ‘Mark. Are you married?’ And he said, ‘I was.’ (laughter) Jilted because of a tortoise.”

Q: You just light up when you see Mrs Silver, particularly with the costumes as well. Did you have a hand in that, Judi?

Judi Dench: “Yes, I loved all that. Very unlike me, which is heaven. It’s not so much fun looking like yourself. And in that red wig and all this costume, I did feel like Mrs Silver, not like me. What a relief. And then I was offered one of these dresses – that white, flowery dress. And they said, ‘Would you ever wear it?’ I said, ‘Wear it? Of course I’ll wear it.’ Well, of course, it hangs in my cupboard and I look at it and I think, ‘When am I ever going to wear that?’ (Laughter) Well, not looking like this. Yes, if I got that kind of all red wig and I was all anyhow like that, I might give it…”

Dustin Hoffman: “They altered the costumes to look like the drapes, (curtains) right?”

Dearbhla Walsh: “There aren’t many people that can…she’s dressed at times like one of the Von Trapps. She’s wearing the curtains and she looks absolutely remarkable. Pulls it off…”

Q: Dustin – the dance moves?

Dustin Hoffman: “I was taking lessons from a choreographer. I’m not a dancer. I’m nowhere near it. And I thought after the first two lessons, ‘This is not going to work.’ Because we were supposed to shoot the last two days, I think, in Battersea, the full blown thing. And I said, ‘I’m not going to be ready. Not even close and you don’t have anyone else to double me. So you better get one.’ And then we had a lesson together and Dearbhla just became enchanted with the way we were just naturally doing it. And so it wasn’t a problem because I wasn’t supposed to know how to dance. And she’ll (Judi) dance your socks off, this one. Oh my God. Great energy.”

Judi Dench: “Energy is all I have.”

Q: And the chemistry as well, Richard, obviously hit the ground running?

Richard Curtis: “Oh yeah. It was such an exciting thing. They were both unbelievably sweet to work with and very different kinds of actors. It was kind of extraordinarily frustrating in a way because for the first four weeks they weren’t in a scene together, were you? The construction of the way we made the film was very like the film. So Judi was at one level and Dustin was at the other level and they never got to be within…almost not in the same shot, except for one really wide shot, for a month. So for all of us the final scene was when he comes down to her flat and she comes up to his, were like they were happening for real. We’d been so longing to see. It was a bit like De Niro and Pacino who never appeared in the same shot in Heat. We were just longing to prove that they’d both be there at the same time.”

Paul Mayhew-Archer: “And Dustin had four days when he was just with tortoises all day. That’s enough to send anyone slightly bonkers.”

Dustin Hoffman: “I did prefer those over Judi, though.” (laughter) You’ve never smelled anything like it. 60 tortoises. I’m telling you, that tortoise poo. That was the real thing.”

Q: They were all there? They weren’t added later?

Dustin Hoffman: “No. They’re there. No CGI for us. Actually it was good for me because, as I said, I do have a tortoise and I learned, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to get home and give it some strawberries.’ Because there were some delicacies I didn’t know that they loved. I loved watching them eat.”

Questions were then opened up to members of the media in the audience:

Q: Judi – Mrs Silver in the film, when the Christmas tree is up, she said, ‘When you get older, if you can’t break the rules, what’s the point?’ Both of you – do you feel that way in your own lives?

Judi Dench: “Well I think it’s quite fun to break the rules at any time. I don’t think it necessarily matters that you’re getting that dreaded word: ‘O-L-D-E-R.’”

Dustin Hoffman: “We’ve always been that way.”

Judi Dench: “We’ve always been like that from the beginning. So I think it’s good not to conform, actually. But I don’t think it’s good to do it…I think consciously not conforming is not on. But I think if you don’t want to toe the line and you want to break the rules, go ahead. I think.”

Richard Curtis: “One day I made the mistake of saying to Judi that I thought she looked a bit more like the Quentin Blake drawing in the book than Dustin did. Because it’s very Arthur Lowe, the drawing. But Judi took enormous offence to this and pointed out that the woman had a pointy nose and she didn’t look anything like that. And the next day she gave me a little gift. She said, ‘Here’s a little present for you Richard.’ And it was a photocopy of a picture of her from the book, coloured in. And it just said, ‘Dear Richard, you’re fired.’ (laughter) So…she does behave badly.”

Q: Judi – did you have fixed ideas about how the characters would look?

Judi Dench: “No. I didn’t have any fixed ideas until I read the script. And then you try and fit into that. And, hopefully, you do.”

Q: Dustin – watching you dance with Judi, I was reminded of another time when you were dancing on film with Tom Cruise in Rain Man. I was wondering whether you made the same connection yourself? Or are there any comparisons between Dame Judi and Tom Cruise, in the dancing sense?

Dustin Hoffman: “They smelled exactly the same.” (laughter) The first thing I said when I held Judi, I said, ‘You smell just like Tom Cruise.’ I don’t think I thought of Tom once.”

Judi Dench: “I never thought of him (Tom) once. But it’s like that question of…when I was at Stratford all those years and we’d be doing four plays at Stratford, or five. And people used to say, ‘Don’t you get the plays muddled up?’ Well you simply don’t get them muddled up because they’re all different plays, you’ve all got a different part, you wore an entirely different costume, it’s a different mindset for it all. And therefore nothing really ever overlaps much. Does it?”

Dustin Hoffman: “Well, you just finished doing what before you started doing Esio? Something, right?”

Judi Dench: “Marigold.(The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel)”

Dustin Hoffman: “Yes. And then after Esio immediately you stayed there working for Mr Weinstein.”

Judi Dench: “I did. Tulip Fever. Yes, I did. For half an hour.”

Dustin Hoffman: “And then I gave you a BAFTA in Los Angeles and you came out for one day because you had to get back to doing a Shakespeare.”

Judi Dench: “The Duchess of York. Take ‘em while they’re offered.” (laughter)

Q: (From me, as it happens) A question for Judi and Dustin. Looking back, can you recall a role or roles where you really felt that you began to come out of your shell and really grow as actors?

Judi Dench: “I think you learn from every single thing you do. And I’ve always liked doing the most different thing from the last thing I’ve ever done. I loved playing Cleopatra because people were openly rude about me playing the part when they heard I was going to play it. So the challenge of that was absolutely tremendous. And then you play one thing…now the last thing now I would want to play is anybody like Mrs Silver. The last thing. And then suddenly getting a part like Barbara Covett in Notes On A Scandal is a kind of gift. Absolute gift. You think, ‘Oh, another kind of stimulus. Something else to get hold of. Some other person to find out about and try and portray.’ I’ve never done a part where I haven’t learned something new in it. And I remember Michael Williams, my husband, and I did Diary Of A Nobody in the theatre. And we said, ‘This is very short and we’ll just do this and then we’ll go home and it’ll be absolutely wonderful.’ Well it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever, ever, ever done. Ever done. So things always present a challenge. I think. Always. And the more challenge it presents, the better you feel. And the more miserable you are.” (laughter)

Dustin Hoffman: “If I may, the first thing I want to say, just listening to Judi, is that what makes Judi so extra-ordinary, I think, more extraordinary than other extraordinary actors, is this blend of character and herself. So that the character never…so-called character…never runs away from the actor. So that she blends herself. She’s in there. Every molecule of herself. So when you’re watching this flamboyant, I think, this flamboyant Mrs Silver, and there she is sitting there showing Alfie (the tortoise) these photographs and she starts talking about her husband, Judi comes through there. And it’s chilling. And you won’t get, for my two bucks, you won’t get better acting than that. Where you see this blend. It just gets you. She just allows you right into her bone marrow, as it were.”

Judi Dench: “And you don’t do that, I suppose?” (laughter)

Dustin Hoffman: “All I try to do – I just said to my wife, because it is true, maybe we’ve talked about it…that it’s by hook or crook that you become successful. In this business it’s a freak accident, I always think. We know the longer we live so many talented actors that just weren’t at that place at that time and just wind up much less fortunate than we are. So I start in this part, ‘Well what if that didn’t happen to me?’ I could see myself…I guess that’s what it comes down to…can you see yourself alone? Can you see yourself just living alone? And I could see myself. I could see it right now. I mean, this has all been a dream anyway, right?”

