Bridgerton cast talk season 2, sex scenes and lavish set designs
Kirsty Lang and Kelly-Anne Taylor talk to the stars of Bridgerton season 2.
Consider the ton well and truly ready for the return of Bridgerton as season 2 lands on Netflix on 25th March. With everyone desperate to read more from Lady Whistledown and her scandalous gossip, Radio Times magazine spoke with lead star Jonathan Bailey, who plays Anthony Bridgerton, about sex scenes and how he feels with the spotlight well and truly on him. If that's not enough, Radio Times also caught up with sisters from the Sharma family, Simone Ashley and Charithra Chandran about what we can expect from the newcomers on the scene. Without further ado, prepare to enter the world of Bridgerton once more below. Jonathan Bailey: 'Dance scenes and sex scenes help propel the narrative forward' By: Kirsty Lang Prepare yourself for heaving breasts, rakish behaviour and plenty of ballroom dancing. The Bridgertons are back. The much-anticipated second season opens on a shot of their wisteria-covered London mansion. There are horses and carriages waiting to take the eight siblings and their mother to court for the annual debutantes’ ball. It is 1814, but there is no mention of the Napoleonic Wars or the Congress of Vienna. All eyes are on Anthony Bridgerton. The young Viscount has decided to give up cavorting with actresses and opera singers and settle down. Once inside the well-upholstered carriage with his younger brothers, he explains he will be drawing up a list of suitable debutantes and that his intended must be “tolerable, suitable, have good child-bearing hips and half a brain”. When Bridgerton, based on the Regency romance novels by Julia Quinn, launched on Netflix over Christmas 2020, it soon became the streaming service’s biggest original series, viewed by 82 million households in the first four weeks. The conscious casting of Black and brown actors as British aristocrats turned the conventional world of period drama on its head. This was something radically new, attracting viewers from around the world not used to seeing themselves represented on screen in corsets and bonnets. There was some disappointment among fans when they learnt that the dishy Duke of Hastings (played by Regé-Jean Page), who married Anthony’s younger sister Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor), would not be returning for a second season. But Netflix says the intention was always to mirror the format of Quinn’s novels – there will be a one-season arc for each of the eight Bridgerton siblings as they enter the marriage market. Anthony Bridgerton is played by 33-year-old Jonathan Bailey, a familiar face on British TV from his roles in W1A and Broadchurch, and an award-winning stage actor. I meet him in the evening as he emerges from rehearsals for a West End play. Mike Bartlett’s Cock is about a gay man who is torn after falling in love with a woman and Bailey is playing the lead. Are there any parallels with his role in Bridgerton? “None at all,” he says, laughing. Bailey is gay, but in keeping with the Bridgerton ethos is playing a straight romantic lead. Was that deliberate on the part of the producers? “No. My sexuality never came up in my initial conversations with them. I don’t think it was ever an issue,” says Bailey. He knew from the moment he was first cast that he would play the lead in season 2. “I’d read the book so I knew my character, Anthony, would have a lot of stuff to deal with and it would be an interesting progression.” The Viscount is a classic Mr Rochester. He’s brooding and arrogant and in this new season finds himself at the heart of a love triangle with two Indian sisters, Edwina and Kate Sharma, newly arrived from Bombay. “It’s interesting to get behind these Heathcliff and Darcy characters and explore why romantic male figures are so harsh and toxic towards women,” says Bailey. His mentor going into this second season was Dynevor. Having played the lead herself, she advised Bailey “to get fit, eat healthily and get as much sleep as possible” because he’d be working 14 to 15 hours a day. “Phoebe was great at counselling me, because it’s not something you can explain to your friends and family, who you don’t see for weeks on end. Filming after the success of the first season and during a pandemic made it particularly intense.” Bailey has now written a notebook that he’ll pass on to his successor: “It’s a Bridgerton guide for the next sibling who plays the lead.” Netflix has spared no expense in making their English costume drama, with a reported budget of $7 million per episode, and the production is epic in scale. Fifty per cent of the show is shot on location in palaces and grand country houses including Hampton Court, Wilton House in Salisbury and Windsor Great Park. The other 50 per cent is shot in a purpose-built studio in Uxbridge on the outskirts of London. Arriving there for a set visit in the autumn, I thought I’d got the wrong address because from the outside it looks like an industrial estate with colossal warehouses. Once inside, though, I felt like I’d walked through the wardrobe into a Narnia version of Regency Bath or London, with cobbled streets and elegant mansions. I was shown around by the production designer Will Hughes-Jones, who oversees teams of highly skilled carpenters, drapers, set painters and prop buyers. We began our tour at the home of the Featherington family. Opening their large blue front door with its ornate knocker was like walking into a real house, with carpets, stucco walls, chandeliers, thick swags of fabric draped over the windows and lots of ornate furniture. “The Featheringtons are very blingy – they’re the Kardashians of the series – so they want the latest thing,” says Hughes-Jones, who has done huge amounts of research into the period to get every detail right. “There was a very fashionable Regency designer called Thomas Hope who was into black and gold. He was the Versace of his day, and we have remade furniture from his original catalogues.” Bridgerton season 2 review: Less sex and no Duke, but Bridgerton is no fluke Apart from the attention to detail, the other striking aspect of the set is the scale of the rooms, which are very spacious, with high ceilings, partly because they need to look grand but also big enough to accommodate the cameras. There can be 500 people on set for the ballroom scenes, which can take up to five days to shoot. The first ball of season 2 is particularly spectacular, as it was filmed in the Great Conservatory at Syon House in west London. Because it’s under the Heathrow flight path, they had to film in the middle of the night. With 100 extras and a Steadicam operator following his every step, Bailey couldn’t afford to put a foot wrong. “Last year I was at the back of the shot, sipping lemonade and giggling with my on-screen brothers during the ball scenes. This time I had to focus, but when we finally stepped out onto the dancefloor it did feel like a performance.” This shouldn’t have proved a problem for Bailey, who won a best supporting actor Olivier award in 2019 for his role in the West End revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Company. Bailey says his two biggest challenges were the dancing and the sex scenes, which, in his words, are “the heart of the show”. He had private sessions with the choreographer Jack Murphy, who worked with him on illustrating Anthony’s character through dance: “I think the dance scenes and the sex scenes help propel the narrative forward and you can see relationships change as characters dance together.” For the sex scenes – of which there are many – Bridgerton employs an intimacy coordinator. “It’s amazing how that whole industry has just come on, even in a year. There are new tricks to the trade – little cushions – and it’s amazing what you can do with a half-inflated netball,” he says. My brow furrows with confusion. What exactly do you do with a half-inflated netball? “Well, if there are two people doing a sex scene, the rule is they must have three barriers separating them and there are certain acts where a half-inflated netball can allow for movement without having to connect physically. It’s pretty silly really and we have some hilarious moments, but it makes it less awkward.” Bailey grew up in a large, close-knit family in Oxford, so he understands the Bridgerton sibling dynamics. “I’m the youngest of four, which is something I spoke about with [the showrunner] Chris Van Dusen when we first met. I think it gives me a perspective of what being the oldest is like. But the difference between me and Anthony is I’m the only boy and I’m really close to my three