Judi Dench: “We imagined it.”

Dustin Hoffman: “I think I’m going to wake up with tubes coming out and I’ll say, ‘You mean I really didn’t become a star? I’ve really been unconscious for 50 years?’”

Paul Mayhew-Archer: “It was amazing, actually, because Dustin would sometimes creep up and say, ‘Isn’t she absolutely wonderful to work with?’ And then Judi would creep up a few minutes later and say, ‘He is such a dream to work with.’ But I have no idea whether they told each other, actually.”

Dustin Hoffman: “We didn’t talk. We just fondled.” (laughter)

Dearbhla Walsh: “Just to say that it was a real life love story. In the sense that I, as the director, I wanted to fall in love together. Dustin is a naturally very shy person, surprisingly. And Judi is so naughty and has so much joie de vivre and has such a sense of fun. And Dustin would turn around and say, ‘God, isn’t she brilliant? Isn’t she wonderful?’ We’d be up 30 feet in the air and Judi would be about 15 feet in the air and we’d run between upstairs and downstairs. And then when we rehearsed the dance, Dustin just stood there rooted to the spot and just watched Judi, watched Mrs Silver. He said, ‘There’s no acting here. Isn’t she just…’ As she wove a spell around. So it was just such a real life love story, I think.”

Q: Could you talk a bit about the logistics of the shooting. The choice of the apartment block was fantastic to look at. I was constantly wondering, did you build a set so that one was above the other? How did you work that one apartment above the other situation?

Hilary Bevan Jones: “We actually did build the apartment. We had a stage in Pinewood, which was fantastic because they’re like gold dust at the moment. We built on a rostra, so that Mrs Silver’s flat was about 15 foot up and then Mr Hoppy’s was up another 15. Obviously we had to find our location first and we found a location in Hackney that we used. But the key thing that Dearbhla realised very early one was that in the book you imagine the flats to be above each other. That wouldn’t work for the actors because they’d be…so you have to step them. So they both had their own platforms to work on.”

Dearbhla Walsh: “The most difficult part of this whole production, I think, forget the tortoises, working with two extraordinary actors, Richard and Paul’s scripts, the schedule etc…I think the greatest challenge was the location. a) finding the location, because when you read the script you don’t think about any of the technicalities of the script. And one of the easiest, most enjoyable scripts to read. And then, of course, when you go out looking, because we always wanted to keep it truthful and grounded in a reality, of course, I can tell you there are only two apartment blocks in the whole of London that actually are staggered apartments. Because when we went looking for them, they just actually don’t exist. And Roald Dahl wrote it obviously with no idea that it would be adapted someday. Because he certainly didn’t make it easy. I think he wrote it…in the pictures, although we’ve stayed very much away from Quentin Blake’s illustrations…but it’s set in a mansion block, which is only three or four blocks. But by virtue of the adaptation from Paul and Richard it had to be at least six blocks high because of the storytelling of Mrs Woo. So finding that apartment block…and we found and lost a couple of them. And then when we found it, because we always thought we’d shoot it for real – apartment balconies by their very nature are on the south facing side of a building. Which, of course, is no good because the light is on it all of the time. Planes going over. And basically there isn’t a crane high enough to shoot it for real. So we did build the apartments. And we built them for real, so they were on extraordinary scaffolding. So literally Dustin and Judi couldn’t…they could not communicate with each other, except on the balconies. There was no kind of little slip hole that we could move easily between the two apartments.”

Hilary Bevan Jones: “We did have one day, one whole day, on location. Just to get some of the bigger views.”

Q: Was that a challenge for the actors – the up and down bit?

Judi Dench: “A challenge on your neck, actually. So tired looking up like that all the time.”

Dustin Hoffman: “The hardest part is that I always get warm. so I always want air conditioning. I said, ‘Do they have air conditioning? Oh Pinewood, they must have it.’ And the guys brought in these great big machines. Because it really was humid. It was hard to keep your energy. And then suddenly by the third day we’re not using them anymore. It took me a long time for me to find out the real reason. And it was because of the tortoises. If they get too cold they won’t act.” (laughter)

Q: Dustin – weirdly, you reminded me of Benjamin in The Graduate, almost 50 years on. There were similarities in the story. Almost losing the woman and the diffidence. And I wondered whether if you had thought of Benjamin at all when you were making it? It almost seems like a re-visit in some ways. And my second question is – why isn’t this getting a cinema release?”

Richard Curtis: “The second one is, it just was never intended for that purpose.”

Dustin Hoffman: “She’s (Judi) been my Mrs Robinson since I first saw her…”

Judi Dench: “Isn’t there something wrong about this, though? Wasn’t she (Anne Bancroft) much older than you?”

Dustin Hoffman: “In real life I was 29 going on 30 when I did it and Anne Bancroft was 35. Which is only five years’ difference. And here, I’m much older than you. (laughter) But no, I didn’t think of it consciously.”

Richard Curtis: “That is the weird thing about film and things that you’ve done, that you’re often the person who’s watched it least. I wonder if an occasion ever happens when Dustin would sit down and watch The Graduate? And yet I’ve watched it with various children three times in the last 10 years. It’s an odd thing.”

Paul Mayhew-Archer: “Yes. I talked to Dustin about All The President’s Men and Dustin couldn’t remember how it ended.”

Richard Curtis: “Badly for Nixon.”

Q: Judi and Dustin – what surprised you most about working with each other, finally?

Judi Dench: “What I liked about it was boasting that I was going to do it, before we started. And now I say, ‘Oh I know him.’”

Q: Was there a lot of jealousy from other people when they heard you were going to be working with Dustin Hoffman?

Judi Dench: “Oh I think so. Yes. Why not?”

Dustin Hoffman: “I want to do a movie and I don’t know if I told these guys, but I want to do a movie with all the CGIs and stuff that can happen today, because I started looking at all of Judi’s stuff when I realised I was going to get to work with her. And that extraordinary Google thing. I mean, my God, you just push…and there’s Judi in her teenage years or her twenties. Equally gorgeous now but I mean stunning. And I said to Judi, ‘If I’d met you then I wouldn’t have let you get away.’ And I must say, there must be a way to do a love story where we meet in our twenties, yet we’re acting as we are now. Does that make any sense at all? Computer graphics or something. Why can’t we look like we did in our twenties? If only we could do it. ‘If Only’. There’s your title. What a scrumptious looking woman right from the beginning and throughout her life, she is. I don’t lie about these things.”

Richard Curtis: “There was a lovely moment by the way…Richard Cordery (Mr Pringle) isn’t here, who I think gives such a gorgeous performance…and the sense of history with actors who you’ve known a long time. There was an incredibly touching moment at our first lunch together when Richard said the first show he’d ever seen in the theatre in London was you (Judi) in Cabaret. And that that was the thing which made him want to become an actor.”

Dustin Hoffman: “I didn’t know that. He’s wonderful.”

Judi Dench: “He’s a good actor.”

Dustin Hoffman: “He’s lovely in this.”

Q: This is a story about hope and love in old age and, in Mrs Silver’s case, in widowhood. What was the appeal of telling that story for you?

Judi Dench: “I can’t hear.”

Richard Arnold: “The appeal of telling this story of love in widowhood…”

Q: …or old age. Older age, sorry.

Dustin Hoffman: “From the moment I got this part and I was in London, I started cutting out all these newspaper things. I’d get a bunch of newspapers in the morning, a lot of them trash. The amount of trash in newspapers you have. We used to have them in New York. Not any more. The Star, The Sun, The…I mean…so much fun. And I was looking at my bulletin board, I got here two days ago, and I just put this one out and put it in my book, ‘Woman, 105, had to wait six hours for the ambulance to come and pick her up.’ And did. And she’d injured herself or something and they picked her up and she’s fine. But someone else in their nineties, someone else 102. It’s another time now. And so I don’t think of it…it’s hard to answer your question. You said ‘old age’ and then you said ‘older age’. And now I’m not even sure ‘older age” works. There’s this guy Manoel Oliveira who’s just finished directing his last film, who’s like this legendary director of movies. He’s 105. So I know this doesn’t occur to someone as young as you but we’re in a rich community right now. So when we eventually do die, we won’t know it probably for about five years.” (laughter)

Judi Dench: “I just think that age is a number and it’s imposed on you. The only time I really got upset was when I was 40, for some reason. I got really upset when I was 40. But after that, I think it’s that old thing that everybody says: You’re as old as you feel. The only thing is it drives me absolutely spare when people say, ‘Are you going to retire?’ Or, ‘Don’t you think it’s time to put your feet up?’ Or they tell me my age. People like to tell you your age. They love it. They love it. And I loathe it. I don’t want to be told that I’m too old to do something. I want to try it first. And then, if I don’t succeed, then I can be told I can’t do it.”