sisters. Family is so important,” he says with feeling. Is that one of the things that attracted him to the series? “Absolutely. What can go wrong with a big lavish fantasy show which is essentially about family?” Simone Ashley: 'I did a bootcamp to learn to horse ride for Bridgerton' By: Kelly-Anne Taylor Couples locking eyes across ballrooms or stealing brief glances over pianofortes seem archaic in comparison to Bridgerton’s reimagining of Regency England. The cast is diverse, the costumes are vibrant, the Bridgerton soundtrack consists of classical covers of chart-topping hits and there is a lot (and I mean a lot) of steamy sex. Season 1 ended with Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page) happily settled into married life – and now the spotlight falls on Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), the eldest of the Bridgerton clan, as he sets out to find a dutiful wife. His head is turned by Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran), an educated, stunning young woman who ticks all his boxes (ie she’s unassuming, malleable and devoted). However, something stands in Anthony’s way and it comes in the form of Kate Sharma, Edwina’s older sister, an unashamedly opinionated woman who doesn’t think Anthony is a suitable match for her sister. Taking on the role of Kate is Simone Ashley, whom you may recognise from Sex Education, as the vain Olivia. And it was, in fact, her role in Netflix’s hit teen drama that caught the eye of Bridgerton’s showrunner, Chris Van Dusen. “It wasn’t a long audition process. It all happened so quickly,” she explains over Zoom. “It’s only recently that the penny has dropped. The first season of Bridgerton came out and everyone was talking about it. Within two weeks I was auditioning for the role of Kate – I self-taped, met Johnny [Bailey] and then I got the part. Before I knew it I was in wig fittings and at horse-riding training.” Everything is about to change for the 26-year-old Ashley, who was born in Surrey and at 16 moved to London, where she couch-surfed while trying to break into the industry. She completed nine months of a three-year course at drama school before quitting, travelling to LA and landing her first role. Praise has been attributed to Bridgerton for its diverse casting, but the lack of representation on screen never fazed Ashley when it came to achieving her own goals. View oEmbed on the source website “I’ve never had a sense of doubt about anything in my career. I just thought, ‘I can play this part.’ I think it’s amazing that they decided to cast an Indian girl to play the lead. It’s good for me. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. “I was quite a westernised kid. I grew up between here and California, watching Disney movies and Tarantino films and listening to Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones. I went to an English-speaking school. Because of that environment, it [representation on screen] was never really something I considered. I remember watching Mindy Kaling and being, like, ‘Wow!’ But I also watched Cinderella and there was never a shade of doubt there: the thought, ‘I couldn’t be Cinderella because I’m a brown girl’ was never in my language.” Preparation for her Bridgerton role meant learning to ride, attending dance rehearsals and undergoing accent training. “I’d only ridden once before with some friends in Wales,” she recalls. “I did a bootcamp to learn to ride for this. I like scary sports and, having high adrenaline, I love a challenge. My character Kate is a born rider – she has been riding since she was out of the womb, basically. I had to learn so fast and the fear kicked me in the arse – ‘Even if you’re scared, you have to overcome this’. It was a big confidence-builder, and I really enjoyed it.” The intimate scenes that Bridgerton is renowned for also require confidence. Was she nervous about performing sex scenes? “I wasn’t apprehensive. I’ve always been really confident in my sexuality and in my body. Like most teenage girls, there were years where I was insecure and in my head about myself, but I’ve learnt to really have fun with it, enjoy myself and love myself more. “I am also confident that I can speak up if I’m not feeling comfortable with anything on set. We were in a very safe environment and we worked with an incredible intimacy coordinator who encouraged us to portray what it is for the female character to experience pleasure. That’s important for us to see, because it’s not like it doesn’t happen.” Loved this Big RT Interview? Check out these… Emmerdale’s Paige Sandhu on Meena’s revenge and why nothing will stop soap’s sassiest serial killer Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent talk The Duke and future of the BBC Louis Theroux on Forbidden America and why the US is appealing for documentary makers Charithra Chandran: 'No one would think there would be two Indian women playing period drama leads' By: Kelly-Anne Taylor Most actors, when cast as the lead in a hit Netflix show, would relinquish their back-up career plan. Not Charithra Chandran. The Oxford PPE graduate plays Edwina Sharma in season 2 of Bridgerton, but still has a job offer from a global management consulting firm up her sleeve. You know, just in case... “I graduated in 2019. I had a job offer at a company and they offered me a year out – to travel or do a Masters. I thought, ‘I’m going to use this year and get all the acting out of my system and then I can settle into the 60-hour-a-week job,’” says the 25-year-old Chandran. “Six months later, the pandemic happened. But before that I’d had the best six months of my life doing local theatre and short films. Something clicked – I had finally found my purpose.” But acting didn’t always seem an accessible profession. Chandran was born in Scotland before moving to India at the age of two with her father for a few years. They returned to the UK, where she attended boarding school from six to 11, moving back to the family home in Oxford during her teenage years. “I was that obnoxious child at three years old who would put on a play and make all the family sit and watch – but I never knew I was going to be an actor. Factually, I knew there would be fewer roles open to me [as a woman of Indian descent]. Bridgerton totally changed that. Even a few years ago, I don’t think anyone would ever think that there would be two Indian women playing the leads in a period drama.” Landing her place in the drama was a long slog. She originally auditioned for the role of Kate, but was unsuccessful. Then she was asked to audition for Edwina. “I was at the allotment with my mum when I got the call from my agent saying, ‘You’ve got a screen test with Johnny [Bailey] and Simone [Ashley] and it’s tomorrow. Oh – and you’re the only one they’re considering.’ Edwina represents the reality for so many women, especially in India, so I really wanted to do justice to the role. “India is progressing so beautifully and rapidly now, but I think it would be fair to say that, for a lot of women, their plight is still to be the perfect mum, wife and daughter – which are all such important things. As an Indian, your family is the number one thing in your life.” In the series, Kate says in reference to her sister Edwina: “She has to work twice as hard as everyone else.” Did that resonate with Chandran? “Minorities are often alluded to as being there to tick boxes, to fill a quota. I cannot tell you how unbelievably invalidating that is. It penetrates our minds and makes us feel like we’re not worthy of success. I had people at university tell me, ‘You only got the lead in that show because they needed to have a person of colour in it.’ It makes you doubt everything. “If I’m being really honest and vulnerable, in my head I’m like, ‘Oh God, if people don’t like me in this or if I’ve done a bad job, I’ve ruined it for my entire community.’ When you are a minority you invariably feel the weight of representing your entire community. That’s not imposed by anyone – but it’s something I feel.” This edition of The Big RT Interview originally appeared in the Radio Times magazine. For the biggest interviews and the best TV listings subscribe to Radio Times now and never miss a copy. Bridgerton is streaming now on Netflix, with the second season due to land on Friday 25th March 2022. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our guide to the best series on Netflix and best movies on Netflix, or visit our TV Guide. The latest issue of Radio Times is on sale now – subscribe now to get each issue delivered to your door. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times podcast with Jane Garvey.
The Cry's Jenna Coleman: 'People confuse your private life with the roles you play'
The Doctor Who and Victoria star discusses her new BBC1 child abduction thriller — and why she's so excited about Jodie Whittaker's Doctor
Television dramatists are good at preying on our darkest fears, and what can be worse than your child vanishing into thin air? From Kiri to Stranger Things and The Missing, the abducted child storyline keeps returning to our screens. BBC1’s new drama The Cry, opens with the mother of a missing baby stepping out of her front door into a scrum of journalists and TV reporters. The parallels with Madeleine McCann’s disappearance jump out of the screen. The couple involved are attractive, middle class and articulate, but they left their child alone, they say, just for a moment, and he vanished. The young mother – played by Jenna Coleman – is beautiful, tragic and dignified, perhaps a little too controlled. Here viewers are left to ponder whether she might have had a hand in her own child’s disappearance. It’s radically different from anything Jenna Coleman has done before. After cutting her teeth in soaps including Emmerdale and Waterloo Road, she went on to make her name in Doctor Who, and after that the young Queen in ITV’s successful Sunday-night drama, Victoria. When is Jenna Coleman’s child abduction thriller The Cry coming to TV? When is Victoria back on TV? Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter “The Cry is a real contrast to Victoria and Victoria was a contrast to Doctor Who,” says Coleman. “That was the attraction for me. If I’d been offered something sci-fi after Doctor Who I probably would have turned it down. I’ve never done anything like a psychological thriller before, so that made it interesting.” View oEmbed on the source website Coleman is currently shooting the third series of Victoria, and when we meet during a break in filming she expresses relief about not being in a corset. Instead she’s wearing a large white ruffled collar under a velvet trouser suit. She’s petite with huge eyes and sits on the chair opposite me with her back ramrod straight, feet in black strappy high heels. She’s 32 but looks younger. She’s keen to know what I thought of The Cry and whether I had figured out the plot after seeing the first episode. I outline my theory about whodunnit and she smiles. “There are a lot of red herrings,” she warns. “The challenge is trying to be truthful to the audience while hiding stuff at the same time. The performance you are giving has to be seen from several different perspectives so it’s like acting under a micro scope – playing the plot without giving away the plot.” Filmed in Scotland and Australia, The Cry is a four-part series adapted from the novel by Helen FitzGerald. It’s similar to other popular psychological novels-turned-films such as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train that feature unreliable narrators and the same story being told from multiple perspectives, leaving the viewer or reader wondering who to believe. View oEmbed on the source website In the first episode, Joanna (Coleman) and her husband Alistair (Ewen Leslie) travel with their baby from Scotland to Australia where he is to attend a custody hearing for his daughter from a previous marriage. The baby screams during the entire flight. Joanna paces up and down the aisle while the other passengers make clear their disapproval and her husband sleeps soundly thanks to his eye mask and headphones. “We filmed the airplane scene in a hanger in Maidenhead with an adapted plane. After two days with these twin babies in an enclosed space, we all felt like we had been to Australia and back. The babies were genius actors, they would cry as soon as the director called action. I have seven children on Victoria in the new series, so I know how difficult it can be to film with young kids.” I confess an urge to berate Jenna’s fictional husband for sleeping through the nightmare flight to Australia. Why does your character put up with him? “Joanna has lost her confidence and her identity since the baby was born, she doesn’t have family around and she’s isolated. When a friend asks why he doesn’t help with the baby, she says, ‘He earns the money, he goes to work, he needs the sleep and I’ve got the boobs’.” As the pressure on Joanna’s mental health mounts, the viewer senses something awful is going to happen. Sure enough, a few hours after they land in Australia, baby Noah vanishes from the couple’s hire car. They had left him momentarily as they popped into a convenience store in the small town where his ex-wife and daughter are living. A massive police search follows, with all the attendant pressures on the couple includ - ing a storm of media interest. Does Coleman find it easy to cry on demand, like her baby co-stars? “No, not really, but fortunately there isn’t a lot of crying in this. That’s where the shock comes in, but then again because Joanna doesn’t cry a lot, people pose questions about how a grieving mother should behave.” The shy fragility of Coleman’s character in The Cry is in contrast to Victoria. She portrays the young Queen as someone in control of her emotions. “She was a tough nut to crack. It was hard to get access into her but once I started reading the books and doing the research, I was surprised at what I didn’t know. In her diaries, she writes about her violent fits of temper and how as a child she once threw scissors at her governess.” It’s a testament to Coleman’s confidence that she turned down the role of Victoria twice before finally agreeing to do it. “I had just finished doing nearly four years on Doctor Who and I didn’t want to do another long TV project. I wanted to do lots of different things, but now I’m doing Victoria, I find her quite addictive.” How long will she carry on doing it? “We’re deciding on a series-by-series basis. In the next one [which is due to be broadcast next year], she’s starting to look a bit more matronly, she’s had six or seven children, so a bit wider, bit more of a bust, the make-up is more drawn… but there will come a point in her story when no amount of prosthetic make-up or me lowering my voice will be convincing enough.” View oEmbed on the source website Born in Blackpool, Coleman got her first professional acting role, aged 11, in the stage musical Summer Holiday starring the TV presenter, singer and panto favourite, Darren Day. She looks slightly embarrassed when I ask about it. “Yeah, Peter Capaldi (her co-star in Doctor Who) found that piece of information hilarious.” Was that the moment she decided to become an actress? “No, I wasn’t a child actor. I just did it over the course of a summer holiday, and it was wonderful. I had always liked dancing and I loved being on the stage of the Blackpool Opera House, which is huge and beautiful. But it wasn’t until I was about 15 at secondary school that I got interested in acting.” Her school drama teacher, Colin Snell, gets the credit for that. “He set up a small, semiprofessional theatre company within the school and we would take shows on tour from a basement in Buxton to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. There’s a lot of us actors from up North who have been taught by him. He’s a great teacher.” She was on the waiting list for a place at drama school when she was offered her first professional role in Emmerdale aged 19. She did four years playing schoolgirl Jasmine – a character who made headlines due to a lesbian kiss, and battering an off-duty policeman to death with a chair leg. “Emmerdale was great training, but I do sometimes feel like I missed out by not going to drama school.” It’s the reason she’d now like to do theatre. “I missed the opportunity to have that rehearsalroom training time to explore.” She was still only 25 when Steven Moffat cast her as Clara, the companion to the 11th and then the 12th Doctor (Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi, respectively). “I had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t watched it. I remember getting the audition and thinking this could be interesting. But nothing really prepared me for what it would be like. Then I read Steven Moffat’s script and it was like being a child again and stepping into a fantastic storybook. The sci-fi aspect was a mystery to me. I had to use Google a lot during the first script to find out what all the jargon meant.” She’s excited about the prospect of the 13th Doctor Who, the first female incarnation with Jodie Whittaker, which will also air on Sundays when it launches on 7th October. “The thing I most want to know is if she’s going to be Northern, if she’s using her own accent, whether we’re going to have another Northern Doctor Who.” [We can confirm that she does.] I’d been warned that Coleman was reluctant to talk about her boyfriend and co-star in Victoria, Tom Hughes, who plays Prince Albert. An innocent inquiry from me about whether they’d met on the set of Victoria is rebuffed with “I won’t talk about him in interviews”. Undeterred, I ask about a previous boyfriend, Richard Madden, who at the time of our interview is starring in Bodyguard. The actor’s buff good looks and naked posterior have been the subject of many column inches. I want to know whether she thinks, in light of the #MeToo movement, it’s OK for the media to objectify a man’s body but not a woman’s? However, the moment his name passes my lips, a press officer – one of two in the room, sitting behind Coleman during our entire conversation – interrupts and brings the interview to an end. As I get up to leave, I ask Coleman about her 773,000 followers on Instagram. Does she have to post all the time to maintain her profile as an actress, or does she do it for enjoyment? “I love photography and interior design so that’s what I post. It’s an interesting dilemma for an actress. You don’t want people to know too much about your personal life, because they can confuse that with the roles you are playing. I think there is a line about how much you reveal.” If this interview is anything to go by, that defensive line is maintained at all costs. She’s clearly determined to maintain a sense of glamorous mystery about her personal life. Many will say, “Who can blame her?” This article was originally published in Radio Times magazine in September 2018
Call the Midwife’s Helen George on pregnancy, childbirth and women being shamed for choosing to have C-sections
“I think there needs to be a national conversation about how C-sections are alright and they don’t just have to be for emergencies”