Richard Arnold: “So it’s the presumption?”

Judi Dench: “Yes. Because you get to a certain age then, ‘Oh, well, you mustn’t do that.’ Or, ‘You might have a fall,’ or, ‘You can’t learn the lines.’ Let me have a go. Let us all have a go. Because if there were a cross section of people, say in this room, all of the same age say, 39 or 40, everybody would be totally different. Everybody’s energy would be different. Everybody’s outlook would be different. And it’s not to do with age. It’s something to do with inside. It’s the engine. As long as you can keep the engine going for a bit, you won’t fall over.”

Richard Curtis: “From my point of view, I’ve just suddenly thought, because love was a huge thing with my mum and dad…but I suddenly thought, I’ve been writing all these films about people who were in a position where if it doesn’t work out with Julia Roberts you can go round the corner and Kate Hudson will be there. But I think that the idea of how important it would be if you were lonely when you were older. It actually makes the stakes higher and the rewards more extraordinary. I did feel that trying to write about two people falling in love and finding love when they both have presumed that they wouldn’t, ever, rather than a hopeful and presuming that they will, would make it actually even more dramatic. And I think that of the films I’ve written which have got love in them, this is the finished couple that I believe are most likely to stay together.”

Dustin Hoffman: “There’s a line that Bertrand Russell, I have written down on my bulletin board, when he turned 90 they asked him how it felt. And this is – how many years ago did he turn 90, my God. And they said, ‘How does it feel to be 90?’ And he said, ‘Oh, to be 80 again.’” (laughter)

Q: Judi – it’s not often we see your cleavage. Did you enjoy playing a more sexy side?

Judi Dench: “Oh yeah. Oh, I’ve shown my cleavage for 60 years, nearly. Is that so? Is it very low? Well it’s because you’re looking from above. (laughter) That’s rude.”

Q: Did you relish the chance to play a more sexually forward character than maybe you have?

Judi Dench: “Well, that’s her, isn’t it? She gets on with what she’s got and makes the best of it.”

Q: This film uses some effects to help with the tortoises but in the service of the story. Do you think in films today, too often, the special effects and the CGI gets to overwhelm the story and maybe it’s gone too far?

Dustin Hoffman: “Cynically, people have been starting to say, or been saying, that it’s over, the movie biz as we know it. I remember in the eighties, I was promoting Tootsie in Italy and I got to meet Fellini at dinner. And he was saying then how it is no fun anymore. He could speak English and he says, ‘I make movies. Movie houses used to be cathedrals. You’d walk up these stairs and there’s chandeliers and a big screen. You felt like you were in a palace. Now it’s all in a mall and people come in on their rollerskates and they sit down and it’s very small.’ And look, here it is 30 years later or something and it’s being watched on an iPad. Some guy sitting in a car – my wife and I were walking down the street last night in Ken High Street and there was a guy just sitting in a car watching it. She says, ‘That’s Esio Trot pretty soon. He’ll just be watching it by himself in the car.’”

Richard Curtis: “I saw Interstellar in the IMAX and, of course, that was absolutely amazing. I think it’ll re-invent itself. My little 12-year-old, it’s so amazing the access he’s got to the history of cinema now. For his birthday he got a £50 voucher and we went to Video City and we bought four classic films, one from each decade. I couldn’t do that when I was young. I saw Zulu once and then I didn’t see it again for 30 years and I had to be in that Sunday. So I think the rise of the way that actors like Dustin and Judi are happy to do something like this for the telly is fantastic too. It’s so wonderful that however many million people will definitely watch it on the day that it goes out, if we’re lucky. Things change. I remember Paul Schrader once being asked about the movies. The same thing. And he said, ‘You know, you go with what happens. Madrigals were once hugely popular.’ And they faded away and suddenly…pop music replaced them. So I’m hopeful that as things go down, things are going upward.”

Q: In the film Mr Hoppy talks about 10 key moments that would change your life. Or have changed your life. I’m not going to ask you for all 10 but I was wondering if you could each give me one key moment that has changed your lives?

Dustin Hoffman: “Being born. (laughter) Starting right from there. Well, yes, having an unhappy childhood. That’s what I disputed to myself – Richard, at the very beginning, saying he had wonderful parents or a happy childhood. And I said, ‘He’s lying.’ He’d be the first really creative person I’ve ever met who came from a happy childhood. (laughs) I just think that the more creative you are, the more complicated your childhood and your adolescence. Reaching five foot six and not anything more has changed my life. I kept saying, ‘When am I going to get any taller?’ Well, certainly The Graduate. Because I just hoped to be a character actor, which meant the people supporting the leads. So there’s a kind of freak accident. This is not a consequence but getting divorced from my first wife changed my life. And meeting my second and current wife. Having the children changes your life. But I think more than anything else, waking up – and it is a wake up…waking up and realising that you have not been living your life. And Richard and I talked about this. Because when you’re doing the creative dance, it’s all encompassing. Especially when you’re in those years, your 30s, 40s. And suddenly just putting a brake on it and saying, ‘My work – it should be just my work. It should not be my life.’ That’s huge and I think you can probably say it better.”

Richard Curtis: “That’s sort of what my film About Time was about.”

Dustin Hoffman: “That’s right, yes.”

Richard Curtis: “To do that. But I have to say this was a fun film to make, wasn’t it? We did have quite a good time.”

Judi Dench: “Good fun. Hard work. Very hard work for Dearbhla. Unbelievably hard work for Dearbhla, who had to run between both sets up and down stairs>”

Dustin Hoffman: “How many days did we shoot?”

Dearbhla Walsh: “Five-and-a-half weeks. 30 days.”

Paul Mayhew-Archer: “I have to say, this was a key moment for me. Because Richard invited me to work with him on Esio Trot three months after I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. And so I had that sense of wondering where my life is going to go and then I had the most extraordinarily happy, fulfilling experience of my life working on this film. And it’s sustained me over the last three years. And actually the whole purpose of the story, really, is to show that it’s never too late. And whatever happens to you, never give up.”

Richard Curtis: “I just thought we’d get you cheap. (laughter) I was surprised when it was full cost.”

Judi Dench: “I suppose a key moment was – I trained as a theatre designer and I went to Stratford and I saw a production of King Lear with Michael Redgrave, way back in the fifties. And I knew that night, I just knew that I wasn’t going to be a designer. It was an enormous stage, it looked like a poppadom. It was a huge circular rough thing and it turned everywhere and became the cave, the throne, every single thing. And I only understood curtains coming down and change the set, and curtains going up. That’s all I had really understood. And suddenly I thought, ‘Oh this is what designing is.’ And I thought, ‘I don’t have that imagination.’ And so it wasn’t like St Paul on the way to Damascus. It was one of those moments. And then I suppose going to Central and getting into The Old Vic. I left Central and went straight to The Old Vic and played Ophelia. And got shot down at a thousand feet. But they went on employing me, which was very good. And that was my real passion, was Shakespeare. So I was there from ’57 to ’61 – and I didn’t mean to make such a long speech. So I got to do the things I absolutely was passionate about. And then I went to Stratford. So I got a real dose of it.”

Dustin Hoffman: “I was able to give Judi her BAFTA in Los Angeles and I never knew when you made your speech that someone looked at you at the very beginning and said, ‘You’ll never be in the movies.’”

Judi Dench: “That’s right. They did. They did. It was an office in Piccadilly, I always remember it. I’m not going to tell you who it was. But, yes. He said, ‘I’m sorry. You will never make a film.’ Because he said, ‘Your face is the kind of wrong arrangement.’ And then it was 32 years later I went back to New York to do the press for Mrs Brown. There’s so many key things. Wonderful things and terrible things too.”