I spot Helen George through the window pushing a pram and looking remarkably well groomed for someone who has recently given birth. She’s in black-feathered slippers, which is exactly the sort of thing her character might wear. Trixie is the ditzy blonde with a beehive and red lipstick who adds a touch of glamour to Call the Midwife, but it soon becomes clear that Helen George is quite different from her character. She describes herself as having the sporting tastes of a 50-year-old man – she likes boxing and watching Aston Villa with a nice cup of Bovril – and has strong views on the NHS, childbirth and sexism in the entertainment industry. “I do get stereotyped as the dumb blonde. A lot of the parts I get offered are accessories to a male character: the blonde girlfriend, the doctor’s wife, or simply having a romantic scene… I mean really, just kill me,” she says wearily. “But the great thing about Call the Midwife is that the women are the protagonists.” She points out that over the course of six series, Trixie has gone from being quite a frivolous character to a complex young woman struggling to overcome alcoholism and a difficult childhood. Meet the cast of Call the Midwife series seven Helen George takes break from Call the Midwife to have her own baby Viewers spot inventive ways Call the Midwife is hiding Helen George’s baby bump The period drama continues to pull in big audiences. The Christmas special – set in the Big Freeze of 1962, with rosy-cheeked midwives cycling to the rescue through snow drifts – was viewed by nearly ten million people and was the most-watched programme on Christmas Day. Eagle-eyed viewers might have noticed that Trixie was looking more voluptuous than usual. That’s because George was pregnant with her first child when they started shooting. “I did the Christmas special and the first four episodes [of the new series, which starts on Sunday], but after that I was too big. I was always carrying things or sitting behind a high desk to conceal my bump. My face and boobs were getting bigger and bigger, it was ridiculous. That’s why they dressed me up as the pantomime cow in the Christmas show.” View oEmbed on the source website Settled in a cosy pub near her east London home, with a cup of tea, I’m introduced to baby Wren, who has the same huge saucer-like eyes as her mother, but with a shock of bright-red hair. Wren is a real-life spin-off production – both parents are actors in Call the Midwife. Dad, Jack Ashton, plays the attractive young vicar. The couple had a brief fictional romance on screen before things got real when they were filming in South Africa two years ago. In a story that could have come straight from the show, little Wren made a dramatic entry into the world four months ago. She was born early because George experienced complications with her pregnancy. The actress started to itch all over her body. “I was rubbing my back against the stair carpet to scratch myself. Even my eyes were itching,” she says. She was diagnosed with a liver condition called ICP (intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy) which leads to a build-up of bile in the mother’s blood and can result in the baby being stillborn. (By a strange coincidence, I suffered from the same thing when I was pregnant. The itching nearly drove me insane but, unlike George, I didn’t know what was happening and almost went to the doctor too late.) “It runs in my family,” says George, “which is fortunate because I knew that I should go and get a blood test straight away.” https://www.instagram.com/p/BZvKGLGFrvE/ Had she ever come across cholestasis in a Call the Midwife script? “Heidi Thomas looked into doing a story about it, but then discovered that ICP wasn’t diagnosed until the 1970s or 80s. The new series is set in 1963 so it wouldn’t have worked.” The condition affects about 5,500 pregnant women a year in the UK and George has now become a patron of the charity ICP Support. Like Trixie, George was a bit of party girl, but motherhood has put a stop to that. “I was someone who went out a lot.” So how is she coping now? “It’s interesting… it has its moments. I can’t just pop out to the pub or the theatre when I want to. Jack does look after the baby while I go out for a couple of hours, and I don’t feel guilty about it. I think it’s necessary for my mental health”. She will start work on series eight of Call the Midwife in April. Who will look after baby Wren when both her parents are back on set? “They let me take my dog on set, and other actresses have taken their babies [Claire Foy did so during the filming of the first series of The Crown], but I haven’t looked for nannies or child-minders yet. I won’t even get a dog-walker for my Jack Russell, so I don’t know how I’ll cope with handing my child over to someone else. I’m curious to know whether working on Call the Midwife affected her birth plan. Did she go for a natural birth? Was Wren delivered by a midwife in an NHS hospital? There’s a pause and I can see she’s thinking about what to say. “I haven’t spoken about this before… but I chose to have a C-section [caesarean]. It coincided with the fact that I had to deliver her early, but even without that, I would have gone for an elective caesarean because of what I’d learnt on Call the Midwife.” At this point I nearly choke on my tea. She calmly explains her reasons in a way that makes me think she knows this will be controversial. “Working on Call the Midwife means that lots of people tell you their horror stories about birth. I’m not against natural birth, I’m pro whatever you feel is right for you. “Some people may not understand why I elected to have a C-section, but it was right for me at the time. It’s not because I’m ‘too posh to push’, it’s about what I think my body is capable of. I’m not good with pain... I faint when I stub my toe. “Not that a C-section is the easy way out. It’s a major operation. I have a large scar on my stomach. You can’t exercise for a long time and you need help to pick up the baby.” I’m with her on the pain issue. I had my son in France, where natural births are pretty rare, and having an epidural was a number one priority on my birth plan. But in Britain, it’s not uncommon for women to feel guilty for accepting any kind of medical intervention. “If men went through labour, I think the majority would choose the pain-free way,” says George, “but there is a feeling that women should have to feel pain.” As Trixie, she had to “perform” a C-section during filming two years ago for the 2016 Christmas special, which was set in a mission hospital in South Africa. “I did lots of research on C-sections and decided that if I ever got pregnant myself, that ’s what I would do. “Lots of people were shocked by that decision, but I’ve experienced natural childbirth through the legs of many an actress and I didn’t want to do it myself,” she says with a smile. She had her baby at an NHS hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ in south-east London, and is full of praise for the staff – including the anaesthetist who took photographs for her on her phone. “I was fascinated by the scientific, medical side of it so I have loads of pictures of my C-section and the baby coming out. They’re quite graphic, but no different to the images on Call the Midwife.” I express my surprise that women can choose to have an elective C-section in NHS maternity wards, but George says that they can. “I think there needs to be a national conversation about how C-sections are alright and they don’t just have to be for emergencies. So if you do feel you want one, you have the confidence to talk to your doctor or midwife about it. There’s a lot of shame around it, and people tried to convince me not to have one.” It’s clear from her Twitter feed that George has a highly developed social conscience, frequently posting messages about charities involved with refugees, childbirth or bereavement. She was born in Birmingham to a social worker mum and politics professor dad, so I wonder whether they discussed these issues. “I wouldn’t say we discussed politics much, but because my mum was a social worker I had an understanding of the welfare system and the NHS. I worry about the crisis in the Health Service, which of course impacts on midwifery. I know it’s hard because we’re all living longer, but I can’t help feeling there is a move to privatise it, to push it until it breaks and then force us to adopt a different model of healthcare that won’t be as good – just look at how many Americans are bankrupted by medical bills. We don’t know how lucky we are.” She’s also worried about the impact of Brexit on the NHS. “So many of the staff I met at Guy’s and St Thomas’ are from Europe and I worry that a lot of them will leave.” One of the most interesting aspects of Call the Midwife is how it follows the birth of the NHS in the wake of the Second World War. The new series opens in 1963, with a new, West Indian midwife, Lucille Anderson, played by Leonie Elliott, featuring as a regular character. Through her story, we learn about the experiences of the Caribbean nurses who came to Britain in the 1960s and became the backbone of a fast-expanding NHS. Trixie’s storyline in the new series will explore a very 60s subject: sex outside marriage. One of the reasons George’s pregnancy wasn’t written into the script was because Trixie is in the early stages of her new relationship with dentist Christopher (played by Jack Hawkins). In the opening episode, we see Trixie struggling with whether it’s right for her to share a hotel room with him on holiday. “They haven’t had sex yet, so a pregnancy would have moved the story on a bit prematurely,” she explains. View oEmbed on the source website Meanwhile, back in the real world, there has been much speculation about whether George herself – who is divorced from actor Oliver Boot, whom she married in 2011 – has plans to wed her co-star Ashton, the father of Wren. Several newspapers reported that she was engaged, after spotting in a photograph what one tabloid described as a “large diamond ring on her engagement finger”. She rolls her eyes. “No, we have no plans. The rumours started after I posted a photo of my baby shower [after Wren had been born] on Instagram, wearing this ring.” She holds out her hand to show me a piece of costume jewellery with a large piece of blue glass. “I only wore it on that finger because my hands swelled up when I was pregnant!” The day after we meet, she posts this on Twitter: “Dear Daily Mail, I do understand that your word is sacred. However, would you mind not printing that I am engaged/ newly married. I am a divorcee who is co-parenting. Scandalous, I know. But luckily, it’s 2018, not 1718.”
The Crown: Claire Foy and Matt Smith on the royal challenge of playing the Queen and Prince Philip
“As an Englishwoman you pick up a lot through osmosis. I’ve been watching the Queen all my life,” says Foy
Early on in The Crown it’s clear this epic series about the royal family will not be a toadying hagiography. It’s 1952, Princess Elizabeth has just touched down in Kenya on a tour of the Commonwealth with her husband. There’s a receiving line on the tarmac and as the young couple move down it, Philip raises a sarcastic eyebrow at a tribal chief in an elaborate feathered headdress and remarks in a public school drawl, “I like the hat.” His wife, walking two steps head, winces with embarrassment before turning to correct him. “It’s a crown,” she hisses. It was on that trip to Kenya that the 25-year-old princess found out that her beloved father, George VI, had died and that she was to become Queen. Despite the TV series graphically depicting the King’s final illness – coughing up blood and undergoing surgery inside the Palace to remove a lung – his death came as shock to his daughter. Her father was relatively young and she had planned to follow Philip to Malta for his naval career. Elizabeth is played by Claire Foy and she manages to humanise the Queen while retaining a sense of mystique. The Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) who co-created the TV series along with Peter Morgan describes the British monarch as “the most visible, invisible woman in the world”, which must have been quite a challenge for the actress. Queen Elizabeth II aged 27 “There is no first-hand account of what the Queen was saying or thinking, so my job as an actor is to interpret her circumstances,” says Foy. “To think of a young girl who didn’t want all that attention, who just wanted to be a good wife and mother and live in the country with lots of horses. And then suddenly she loses her father and gets the biggest responsibility in the world.” Foy says the role got harder as the series progressed. “In the first two episodes, before she becomes Queen, I could be a lot freer with my emotions, but as the series goes on she develops an armour in order to cope with her circumstances. She has to be a sphinx, which must be so hard. Imagine never being able to shout shut up or cry, even in front of your own family.” There’s nothing sphinx-like about Foy in person. She’s chatty, waves her hands around and has a very mobile face with huge expressive blue eyes. With no make-up, her hair scraped back in a pony-tail, wearing shorts with black tights underneath, Foy looks considerably younger than her 32 years. In contrast, there’s an inscrutable, regal stillness to the way she portrays the Queen. “She’s much more solid than I am, she’s a horsewoman so her stance and energy is very centred, very still.” Did she spend a lot of time watching footage of the monarch? “As an Englishwoman you pick up a lot through osmosis. I’ve been watching the Queen all my life. But, yes, I did watch news footage and was able to pick a couple of little tics. For instance, she plays with her hands a lot and has a certain way of holding them on her lap when she’s in public.” There are strong parallels between the first series of The Crown and ITV’s recent Victoria. Both follow young women as they ascend the British throne. Both are love stories. Philip Mountbatten – played by Matt Smith with bleached blond hair – was a tall, dashing naval officer with whom Princess Elizabeth fell head over heels in love and insisted on marrying despite opposition at Court. Like her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, Elizabeth promised to honour and obey her spouse during their wedding ceremony, but then struggled to find a proper role for him afterwards. Peter Morgan’s script portrays Philip as a man who struggles with life in his wife’s shadow. At times his behaviour is pretty appalling. In the early years of their marriage, he’s shown coming home drunk after nights on the town and sulking like a bored teenager when forced to attend certain official functions. Prince Philip aged 26 “I feel real sympathy for him,” says Matt Smith. “So much changed after George VI died. He was a respected naval officer and then suddenly he has to give it all up and walk two steps behind his wife. He was completely emasculated.” Smith plays the young Duke of Edinburgh like a classic 1950s rebel in polo necks and a leather jacket with a blond James Dean quiff and a testosterone swagger. Was he really like that? “If you look at his body language,” says Smith, “I think he was a bit of a rebel and a moderniser. He married into a family ruled by protocol and tradition and he challenged the grey moustaches who ruled the roost at Buckingham Palace.” The Crown is more grown-up than ITV’s Victoria, less Downton Abbey and more The West Wing. Peter Morgan focuses as much on Downing Street and Westminster as he does on the power struggles in the royal bedchamber. Not surprising when you consider Morgan’s earlier work. His 2006 film The Queen (starring Helen Mirren) delved into the royal family’s reaction to the death of Princess Diana. In fact, The Crown producer Matt Byam-Shaw compares Claire Foy to a young Helen Mirren. “She’s extremely hard-working and professional. There’s a lot of pageantry in this series. It’s one of the biggest TV sets I’ve ever seen, with hundreds of people – actors, extras and crew – and she’s at the centre of it. It’s very rare to see a young actor with such poise and leadership.” Smith, who had never worked with Foy before, was also struck by her poise. “When Claire’s in full regal costume you can’t help but treat her like a Queen.” The two clearly got on. What makes Foy’s achievement even more remarkable is that she commenced filming just four months after giving birth to her first child. “I managed to carry on breast-feeding, which I’m really proud of. My daughter came with me everywhere and the production company were incredibly supportive, but I was existing on very little sleep and my body and my mind were still full of hormones.” To Make Matters more complicated still, three months into the eight-month shoot, Foy broke her elbow after tripping over at a friend’s wedding. “I wasn’t even drunk!” she says, head in hands. “It was so embarrassing phoning the producer to tell him. I had to go back to work because we had these huge scenes to shoot of the Royal Wedding and the Coronation at Ely Cathedral. I was in a lot of pain until I went to see this amazing doctor who syringed all the blood off my elbow and reduced the swelling. But getting into the costumes was tricky for quite a while.” Netflix is banking on a worldwide fascination with what goes on behind the gates of Buckingham Palace. Both the lead actors admit it’s made them feel differently about the royal family. “I live in London and frequently drive past Buckingham Palace, but I never gave them much thought in the past,” says Smith. “Now when I drive past I know that inside there are real people, a family with the same ups and downs that we all go through.” The Crown writer Peter Morgan: how I get inside the mind of Queen Elizabeth II
Amy Adams on body image, the gender pay gap and playing a woman with no vanity in Arrival
“ I didn’t have to play younger, I didn’t have to play coy, or try to attract or distract someone. I wasn’t trying to explore a love interest. It’s unusual”
The reason for my meeting with the five-times Oscar-nominated Amy Adams is to chat about her new film, Arrival, in which she plays a professor of linguistics hired by the military to decode alien communications. It’s a strong, intelligent lead role for a woman, so I’m embarrassed to confess that our conversation begins with her gravity-defying breasts. The actress is wearing the same plunging neckline that defined her role in American Hustle and I can’t resist asking if she worries about wardrobe malfunctions? She laughs. It’s a damp, autumnal London day and Adams says she is more worried about getting cold than exposing her breasts. “I think it comes from being a dancer for so many years. I’m not self-conscious about my body but maybe I should be. My daughter got upset by my chest-baring in American Hustle.” But it didn’t stop her from turning up to the London premiere of Arrival in a diaphanous white robe with a neckline to the waist. In sharp contrast, her character in Arrival is make-up free and wears nothing but plain T-shirts and combat trousers. “It was great just rolling out of bed and going to work, not having to worry about hair and make-up. It’s refreshing to play a character with no vanity. I have always felt an expectation to look my best. I often play characters who are younger than me so I worry about that. But with this role I didn’t have to play younger, I didn’t have to play coy, or try to attract or distract someone. I wasn’t trying to explore a love interest. It’s unusual.” Arrival Arrival plays to one of our greatest fears, the threat of planetary extinction, but does so without resorting to the action-packed hysteria of most Hollywood films. Jeremy Renner plays a supporting role as the mathematician on the team. His credits include The Hurt Locker, The Bourne Legacy and the Avengers films, and he was keen to work with Adams again after they met on American Hustle. It would be interesting to know how his fee for this role compares to hers. It emerged via the hacking of Sony emails in 2014 that Adams and Jennifer Lawrence were paid less for American Hustle than their male co-stars. Renner, Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale all received a greater share of the film’s profits. Lawrence was furious and hit back with a scathing essay online about sexism in the film industry. Adams kept silent. “I’m happy speaking up on behalf of women in general, but I’m not great at speaking up on behalf of myself. I don’t feel bad for me. I knew when I accepted the job. I’m not sure Jennifer did...” Her voice tails off and for the first time in our interview she looks awkward, and then adds, “Let’s get our teachers paid, let’s find a liveable wage for teachers. The principle is about the way women are treated – once we think women are worth less, then it’s easy to treat them less well.” American Hustle Switching back to Arrival, Adams is the only significant female character in it – how did that feel, being the only woman in a male world? She smiles. “It feels like most films I do, unfortunately. I have had the pleasure of working with other actresses but it’s not the norm.” She spent last summer in London with her husband, Darren Le Gallo, and their six-year-old daughter, Aviana, while filming superhero blockbuster Justice League, in which Adams reprises the role of Lois Lane from Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. “We lived in Primrose Hill, which was lovely, very close to Regent’s Park. So we took my daughter there, had picnics and threw frisbees. It was a perfect summer.” I confess to seeing pictures of her on Mail Online enjoying a pint of Guinness in a local pub and snogging Le Gallo. Did she get annoyed by the tabloid attention? “No, they didn’t bother me at all. I’m not going to complain about being caught making-out with my husband – that makes me the perfect wife. And I’m a dark beer girl, so what?” Her husband is an artist as well as an actor, which was good preparation for her other big film released earlier this month, Tom Ford’s thriller Nocturnal Animals, in which she plays the owner of an LA art gallery. Ambitions for the future include doing a stage musical – Adams spent eight years as a dancer and chorus girl touring small American theatres with Broadway musicals. She’d also like to do more TV work and in March starts shooting a new HBO drama called Sharp Objects. The series is based on the novel by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, and Adams will not only play the lead but also acts as an executive producer. “I asked them to bring me into the fold so I could learn the production side of things. I haven’t done TV in a while because I kept getting fired.” She says this in a jokey way but then tells me how she got fired from the drama Dr Vegas in which she played nurse to Rob Lowe’s doctor. “I was told they were ‘taking it in a different direction’, but Rob wrote a book recently in which he talks about the producers saying, ‘We don’t think Amy Adams is sexy.’ I didn’t see my character as sexy. I saw her as a really smart nurse who was Lowe’s equal.” I point out that she is unlikely to face similar issues as a producer on her new series. “I think TV has changed in the past decade. There are many more great roles for women now. Women are watching a lot of TV so content is being made for them and I want to be part of that.” Arrival hits UK cinemas today, Thursday 10 November
Vicky McClure on corsets, Soho sex shops and (not) being a secret agent
McClure is the wife of an English spy in her first period drama The Secret Agent - some people think she could be a female Bond...