Q: Dustin and Judi – you obviously enjoy each other’s company very much. Did you make the effort and make the time to go out for dinners together? Did you get to know each other socially?

Dustin Hoffman: “I don’t think so. Judi always wanted to but I needed a nap. (laughter) We were working. I don’t socialise when I’m working. I don’t socialise when I’m not working.” (laughter)

Q: Judi – that picture of you when you’re reminiscing about your wedding. Is that a real photo or a mocked-up photo?

Judi Dench: “It was a real photograph with, now, different people around. With an immensely tall husband.”

Dearbhla Walsh: “The moment Judi saw it – that picture is actually from the designer’s parents’ wedding and that’s his grandmother in the background smoking a fag. And we got a picture of Judi, as you do, and this was blended. I remember on the day in the scene, giving Judi the album and she went, ‘That’s awfully like me.’ And I went, ‘It is you.’ She said, ‘It couldn’t be me. That’s not my husband.’ (laughter) And I went, ‘I know. We mocked it up.’ And she said, ‘But it’s so like me.’ So it was extraordinary, the magic of cinema. But we had a moment with Judi because it was her and not her husband.”

Judi Dench: “Well I felt rather bad that I didn’t remember the man…” (laughter)

Dearbhla Walsh: “And her only comment, ‘But she hasn’t got quite enough cleavage.’ But it was your face but not your cleavage.”

Q: Judi and Dustin – I grew up on Roald Dahl books. What do you think of Roald Dahl as an author? What does he mean to you?

Dustin Hoffman: “When did he start writing children’s stories? Because I was already an adult.”

Judi Dench: “I got the chance to go down and sit in that little hut he used to sit in, to write in. Long before we did this. Several years ago. That was very exciting. And I’ve just read The BFG, all those stories, children’s stories.”

Richard Curtis: “The Witches has got to be the best book to read to children. Children cannot believe how cruel that book is. And how frightening it is. I don’t think anyone’s ever read that book to their child and then the next six months hasn’t been haunted by looking at people’s shoes and being suspicious every time you go into a sweet shop. There is a peculiar magic, I think, to his work.”

Dustin Hoffman: “As I said, I never read him, certainly when I was a kid. No-one read stories to me. I read stories to my kids, certainly. The Giant Peach was a favourite. But I certainly didn’t read them all. I was probably working more often when I should have been reading kids’ stories. You get home from work and sometimes your kids are already in bed. And then you’re leaving in the morning before they’re even up. So I can use that as a cop out. But may I just say one thing that was not asked, is that Dearbhla was so well organised and so giving as a director. I’ve never seen anyone more disciplined. You show up and she knows what she wants to do and everything. We felt very comfortable in her hands. It’s nice to thank her publicly. And to also thank these writers because they are first rate. I have a history of not having the loveliest of producers. And by far, Hilary was the most sweetest, wonderful woman you will ever want to work for. It’s probably why she’s not more successful. (laughter) Not ruthless enough.”

Finally, Dustin mentioned the “brilliance” of inserting Louis Armstrong’s music into the film:

“That’s what tilts the whole thing. I asked you (Richard Curtis) where you got that idea from. I can’t remember what you said.”

Richard Curtis replied:

“My dad only had six records. And Hello Dolly was one of them.

“Two of the others were The Sound of Music, different productions.”

***************************************************************

The Q&A was over. Or so we thought.

But Dustin interrupted Richard Arnold as he began to wrap up the press conference.

Pointing to his assistant in the audience, Dustin asked:

“Would you give me a phone call, please? Thank you.’

“This is just on the house.”

Dustin got up from his seat next to Judi Dench, placed his mobile on a small table in front of them and waited.

Leaving everyone else puzzled as to what was going on.

After a pause of several seconds, Dustin’s phone duly rang.

Revealing the ring tone to be the same Louis Armstrong song as Mr Hoppy and Mrs Silver dance to in the film.

And with immaculate timing, Dustin asked Judi: “Will you stand up, please?”

Rising from her chair, a surprised, smiling and charmed Judi said: “Oh, he’s daft.”

Dustin and Judi then slow waltzing together on stage.

With not a dry eye in the house.

Just magic.

*************************************************************

BBC: Original British Drama

Endor Productions

Roald Dahl

Dustin Hoffman

Judi Dench

Richard Curtis

Paul Mayhew-Archer

Dearbhla Walsh

Hilary Bevan Jones

Louis Armstrong

Tootsie

Pack of Lies

Federico Fellini

Paul Schrader

Ian Wylie on Twitter

Enid and Tubby (Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball)

“IT’S letting your dreams literally come true. Which is rather beautiful.

“Ordinary people being extraordinary.”

Imelda Staunton talking about the truly glorious That Day We Sang, written and directed by Victoria Wood.

A TV musical drama destined to become an instant classic.

Screened on BBC2 at 9pm on Boxing Day – Friday Dec 26.

It stars Imelda as “PA not secretary” Enid and Michael Ball as insurance salesman Tubby, two lonely middle-aged people who grab a second chance of life via the power of music.

These fictional characters meet in 1969 at a reunion of the Manchester Children’s Choir which made the iconic million selling recording of Nymphs and Shepherds with the Halle Orchestra 40 years before.

The film moving between events in the late 1960s and the story of a young Tubby, whose real name is Jimmy Baker, and his difficult home life in 1929.

With Harvey Chaisty as the young Jimmy and the always engaging Daniel Rigby as Mr Kirkby, the war veteran who helps him through.

Victoria Wood is also responsible for writing all of the music – Purcell’s Nymphs and Shepherds aside – in the 90-minute film.

I attended the London press screening of That Day We Sang back in November, which was followed by a fascinating Q&A involving Victoria, Imelda, Michael and executive producer Hilary Bevan Jones.

So fascinating, in fact, that I took the time to transcribe it in full – although leaving out small sections containing major spoilers.

You can read my transcript below. It’s a rather lengthy read but, I’d argue, well worthy of your time.

Including Victoria on Imelda:

“Never mind the talent. You take the talent for granted. But what you also need is that great work ethic to get it all done in a day.”

And on a very funny – and pin sharp accurate – sequence set in a Berni Inn:

“Some of the most hideous meals of my life have been in a Berni Inn with my parents in Bolton.”

There is so much to love about this film, adapted from an original stage show, which also features Lyndsey Marshal and Ian Lavender.

Not least Ryvita, Campari and a street called Happiness.

Those who haven’t seen Michael Ball act on stage will find his TV drama performance a revelation.

Beautifully matched with a singing and dancing Imelda.

If the words “TV musical” send you reaching for the remote control, think again.

That Day We Sang is so much more and will live long in the memory.

You can also enjoy a ‘making of’ BBC2 documentary – Victoria Wood: That Musical We Made – at 3:30pm on Boxing Day.

Victoria Wood introduced the screening:

“This was originally a stage production commissioned by the Manchester International Festival and it was on in 2011 and it had 10 performances at the Opera House in Manchester (and later at the Royal Exchange in Manchester) and I wanted to give it a further life. So I went to the BBC and I talked to Ben Stephenson. This was at the old BBC so we actually were in an office sitting on chairs. Now if we have a meeting in Broadcasting House you have to book a slot on two adjoining treadmills. I said to Ben. ‘I would really like to do this musical.’ And he said, ‘Ooh, yes.’ So that was the first wonderful thing that happened. That Ben just said yes. And then the second wonderful thing was that he said, ‘I think you should work with Hilary Bevan Jones.’ And that’s been a brilliant collaboration for me. I felt totally supported, creatively and logistically. So that was a very happy experience.

“And then the third wonderful thing was that we actually got the cast we wanted. Which doesn’t always happen. When you’re casting, you sit round and say, ‘I tell you who’d be good as Tubby. Michael Ball. He would be great. He has a wonderful voice, he has charisma, he’s the right age, that’d be fantastic.’ And you get on the phone. Then three weeks later you’re on another phone, going, ‘So Bernie Clifton comes out…’ We got Michael Ball. We got Imelda Staunton, the pocket rocket. And we have many other wonderful people in the cast. We have Daniel Rigby, who played Eric Morecambe in Eric and Ernie. And we have Dorothy Atkinson who’s just been brilliant, by the way, in Mr Turner. But we had her first. She’s in this as well. I just really hope you enjoy it. My only aim, ever, when I write anything is just to give the audience a lovely time. So this is a musical, it has fantasy sequences, it’s a love story…so it’s sort of Moulin Rouge with slippers.”