I’m sitting in a small, wood-panelled house in London’s East End, discussing Victorian sex toys with Vicky McClure. The actress with her cropped dark hair, jeans and trainers looks out of place in this Dickensian setting, rented out for period dramas and photoshoots. From This Is England to Line of Duty, we’re used to seeing McClure in council estates and police stations, not corsets and bonnets. But that’s about to change. At 33, McClure is appearing in her first period drama, a three-part adaptation of Joseph Conran’s literary classic The Secret Agent. It’s a political thriller set in 19th-century London, but there are parallels with today. Europe is gripped by a fear of terrorism, and relations between London and the other European capitals are under serious strain. “When I first went to meet the director Charles McDougall I was really nervous about how to play it. But he said we are not making a period drama. The way Tony Marchant [Garrow’s Law] has written it is so modern. There are a few moments in the dialogue when they use words you wouldn’t now, but for the most part it feels very contemporary.” Did she have to wear a corset? She grimaces. “Yeah, it’s really uncomfortable. But when you have the costume you feel instantly in that period, and I think it helps the way you move. I’m naturally a pockets girl.” Quite a change from the high-waisted jeans and Doc Martens she wore in This Is England? “Well you say that, but those jeans were really tight!” McClure’s most compelling feature is her piercing aquamarine blue eyes, fringed by thick black lashes. For TV viewers like myself, she’ll always be Lol, the troubled skinhead from This Is England whose eyes conveyed a well of misery - from incest and rape to attempted suicide. Set on a council estate in the Midlands in the late 80s, This Is England is an improvised drama directed by Shane Meadows. It started as a film in 2006 and then developed into three TV series with the same characters: This is England '86, '88 and '90. McClure has won Bafta and Royal Television Society awards for her part in the series. McClure’s other big role is playing DC Kate Fleming, a hard-nosed undercover cop who investigates police corruption in Line of Duty. At the end of series three we saw her morph into an action heroine, chasing bad guys while firing a gun. She laughs when I mention this. “Some fans were talking about me for the first female Bond! It’s not going to happen, but I’m flattered. Line of Duty is well known for long scenes inside the police station, so it was good to get out on the streets a bit more and bump up the energy. The response we had for the third series was phenomenal.” Her character in The Secret Agent is very different: she’s submissive and compliant. “Women in those days had to have a man to protect them.” McClure plays Winnie, the wife of a Soho sex shop owner. Her husband, Anton Verloc (Toby Jones), is a shady character. He’s a secret agent on the payroll of the Russian Embassy and British intelligence, but he also flogs grubby postcards to upright Victorian gentlemen. We first see Winnie behind the counter, in a high-necked long black dress, hair tied back in a severe bun. Behind her on the wall are saucy, soft-focus shots of naked Botticelli-like women with inviting smiles. “The way the set designers created the contents of the shop was incredible. When I first walked in I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. Apparently, that stuff was massive in Victorian times.” The sex shop is also a front for her husband’s nefarious political activities. A number of revolutionary anarchist groups made their home in London in the late 19th century, and Anton has infiltrated one of them. His Russian paymasters want him to act as an agent provocateur, encouraging the revolutionaries to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. The marriage between Winnie and Anton is one of convenience. Also living in the house are her mother and younger brother, Stevie. “Anton has got himself a young wife, someone who will look after his home, his business and his sexual needs, and Winnie needs to provide for her family. That’s the way it was,” explains McClure, raising a well defined eyebrow. She speaks with a distinct Midlands accent that's refreshing in an age when ex-Etonians dominate the acting profession. McClure is proud of her working-class background and comprehensive school education, and that she’s become successful without the advantages of a private education or being trained at one of the big drama schools. Instead, she attended a free after-school drama workshop twice a week from the age of 11. Nottingham’s Television Workshop has spawned several Bafta winners, including Samantha Morton and Jack O’Connell, who recently starred in the Jodie Foster-directed film Money Monster, with George Clooney and Julia Roberts. She’s very passionate when talking about class and the acting profession. “It’s striking how many successful actors came out of Nottingham. "We don’t need to send people to expensive drama schools. When I went to the Nottingham Television Workshop it was free, and even now it’s affordable – £100 a term. If people don’t have that there are bursaries and sponsors. There should be places like that in every city.” When she was 15, the Nottingham-based director Shane Meadows came to the workshop and cast her in his film A Room for Romeo Brass, a comedy-drama about two friends. “I thought my big break had come because the film was going to be shown in cinemas. Then I found out it was only six cinemas. It’s been a blimmin’ long, hard slog to get to where I am now. It took another ten years before I did This Is England 86.” Fame doesn’t appear to have changed her much. She still lives in Nottingham around the corner from Meadows and has no desire to move. “It’s where I want to live. I’m 33, I have a mortgage, and a house. It’s where I’m happy.” When she’s not working, she’s at home with her partner, Welsh actor and screenwriter Johnny Owen. “I think it’s a really creative place and I’m heavily involved in the arts there. We have a great theatre, film, music – the musician Jake Bugg’s from Nottingham.” So what does she do to relax? “I binge on MasterChef, Bake Off – in fact, any kind of cookery programme going.” Does she cook? “Well I did some baking the other day for the Alzheimer’s Society because my nana passed away from the disease, and I’m an ambassador for them. But my cakes turned out a bit flat!” What about trying her luck in Hollywood? “I’ve never been approached or been out to LA. I understand why actors go there, but it’s not something I want. I’m a massive fan of British drama, and it’s a good period to be working here.” What she really enjoys is working with actors she knows well. She describes the cast of This Is England as her second family. By a stroke of good luck, Stephen Graham – who played the violent skinhead Combo – was cast as Detective Inspector Heat in The Secret Agent. “I’ve known Stephen for 13 years, so he’s my mate. I think we’re both conscious that we could be like Lol and Combo, but actually it wasn’t an issue because the characters are so different.” The night before our interview, she and Graham were both at the wedding of Martin Compston, who plays Steve Arnott in Line of Duty, and is another close friend. McClure is returning to Belfast next month to shoot series four of Line of Duty. “It’s a great city and there’s a huge amount of filming going on in Northern Ireland. We’re filming at the same time as Game of Thrones, so I expect there’ll be long queues at the bar!” The Secret Agent starts tonight, 9pm BBC1
"One man’s pursuit of justice": the real-life story behind Reg
Reg Keys lost his son in the Iraq War – and he's still waiting for an apology
Reg Keys has long been a fan of Tim Roth. He first saw him in Quentin Tarantino’s 1991 film Reservoir Dogs. So when the television producer Colin McKeown phoned Reg to say they were casting the actor to play him in a film about his life, the former ambulance driver and paramedic thought it was a joke. The reality only sank in a couple of months later when he met the Hollywood star in a pub in Liverpool where the drama was being shot. But then again there are many aspects of Reg’s life that he couldn’t have imagined in a million years, such as running for Parliament and taking on the then prime minister, Tony Blair, over Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War. Reg’s remarkable story is now being told in a 90-minute BBC1 drama written by the award-winning screenwriter Jimmy McGovern. Thirteen years ago, when he retired from his job in Birmingham, Reg Keys imagined a quiet life in north Wales. He and his wife Sally, a former nurse, had bought a house in the countryside and were looking forward to visits from their two sons, who were both in the Army. The film opens on the day Reg’s life changed, in June 2003. The couple are having lunch and on the TV news is breaking of the murder of six British servicemen in Iraq. The camera pans to a photograph of a young man in military uniform – and then comes the knock at the door: his 20-year-old son, Lance Corporal Thomas (Tom) Keys, was one of the dead. Just two years later, Reg stood as a candidate to be MP for Sedgefield in Durham, taking on Prime Minister Tony Blair. “If this war had been justified by international law, I would have grieved and not campaigned. If weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, I would have grieved and not campaigned.” These are words uttered by Tim Roth in the drama, but Reg repeats them when it’s screened for the press. In the aftermath of the Iraq War, Reg Keys became a shop steward for the ordinary man, voicing the rage so many felt about being dragged into a conflict in the Middle East on false pretences. Keys was courageous enough to demand an explanation from the Prime Minister with dogged persistence and he never gave up. “A lot of the script is me, word for word,” he says. “It’s strange to look at the screen and see somebody else in your situation, using your name and mannerisms and voice even, but it’s not me. It’s a surreal experience.” What strikes me when I watch the drama, and again later when I meet the real Reg Keys, is his quiet dignity. He’s impeccably dressed and well mannered. A real gent. I bet he was a great ambulance driver, just the kind of person you’d want in a crisis, calm but kind and assured. If there is a cauldron of anger boiling inside him, it’s not obvious. One of the most shocking scenes in the film is when Reg learns from his son’s commanding officer that their unit had been “descaled” shortly before they were attacked in a filthy run-down police station in southern Iraq. “Descaled” is Army jargon, meaning that vital equipment – which might have saved their lives – had been taken away. While his wife Sally sank into a catatonic depression from which she would never recover, Reg went into overdrive, founding Military Families Against the War and embarking on an election campaign in Sedgefield. The turning point for Reg was finding out that there had been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the cited reason for going to war: “That was the night, the blue touchpaper, really.” Some of the lighter moments in the film show Reg pounding the pavements of Sedgefield in a bid to get votes, but he says the reality was a lot grimmer: “They’d answer the door literally with their dinner on the plate and say, ‘Can’t you see I’m having my tea?’ Or, ‘Your son joined the Army, he got killed – what did you expect?’ And that was the tip of the iceberg.” The film also shows the odd assortment of celebrities who turned up to support Reg’s campaign, including novelist Frederick Forsyth and the former BBC war correspondent Martin Bell. “Martin Bell just pitched up and offered to help. He’s friends with that blond bloke David Soul, out of Starsky & Hutch, so he came up too and got some votes. Then there was the musician Brian Eno, he’s from a Quaker background and was against the war, so he put up the money for offices, the computers and the printers. It’s expensive running a campaign, but the donations flooded in. Richard Dawkins the scientist donated quite a lot of money.” He says he could have forgiven Blair for Tom’s death, but not for what he did to his wife Sally. The most upsetting moments of the film for Reg are watching actress Anna Maxwell Martin portray Sally’s tragic decline. “I went to the first readthrough in a hall in Liverpool and when I heard Anna speaking Sally’s words, I had to walk out. I was choked up.” The actress had watched TV news interviews with Sally and had caught her accent and mannerisms perfectly. Sally died in 2011, aged 57, and the film is dedicated to her. “There’s no actual medical condition of dying of a broken heart, but Sally was the nearest thing to it,” says Reg. “She just couldn’t cope with the nature of Tom’s death.” The film shows her self-medicating with alcohol, which must have been hard to watch. “Jimmy [McGovern] had to go with it in the script, she did start to drink too much, and it did affect her health quite badly. She stopped going out, having friends round, wouldn’t allow a doctor to come in the house, stopped going to the dentist, the hairdresser, stopped having her nails done...” He tails off, pauses and then says, “She wanted to die, she wanted to be with Tom.” I ask whether he still feels the same anger against Blair, and whether there was anything he could have done afterwards that would have made a difference. “He could have expressed regret for the loss of my son’s life, which he didn’t do. I think he could have handled it better with the families, he could have met us, listened to what we had to say.” Reg’s burning desire to meet Tony Blair face to face and look him in the eye propelled him into standing for election in Sedgefield just so he might get a chance to meet him at the count. This also drives the drama of the film, culminating in election night, where archive footage of the then prime minister looking distinctly uncomfortable is cleverly intercut with film of Tim Roth playing Reg. What does Reg feel about the British electoral system now? “What I never realised before is that the ordinary man in the street can put up £500 and stand to be an MP. And if you get over a certain percentage of the vote, you get your £500 back! That’s the beauty of our democracy. But it’s not something that I would want to do again – I did find it extraordinarily draining.” One aspect of his election campaign that didn’t make it into the film was the attempts to set him up for compromising stories in the tabloids. “I got a message telling me to meet a journalist for an interview somewhere in Birmingham at a certain time, but I got caught up in traffic. Anyway, I arrived at this location an hour late, knocked on the door and it was a brothel. Fortunately, whoever was trying to set me up had got fed up and left, but you can imagine the headline they were after – ‘Bereaved Father Seeks Comfort in Massage Parlour’.” The drama is broadcast tonight, less than a month before the long-awaited Chilcot Inquiry report into Britain’s role in the Iraq War. Writer Jimmy McGovern says this is a coincidence. He’s been trying to make a drama about Reg for years. Keys wants Reg to set the scene. “I hope this film will work as a prelude to the Iraq inquiry. I just think it gives it more thrust. But it wasn’t engineered, was it Jimmy?” he says looking over at the writer. “For me Reg is a story about one man’s pursuit of justice,” says McGovern. “When I first met Reg he reminded me of Eddie Spearritt, who lost his lad in one of the pens at Hillsborough. Eddie campaigned vigorously for justice... he was the same size and build as Reg, Reg used to have a ’tache, Eddie had a ’tache, Eddie dressed smart, Reg dressed smart, and they both had that tigerish pursuit of truth. “Unfortunately, Eddie died – he never saw that day in court in Warrington. But Reg hopefully will with Chilcot.” Reg airs tonight at 9pm on BBC1.