Q&A with Victoria Wood, Imelda Staunton, Michael Ball and Hilary Bevan Jones (executive producer). Chaired by James Rampton:

Q: Victoria – what an amazing story. How did you discover it?

Victoria Wood: “Well I knew of the record, Nymphs and Shepherds, which I’d heard as a child, I suppose. It was always a part of my consciousness. There was that record of children singing Nymphs and Shepherds. When I was 22 and living in a bedsit in Birmingham, I saw a documentary about a reunion of that choir and something about…it was just middle aged people who’d come together in ’75, so they’re in their 50s, and had sung on the record, talking about when they’d made the record and talking about their lives since.

“And something had just stayed with me. This idea that you would have a very exciting day and that perhaps your subsequent life might not match up to that memory. I didn’t remember it very well but over the past few years I’ve had a little list of things to write about. Nymphs and Shepherds was always on my list. In my office I’ve got a list pinned up and that was one of them.

“The others, some other people have made, actually. One was about the man who faked his own death in a canoe…anyway. I just thought something about that recording that day would be a nice piece. I didn’t really think about it much more than that. But then when I was asked to do the thing for the Manchester International Festival and they said, ‘Have you got anything that is to do with Manchester?’ And I immediately went, ‘Well, yeah, Nymphs and Shepherds.’ And they went, ‘What?’ I said, ‘You know, the record in the Free Trade Hall when they had to talk posh..’ It didn’t fill them with confidence but I thought, ‘Oh well, I shall just do it anyway.’

“And then as I started to write it, something about the documentary from all those years ago just stayed with me. And I thought, ‘Actually, I do want to write about the choir, I do want to write about the record. But mainly I want to write about these two middle aged people and how that could be their second chance.’ Because music is so powerful. Something about connecting with a piece of music could just propel Tubby and Enid to take a second chance and plunge back into life.

“Then half way through writing, they sent me a copy of the documentary. But it’s nothing like I remembered at all. I’d shot an entirely different documentary in my own head. When I saw it I was appalled. They didn’t say anything of the things that I remembered them saying. Except there was just one man who’s sitting in front of his lathe and he’s eating a sandwich. They’ve actually interviewed him while he’s having his lunch. It’s a terrible piece of television, actually. And the man says (posh voice), ‘Are you happy?’ And he goes (Lancashire accent), ‘Ooh, that’s a question, isn’t it?’ And then he said (posh voice), ‘What does singing mean to you?’ And he goes (Lancashire accent). ‘Well, it’s an expression of joy, if you can put it like that.’ And that was the bit that I had remembered all those years from when I was 22 and a benefit scrounger in Birmingham. And I put those words into Enid’s mouth. That singing was joyful.”

Q: Was the double time frame a challenge?

Victoria Wood: “On stage it was slightly easier, I suppose. You would have the 1929 bit and then you’d have the 1969 bit and it was a question of how quickly could you get 200 children on and off stage. So I was constrained by that, really. And so when I was making a film of it I had more of a challenge really because, of course, you can be much more fluid. You can go like ‘that’ quickly, quickly. Also I wanted to put Tubby and Jimmy together in the same space. It was more complicated and we actually did re-configure it as we went along in the edit.”

Q: Imelda – what appealed to you when you were first offered this?

Imelda Staunton: “Well, Victoria Wood sends you a script…and I suppose, looking at it going, ‘Ooh, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this on the telly.’ And the chance to be able to sing a wee bit. But then to do some proper acting as well. And that she was quite a…I liked the fact that she was quite plain and yet she has all her jazzy moments, a bit of fantasy. Glorious to do that. Glorious. On every level.”

Q: Were you and Michael cast at the same time – because you have this history together?

Imelda Staunton: “We did one show together. That was wonderful to be able to do that because we have great shorthand and, I speak for myself, but mutual respect and…so you can give notes to each other…and that’s sort of healthy. And there wasn’t much time to make it and that’s very valuable in a short time, to be able to actually, go, ‘That’s rubbish. Fine.’ And not take offence. Just go, ‘Right, we know what we want, we know how good we all hope we are and we just want to make it better, so that’s how we’ll do it.’”

Q: And what about you, Michael? What drew you to this?

Michael Ball: “I got sick of them begging. (laughter) I’d do anything with Imelda. Absolutely anything. The time we spent doing Sweeney was an extraordinary time for me. I learned more from her than I think from anyone else.”

Imelda Staunton: “You’ve forgotten it though, haven’t you?” (laughter)

Michael Ball: “As for Vic, I verge on being a stalker-ey fan of everything she’s done. I think she’s brilliant. I really died and went to Heaven doing this. Working with these two, on something so different, so exciting, so challenging. It was a joy. You never know as well, either if…the fabulous atmosphere that we had on the set and the happiness that we had creating it, is it going to translate into what turns up on the screen? And I really hope that it has because it was a brilliant time. And it’s such a brave thing, as well. I’ve never seen anything like it. So to be allowed to be a part of it was the best thrill for me.”

Q: And did you immediately connect with the character of Tubby?

Michael Ball: “Totally. The only difference, I think, is that’s he’s really comfortable with being overweight. He has no issue. Me, I’m still suffering. Yeah, I did. We all have lost opportunities in our life. And I understand – I can’t imagine my world without music. And the fact that he’d lost music in his life, both literally and metaphorically was…I just so felt for him. What a lovely, lovely man. And to be able to explore that was just great.”

Q: Hilary, when you became involved with the project what made you think, ‘Oh this will work as a transposition from the stage.’ There are challenges in translating anything, aren’t there?

Hilary Bevan Jones: “There’s a lot of challenges but I’ve got such confidence in Victoria and just seeing the script and talking about it and the opportunity to put it on screen meant that we could let our imaginations run wild. And then, of course, contained within the schedule. So there was a double act going on. But there was no question, really. You hear that music and you just want to take it on.”

Q: Some of the sequences are very complicated. Were they hard to produce?

“No. Paul Frift was the producer and he was very good at organising it all and making sure the sequence of how it was done. It was all down to the planning that we’d done with Victoria, the rehearsals – we had proper rehearsal time with Nigel (Lilley) and Sammy the MD (musical director) and the choreographer. Victoria was there at every step of the way and they were a vital part of the process. They were the most important thing.”

Imelda Staunton: “Of course the thing that’s disappeared unfortunately with television is a terribly old fashioned word called ‘rehearsing’. As if it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter. You don’t need it. Well, you do need it. And I think you need it for everything, particularly this. And thank goodness we got it. There’s no way we could have done it without. We all mourn the days of – they were awful – the BBC rehearsal rooms in Acton. But you rehearsed. You did The Singing Detective, you rehearsed it. And then you did it. Like any piece of work you do. Whether it’s a play or a theatre or a film, you don’t just turn up and go, ‘Oh, that’s what I’m doing, I’ll do that.’ It was very valuable for this and I wish more people would think about putting an extra two bob in to allow people to have a bit of time. Because we’re living in world we’re you want instant things – just to do it now, we want it instant, we want it good, we want it successful. Well the best things take time. Whether it’s a very good stew or a show. The best things take time to cook and develop. And I think people underestimate that. And because we do it, because we go, ‘Oh Christ, well come on, let’s just do it.’ They think, ‘If they can do it in three days, let’s do it in two.’”

Q: What were the biggest challenges for you, in terms of directing. Some very complex sequences?

Victoria Wood: “I lived in a blissful world of ignorance and I think that really helped. I look at it now and think, ‘Blimey.’ It looks really scary when you look at it. But each day you did what you had to do. David Higgs was the DoP (Director of Photography), he did major, major parts of working everything out. And so I never felt that the responsibility was on me for the shooting or the arranging or the choreography or the arranging of the music. And I think when you direct something you’re wobbling about on the top of a human pyramid of expertise in the circus. Some days I thought, ‘I’m not even in the bloody tent.’ But anyway. I just knew everbody else would do their job and it was my job to just really…what is this about? Every scene: What is it about? And just tell the story. That’s my main job. I know the story, I know the script. We had a fantastic team, we had a fantastic DoP and the lighting and the sound and everything’s there – and I’m just on the top of people’s shoulders and I just see whether the story’s working. That’s all I can do.”

Imelda Staunton: “But also you were very clear about…because you’d written it, because you knew it so well…you were clear about what you wanted. And that is very helpful. No point all of us going, ‘How do we do it?’ But you thought, ‘Well, I might know how to do it but what I want is this.’ And we go, ‘Well, this is how I think we can find it for you.’ So you need someone who goes, ‘Right, it’s got to be this.’ And you’re brilliant on rhythm and how a line works. And that’s very helpful.”

Q: And Michael it was helpful that the director and writer could talk to each other and say, ‘Oh yes, this is how we’re doing it.’?

Michael Ball: “They weren’t speaking.” (laughter) “There was such a fall out.”

Victoria Wood: “Well it does mean you can…on the day, if something’s not quite right – we had a bit of palaver with the little boy and the gramophone and the gentleman who’s giving him the gramophone. It all got very complicated. He’s supposed to put on the pavement and open the lid. And you think, ‘Ooh, that’s going to take forever.’ And you will just cut it out. When you get to the edit, you cut it out because it’s not interesting. So you say, ‘Give me a pen.’ And I just cut those lines out. I didn’t have to go and phone anybody. I just decided to do that. So I could slightly slice as I went, which I think probably streamlined the process to an extent.”

Q: You had some lovely scenes with (young) Jimmy. (Played by Harvey Chaisty) They say never work with children but…

Michael Ball: “Oh my God, he was amazing. Those eyes. You can see them up there. (on screen) He’s so honest, so open. A really funny little boy as well. But such a professional on set. He was always ready, always prepared…”

Victoria Wood: “Always cold.”

Michael Ball: “Always freezing. He was divine. I wish I’d looked like that and behaved like that when I was a kid. He was adorable. And it all translates up there. You see what’s going on in his head. And you root for him right at the start. You think, ‘What a gorgeous kid.’”

Q: How did you find him?

Victoria Wood: “Well, I didn’t do the original casting. Robert Sterne from Nina Gold saw about 150 little boys. So I only saw probably the last 10 or 15. Robert’s top choices.”

Q: And what made you think, ‘Oh, this is the one?’

Victoria Wood: “There was something…I don’t know…there was something very ordinary in a lovely way about Harvey. I felt he was an ordinary boy, he didn’t look like a stage schoolboy. He also…it’s a very hard song to sing, the song that he sings in it – a very hard top note. And even in his audition he just really went for it. There was something hugely straightforward about him. And also he had really, really thin legs which was great.” (laughter) “And he really looked like a child of the 1920s. Because a lot of children are just whopping and he was like this little skinny thing. He looked good in a vest.”

Q: It is something that hasn’t been done before. Is it because it’s so difficult to achieve a brilliant musical on television?

Victoria Wood: “I can’t really say why it hasn’t been done before. I think people do love musicals, though.”

Michael Ball: “For us, the big plus was being able to sing live on set. At the bus stop – that’s us, that’s our voices. We weren’t in a studio doing it. And it felt really natural. We had these tiny earpieces in. So we’d get a playback in there and then sing along to it. Because normally if you’re in a studio, you hear yourself. You have foldback monitors. You’re very, very aware. Here there was none of that. It was just our voices, we’re just singing to each other. And there was never a point where it felt awkward, where it didn’t feel like it wasn’t the language of the piece. And that is what I think…I’m delighted to see it…has come across so well. That when we’re at the bus stop and we just start singing, it doesn’t feel like, ‘Oh this is weird.’ It’s just, ‘Oh yeah. I get it. This is setting the tone of it.’ And it was really important that we were able to do it live and do it on the set because your rhythms change. How you would approach a song, how would you phrase something changes moment from moment depending on what the other performer’s giving. So if we’d gone in, recorded it beforehand and then had to do it to playback on a set, it would have lost a lot of spontaneity and a lot of the natural feel to it.”

Imelda Staunton: “And I think as well that you retain your character. And because – even when they do Fred and Ginger, they’re still Tubby and Enid. You could have done it that the voices became something else. We could have put on American voices. But the fact that they just are those people having those fantasies…or in the bus stop, you’re not having a fantasy, they are just your thoughts you’re singing…it allowed you to stay in the character, which was nice.”

Q: Some critics have said the recent James Brown movie where the actor is lip-synching does lose some sort of spontaneity because you can almost tell that it’s not him doing it.

Victoria Wood: “Well you can’t change it. You can’t have a thought and suddenly sing in a different way depending on how you’ve spoken the previous line. And that’s the benefit you get.”

Michael Ball: “It’s different if you’re doing a number. If you’re doing a production number or you’re doing something in a concert, then that’s the way you would do it. But if it’s actually thought processes or dialogue that’s put to music, it’s essential that you have that. That freedom.”

Q: You and Imelda have both done lots of stage musicals. Why do you think it’s so hard to transpose them to television?

Michael Ball: “I don’t know. I really don’t know. We kind of fell out of love with them, I suppose. It’s quite difficult. Everyone has gone far more towards naturalism. You look back at the great Hollywood movies and they suddenly break into song. We accept it because it’s in that Hollywood setting and it sort of works. But to put it into this scenario…I think it does work. And it’s a shame that people are not embracing it. It’s just another language, another way of speaking to an audience.”

Q: Do you think – maybe it’s hard to predict – but it might presage a return for TV musicals?

Michael Ball: “They’re going to do the news. (laughter) Fiona Bruce, as we speak, is having lessons.”

Victoria Wood: “I don’t know. It all depends on writers and writers have got to want to do something. You bring your passion to something and if there’s nobody else wanting to write a musical, it probably won’t happen. I don’t know who would do it.”

Imelda Staunton: “It’s interesting seeing a television musical…”

Michael Ball: “Is there another television musical? There was The Singing Detective. But that was different.”

Q: Blackpool…and Glee, I suppose…but they don’t use original songs. They use pop songs.

Q: And you have also made a documentary about this?

Victoria Wood: “I’m just in the middle of making it. In fact I’ve got to go and finish making it…we’re making a documentary about how the story came about and also behind the scenes footage. So it’s half a ‘making of’ and half a history of the real choir and the real Halle Orchestra. And I’m trying to find out within the documentary how I came to write it, really. How that odd thing that I saw when I was 22 that I didn’t even remember turns into something real but is fiction.”

Q: Have you learned more about it in the process of making the documentary?

Victoria Wood: “Not really. I’ve walked round Manchester a lot. I’ve learned a lot about Manchester. Probably more than I wanted to know. I don’t know…while you’re writing something the memory part of your brain is not engaged. So it’s very difficult to re-capture the process of writing. So it was really about memory because Tubby and Enid’s plot is about a memory. And then me remembering the documentary. So it goes back to 1975, to the documentary, to the real reunion, to the real record. So it was just different layers.”

Q: That’s a great point – the potency of memory. Because the first scene where Tubby bursts into tears and that’s the incredible power of a memory?

Michael Ball: “That’s the power of music. Nothing will send you…apart from smell…nothing will take you back to a memory – it’s all about emotion.”

Victoria Wood: “And it’s hard to write a musical about smell, I think.” (laughter)

Q: Has it made you want to do more of this sort of thing?

Victoria Wood: “No, not more of this sort of thing. Because I’ve totally been in this world and I’ll finish at Christmas with the documentary. And then I never want to do the same thing again. So I’ve got ideas for new things.”

Q: And you can’t say what they are yet?

Victoria Wood: “No, because I’ve not really worked them out yet.”

Questions were then opened up to the media in the audience:

Q: (From me as it happens) Firstly, can I say Victoria, we had more than a ‘lovely time’ watching that. Congratulations. A wonderful film. Can I ask about the challenges and joys of re-creating, in particular, the 1969 period. And also if you could talk a little bit more about the performances you got from your two lead actors?

Victoria Wood: “The main challenge in recreating any period is the cost of doing it. It’s much cheaper to do something set in the modern day because as soon as you have any other period than this you’re talking about buildings, telephones, light switches, cars, shoes, hair, everything. So your budget is suddenly massively compromised. And so the real challenge was…we had about 200 children in our choir, all of whom had to have 20s’ costumes. There was a production of That Day We Sang going on in Manchester at the same time and they had all the costumes. They had a children’s choir. So we were snatching them off the warm bodies of children…(laughter)…putting them in a van and taking them to our children. So there’s always that…where can we get the costumes from and can we make costumes look like real clothes and not just everything that we’ve got from Angels.

“But the performances, well, you know, I couldn’t believe my luck, really, that I got Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton. Because I was not joking…when I first was doing it on the stage and we used to sit around, we’d go, ‘Ahh, Imelda Staunton. She wouldn’t do it. Ahh, Michael Ball. He wouldn’t do it.’ And, ‘Huhh, we couldn’t afford them.’ And then to have them…we did the whole thing in about four weeks and Imelda only could give us three weeks of her time because she was slicing us in, inbetween that very brilliant performance in Pride and then a wonderful performance in a play in Hampstead and then doing Gypsy. So I don’t know if she remembers being in this. (laughter)

“So it would only have worked for us, schedule-wise…Imelda has a most professional attitude. And I’ve worked with some very wonderful people. She’s very at the top of my tree. Her wonderful professional attitude, real speed of learning, real accuracy and that’s what you have to have. Never mind the talent. You take the talent for granted. But what you also need is that great work ethic to get it all done in a day.

“And the scene where she goes to Tubby’s house and she’s got the big speech and the chip pan’s on fire – it’s a bit like the top of Casualty, I know (laughter) – but that is a whole page of dialogue which we probably did about five times with no mistakes right the way through. That’s what I treasure. It’s not just Imelda’s great, fantastic voice, energy, also brilliant comic timing, very good at running up and down the stairs in court shoes and a fantastic work ethic.

“And Mr Michael Ball – some people were a little bit dubious about the fact that he was being cast in a straight role. People who’d seen him and loved him on the West End stage for many years and seen his concerts, and they were saying, ‘Will he be able to bring it down? Will we believe him as a Manchester insurance man?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely. I have no doubts. I’ve just said – will he just keep his dimples under wraps (laughter) and then when he’s up the ladder, he will release them into the wild.’ So it was lucky.”

Q: This is, again, about period detail. Because obviously you want it to be right and you must always be thinking, ‘Well did they have Boil-In-The-Bag Cod in 1969?’ But isn’t that an added pressure to have to think about that as well?

Victoria Wood: “Well, I don’t have to think about that because you have a designer, you have a costume designer, you have somebody doing the props. Of course I would cast my eye over it, yeah. But you trust people to do their job and we just had a really, really, pernickety, brilliant designer, Tom Burton, and I knew that he would check what sort of boil-in-the-bag would it be in 1969, what sort of Blue Band Margarine was it, what did a packet of Ryvita look like? He was totally across it and I would just look it and say, ‘Yeah, that looks fine.’”

Q: Also the Berni Inn scene. How fond are you of the Berni Inn?

Victoria Wood: “Not in any way. (laughter) Some of the most hideous meals of my life have been in a Berni Inn with my parents in Bolton.”

Q: Is this revenge, then?

Victoria Wood: “It’s not really. It’s just this idea – that was the poshest restaurant I’d ever been in. It was all fake panelling and little pink shaded lamps. I can’t remember why – I wanted to set a number in a Berni Inn. It just made me laugh.”

Q: Victoria – just to get the chronology right. Did you go and see Imelda and Michael in Sweeney Tood and then think, ‘Ooh, they’re my Tubby and Enid?’

Victoria Wood: “Oh no, I thought that before. I thought it before they’d done Sweeney Tood. I’d already thought of them but I just thought they were out of my league. We were going to do 10 performances in a festival and Imelda is very particular about what she does and I sort of had this feeling that she perhaps wouldn’t want to come and do it. I don’t know why I didn’t ask you?”

Imelda Staunton: (curt) “You didn’t ask, did you?” (laughter)

Victoria Wood: “I self-deprecated myself out of the question.” (laughter)

Q: But did you then go and see them in Sweeney Todd?

Victoria Wood: “Oh yes, I saw them anyway. I’m a huge fan of both of them. I’d worked with Imelda before. She had a little tiny part in a Pride and Prejudice spoof we did and we’d also done a cabaret together in Kenya and a couple of charity things. So I always knew Imelda was great. And I just took a punt on Michael.” (laughter)

Michael Ball: “It works both ways that…” (laughter)

Q: I wanted to ask Imelda and Michael about the period costumes. Was it weird? Did it feel like you were a kid again? Do you remember your parents…

Michael Ball: “I’m a lot younger than both of them…(laughter) I look my dad. I look like a fatter version of my dad. He came on to the set, didn’t he?”

Victoria Wood: “He did. It was scary.”

Michael Ball: “And those suits, everything…it’s exactly what you wore. And it does. It takes you right back. And what was great is that the design team dressing the set and everything…and we did it mostly on location in houses that still looked like they hadn’t had a lick of paint since 1969. And you felt like you were there. It just slotted in. It just felt right.”

Victoria Wood: “People would come on the set and go, ‘Ahhhh…we had one of those.’”

Michael Ball: “It was all our yesterdays, wasn’t it?”

Q: Imelda – did you ever have one of those hair things (dryer) with a tube..?

Imelda Staunton: “My mother was a hairdresser. So I’ll answer any of your questions about hair dryers, applicances, (laughter) lacquering set. Lacquer as we used to call it. Not hairspray, it’s called lacquer. Yeah, absolutely, I had that. Yeah. So that’s not a strange place for me, that.”

Q: Victoria – were you not tempted to pop yourself a cameo in there? Did you not want to get joined in with the dances?

Victoria Wood: “I was not in any way tempted to be in it. My big delight in editing this has been that I wasn’t in it. I didn’t have to look at my big, stupid face. (laughter) And that’s my depressing time at the moment editing the documentary where I am in it and I have to look away when I come on to the screen. So, no, I didn’t want to be in it. I was very happy not to be in it.”

Q: Question for all of you – of course we’ve got a school choir at the centre of this. I wonder if you’ve got any memories of being in school choirs and what that was like?

Imelda Staunton: “I loved being in the choir. Mainly because it gave us access to the boys’ school across the road. But I remember singing the Hallelujah Chorus, aged 14, and just thinking it was the best sound, the best feeling. Because I did shows at school but being in a choir was very different and very, very fulfilling. I loved that.”

Michael Ball: “I liked getting the solos. (laughter) They always used to have a go at me in the choir because I would sing too loud and not sing in the right…so they would give me a hard time. Being ‘Wrenglish’ – I’m half Welsh, so my association with choirs is all about the male voice choirs. So I’d go down to Wales and listen to my Uncle Tom singing with the Mountain Ash Rugby Football Male Voice Choir and you compare that to a school choir, it’s not the same. That would bang you against the wall. Amazing sounds.”

Q: Were you in a school choir?

Victoria Wood: “No. I was in this very, very boring school and there wasn’t very much music. So my love of music didn’t come from anything to do with the school. The seven most boring years of my life. But I loved choirs and my daughter was a choral scholar when she was at Cambridge, so I listened to much more choral music since she’d been singing it. And I adore the sound of the voices. Also I love singing myself. I don’t do it very much but…because it’s such a physical thing, a connection with other people, singing alongside other people.”

Michael Ball: “It was lovely being able to hear, when we were filming in the Free Trade Hall and listening to the choir, being in there live and listening to the orchestra there. It was just magnificent. The hall itself has a lovely acoustic and it created the atmosphere beautifully.”

Victoria Wood: “And that was the Halle Orchestra. The Halle Orchestra.”

Michael Ball: “All dressed up…in the tank tops.”

Q: I wanted to ask about Daniel Rigby’s character…it’s a lovely performance by him…is he based on a real character?

Victoria Wood: “He’s not, actually. Michael and I went on Wogan a few weeks ago to talk about the song, about the record, and somebody phoned in and said that their grandfather had helped with the choir and helped with the pronounciation and were given a gold watch. So he’s not at all based on a real person but there were people in that choir who took that role.”

Q: A very nice detail that he’d been in the war and all that. Why did you bring that in?

Victoria Wood: “I’m not sure, really. I can’t remember. But I know once I knew Dan was playing it and I started to write the script for the film, that part got a lot bigger and then I started to develop the relationship between Jimmy and Mr Kirkby with his leg. I don’t know, because I really like Dan as an actor, I wanted to make that part bigger. I find him very touching.”

Q: I’m so glad you caught the excitement of yoghurts in 1969. I just thought it was terrific. Especially the baddies, skewering those pretentious people…I’d love to see you do more TV plays like that to give Alan Ayckbourn, of course, a great run for his money. Is that something you’d like to do? Stage and TV?

Victoria Wood: “I don’t know. I just go on instinct, really, whatever seems to be the next idea that comes to the front of my head, really. I’ll just do that and I never know really what it’s going to be until I do it. But it always has just be something that really, really excited me.”

Q: Just to pick up on a thing Imelda said earlier. You talked about how you were really grateful to have time to rehearse properly for this and that’s something that’s missing elsewhere nowadays. I wanted to see Michael if you feel that as well. That rehearsals were lacking, maybe, and other aspects…

Michael Ball: “I’ve done bugger all on the telly so I wouldn’t know. (laughter) When you do a show, you do five, six weeks in a rehearsal room before you get on to a stage, before you get into costume. So you’re really, really prepared. The little I have done in drama before this, it’s literally you’re sent the ‘sides’ (the part of the script shot on any one day), you learn it and you then turn up on to the set and you’ll block it and then you have to do it. So any preparation that you have is entirely on your own. You’re not even working with the other actors. And it doesn’t produce the best work. The best work is when actors are able to sit with the director to actually sit…what are we trying to say, what ideas have we got? So you can have five ideas, four of which you’re going to discard and then you’ll agree on the one way that you’re going to do something.”

Imelda Staunton: “But in a way, also…it’s actually probably a question for Hilary…you’re a producer who then has to deal with networks who give you the money. Or don’t give you the money. Or don’t give you the time. How difficult it is for you to do your job?”

Hilary Bevan Jones: “Well I think rehearsals are worth the wait in gold and I would always…if you can get the cast in time and you have the scripts, it’s completely bonkers not to rehearse. Because you think of the cost of Victoria, Imelda and Michael and perhaps a pianist, a choreographer, in a room. And you think of the cost of 50 people on a film set, when it might be about to rain. And the whole crew and everyone else is waiting while there’s an intense discussion about, ‘Is this the right Marmite shape? Or the right Ryvita? Or something.’ Which you do have because they are important things. But if you can have thought things through like that in advance it’s good for everybody. It’s the same for Chris Ashworth, who did the sound, for him to be able to come in and out of rehearsals. For David, the DoP (Director of Photography). They can then see what they’re going to be faced with on the day and they can plan. It’s really vital, I think.”

Q: Do the three you of think, then, that TV suffers because of lack of rehearsal and, if so, who do you think is to blame for that?

Victoria Wood: “Oh, I’ll take the blame…” (laughter)

Imelda Staunton: “Well it suffers and it doesn’t suffer. There’s a lot of good television on at the moment. We’re not saying, ‘Oh look at television, isn’t it terrible? That means no-one is rehearsing.’ It’s not as simple as that. Because some projects won’t need much and some will need more. So you have to take everything on its own merit. But no-one wants to rehearse to waste time. It saves time. That’s what the head boy and girl need to know. Whoever they might be.”

Q: First off, I just have to say it was glorious. Absolutely glorious. And then having sat and watched it this morning, I’d like to ask all of you which was your favourite moment or your favourite scene? And why?

Imelda Staunton: “Well, I did love going from my kitchen…we had a lot of discussion about the door…door knobs…from the kitchen going on to the rooftop to do the West Side Story. That was a lovely moment. But that was…we were all head scratching. ‘If I shut the door then on that beat…and then when I…’ But I liked it.”

Michael Ball: “I think, for me, the whole Fred and Ginger sequence. We are blue with cold in Peel Square. Literally blue. Poor old Imelda.”

Imelda Staunton: “I was so still…Victoria came up to me and said, ‘Can you move your mouth at all?’ Of course I ‘an’. I’m ‘seeking’ aren’t I? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’” (laughter)

Michael Ball: “But to go from that and then find ourselves ‘jujzzed’ up – she looked amazing as Ginger Rogers. Absolutely amazing. So to be able to take difficult scenario with doing the number and then be doing this glorious number with all the dancers around us in the warm was fabulous. I loved it. There isn’t a scene I don’t like. The ladder…”

Q: Was that scary?

Michael Ball: “Yeah, because it wasn’t like a light supportive ladder. It was a proper old period ladder.”

Q: Were you on a harness?

Michael Ball: “I wouldn’t have one. I had one for a bit.”

Victoria Wood: “He had to have one at a certain point – but he climbs up and down the ladder by himself.”

Michael Ball: “The stunt co-ordinator was giving me a really hard time. Because I said, ‘I can’t have a harness – I have to go up and down and I have to sing. I’ve got to be able to do that.’ And they were like, ‘You’ll have to sign a disclaimer.’ I do my own stunts.” (laughter) Did you see Mission Impossible 3? He tried the same thing.”

Q: Do you have a favourite scene?

Victoria Wood: “I don’t know. I do have lots of favourite bits that make me laugh…probably one of my favourite bits…the thing I was most scared about was writing the underscore. Writing the bits of music that go under the action. I was a bit nervous of that because I had never really done that before to that extent. And so when I watch it now I think, ‘That’s when a little music comes in there.’ And I just really like watching how the music and the action goes together…”

Imelda Staunton: “There’s something about the whole thing, actually. Why I think it’s so glorious is that there’s ordinary people being extraordinary. And I think that speaks to all of us. All of us ordinary people going, ‘I wish I could be Ginger Rogers, I wish I could…’ Well, of course, we can’t. But in our minds we can. And I think it speaks and feeds our own desires. None of us can be all those things. But you can dream about it. And it’s letting your dreams literally come true. Which is rather beautiful.”

Q: Is that one reason why it’s very appropriate to be showing it at Christmas? Because it is an uplifting message?

Imelda Staunton: “We’re showing it every Christmas.” (laughter)

Michael Ball: “We’re getting rid of the Queen.” (laughter) “The Queen’s actually now going to sing her Message.”

Victoria Wood: “It’s got snow and children.”

Michael Ball: “It’s got snow and children. What more do you want? It is a lovely, heartwarming…”

Victoria Wood: “It’s supposed to be a treat. I wanted it to be a treat. That was all I wanted for it, really.”

Michael Ball: “It’ll work at Easter…”

Q: (Another one from me, as it happens) A question for Michael – I know you’re busy enough as it is but has this given you a taste to do more television drama?

Michael Ball: “Oh, you’ve no idea. I had, as I say, the best time. I realise how spoilt I’ve been. To have producers and directors and co-stars who were just amazing. And it isn’t always like that. But I loved learning about the new challenge of it and working out how to perform with a camera as opposed to an audience and the finessing all of that thing. Absolutely, is the answer. So send your scripts in. We’ll get ‘em made.”

Q: Victoria – we fondly remember your Christmas specials. Would you ever do another one?

Victoria Wood: “Oh yeah, I would. I love Christmas specials. I love doing them. So yeah, I definitely would.”

Q: Next year?

Victoria Wood: “Possibly.”

Q: Another question for Imelda. Would you say this is one of your favourite projects that you’ve worked on?

Imelda Staunton: “Yeah.” (laughter) “What a daft question.” (laughter) “Why wouldn’t I? You get to do everything. It’s lovely. Lifted up by boys…”

Victoria Wood: “There’s not many people that can butter a Ryvita while singing…”

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That Day We Sang BBC Site

Victoria Wood: That Musical We Made BBC Site

Endor Productions

Victoria Wood

Imelda Staunton

Michael Ball

Daniel Rigby

Hilary Bevan Jones

Nymphs and Shepherds

Halle Orchestra

Berni Inn

Angels

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