Why Michael Crawford brought Frank Spencer out of retirement for Sport Relief 2016
The comedy actor last played the Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em character 42 years ago, but decided that the opportunity to work with Sport Relief (and Bradley Wiggins) was too good to pass up
Forty-two years since last playing Frank Spencer, Michael Crawford is reprising his famous accident-prone character in a special Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em sketch for BBC1’s Sport Relief night. And even though he’s now 74, Crawford is still doing all his own stunts. The sitcom’s ever-more elaborate sequences became its trademark over the three series that ran from 1973 to 1978, and Crawford is determined to keep up the tradition all these years on. “We’ve been working on this for four months, which sounds extravagant for a ten-minute sketch, but we wanted it to stand out,” says Crawford. “They’ve let me run riot but the producers are now scared to be left alone with me in case I come up with any more dangerous ideas. It’s turning into Ben-Hur!” Two years ago Sport Relief revived Only Fools and Horses in a sketch that saw David Beckham join Del Boy and Rodney down in Peckham market selling a crate of dodgy underpants. Not to be outdone, Michael Crawford will be joined by sporting icon Sir Bradley Wiggins and – RT can exclusively reveal – former Formula One champion Jenson Button. “I don’t want to give too much away,” says Crawford, “but Frank is on a journey by bicycle and on roller skates to see his grown-up daughter, Jessica, take part in a race at the Olympic velodrome in London. I arrive just as Bradley Wiggins is trying to break the world hour record, with hilarious consequences.” One of the most iconic scenes from Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em was the original roller-skating episode broadcast in 1973, where Frank and Betty are expecting their first child and practising for parenthood by looking after the neighbour’s children. On an outing to a roller-skating rink Frank loses control, bursts through the fire exit onto a busy road at high speed, dodging cars and ducking under a lorry before eventually crashing into a baby shop. When I reveal that it’s my favourite episode, Crawford laughs. “You’ll be pleased to hear I’m doing exactly that same thing with the double-decker bus, where I roller-skate around the corner and then grab on to the back. My balance isn’t what it used to be, so I had to do more than 12 takes before I got that scene right.” Michael Crawford’s performing career nearly came to an end in 2004 after he had to pull out of The Woman in White in the West End suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome following a viral infection. His doctors think he became seriously dehydrated from performing in a rubber fat suit. He took several years to get healthy again but is now fighting fit and preparing to star in a new musical adaptation of LP Hartley’s The Go-Between, opening in the West End in May. The huge popularity of Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em (the 1975 Christmas special got 25 million viewers) has often overshadowed the star’s successful stage career. Crawford originated the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera in the mid-80s, winning an Olivier and a Tony Award on Broadway. He has refused numerous requests over the years to put on Frank Spencer’s trademark beret and trench coat, even turning down a lucrative advertising campaign. So why now? “Two things changed my mind: one, Sport Relief is a worthy cause, and two, the opportunity to work with Bradley Wiggins.” He denies press reports that he has agreed to come back and do a revival of the series. “It’s just this sketch for Sport Relief, that’s it,” he says firmly. Michele Dotrice will also return to her role as Frank Spencer’s long-suffering wife, Betty. She’s currently on stage in the West End in Nell Gwynn with Gemma Arterton. “Michele was always disgraceful on set,” recalls her co-star fondly, “because she never stopped giggling and that would set everyone else off. But she was a good sport when it came to doing stunts.” One of the most dangerous scenes they ever filmed together for Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em was when their car ends up hanging over a cliff and Betty has to climb out over the bonnet. “When Michele’s mother saw that scene, she slapped her daughter’s face and she never spoke to me again. Of course these days it’s all much more difficult with health and safety rules. We didn’t have those 42 years ago!” He says rather diplomatically that many of the new regulations are very sensible, but it’s clear he finds them a bore. Are there any stunts from Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em that he couldn’t do now? “I think the one where I am taking my driving test and I drive off the end of the pier into the sea. I don’t think they’d allow that now.” The scene ended with Frank yelling to the terrified, bedraggled examiner, “Have I passed?” Michael Crawford’s passion for doing stunts didn’t end with the sitcom. He once suggested to the Broadway producer Hal Prince that he come down the stairs at the start of the second act in Phantom on stilts. “I tried it out on stage in front of him and he practically threw me out the door. He said he’d never met anyone so crazy – but then he was American...” Crawford’s love of physical comedy began when he was a child watching Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. “At school I couldn’t get my head round learning things I didn’t find interesting. I loved being outside, climbing trees and buildings, roller-skating through the streets – but my other passion was performing.” He was a choirboy and began acting professionally as a teenager. In 1966 he worked with the great Buster Keaton on his final film role, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. “You learn a lot listening to stories from physical comedians like him. Buster was still doing his own stunts right up until the end. He did what we call a pratfall in that film, where he walked into the branch of a tree and fell over backwards. What an inspiration!”
Hugh Bonneville on W1A: "Clarkson's always been a great source of material for us"
The BBC mockumentary's Head of Values on filming the second series and the future of Downton Abbey
Mention the show W1A to BBC employees and the most common reaction you’ll get is that it’s not TV comedy but a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Hugh Bonneville says when they were filming the second series in the BBC’s New Broadcasting House (in central London, postcode W1A), staff would sidle up to him and whisper: “You don’t know the half or it” or “Have you lot been bugging our meetings?” When a job advert for a “Head of Better” went on the BBC website earlier this month, very few people spotted it was an April Fools’ joke designed to publicise the new series of W1A. Disturbing when you consider that the specification for the job demanded “the ability to manage a wide range of incompatible priorities whilst remaining calm and where necessary in Salford”. My interview with Hugh Bonneville takes place in the wood-panelled council chamber in the old part of Broadcasting House surrounded by stiff portraits of former BBC director-generals. As Lord Reith stares sternly down at us, I can’t help but wonder what he’d have thought of Bonneville’s character, Ian Fletcher, the hapless BBC’s Head of Values, with his Brompton bike, which he can’t fold up, endless cappuccinos and incompetent, floppy-haired interns. Series two begins with a strategy meeting – what else? On the agenda is a royal visit; Prince Charles is giving the BBC a “green award” for its recycling efforts. There’s also concern about a rival broadcaster bidding for Wimbledon, the jewel in the BBC’s sporting crown. Siobhan Sharpe of Perfect Curve – who is hired at huge expense as a PR consultant – suggests they rebrand Wimbledon by replacing Sue Barker with Graham Norton and playing the theme tune from Strictly Come Dancing every time Andy Murray arrives on court. As usual the BBC computer system, Incompatico, has messed up and Fletcher doesn’t know where the meeting is. Eventually, he finds the team in the Frankie Howerd Room. Etched on its glass walls are huge photos of the comedian pulling faces. “Viewers think we make this stuff up,” says Bonneville. “They can’t believe senior members of the BBC would sit around and discuss serious issues in places called ‘think-pods’ or that there really is a Frankie Howerd Room.” W1A is a sequel to Twenty Twelve, the popular mockumentary series, broadcast in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics. Scriptwriter John Morton has displayed an uncanny ability to predict real events. In the second episode of Twenty Twelve, a busload of delegates got lost in London, an event mirrored the following year when a bus carrying foreign media representatives went astray. In this series of W1A, Jeremy Clarkson gets the BBC in trouble after writing an embarrassing tweet and using the word “tosser” repeatedly on screen. When I bring this up, Bonneville chuckles and says Clarkson has always been “a great source of material for us”, but as they made this series before the Top Gear presenter left the BBC, “We have had to tweak the voice-over a little.” Filming the second series at New Broadcasting House felt quite different because the BBC staff knew what they were doing. “The first time round, they just assumed it was another camera crew. The one thing that hasn’t changed is how difficult it is to get into the building. We were filming in the lobby the other day and the doorman was chuckling away at the jokes. But when I wanted to go upstairs and change, he wouldn’t let me because I didn’t have the correct pass.” What surprises him is how many viewers not involved with the media enjoy the show. “I thought the Twenty Twelve format had further life but that Ian Fletcher would be put in charge of sorting out the NHS or the Armed Forces. When John Morton came up with the idea of the BBC, I was worried it might look like a bit of an in-joke.” Morton decided on the BBC because the corporation faces two big decisions in 2016 that will determine its future: the renewal of the licence fee and Royal Charter. Needless to say these are key items in Ian Fletcher’s in-tray. View oEmbed on the source website Bonneville says most of the characters contain elements of real BBC people he’s encountered but the new central London HQ has provided the real comedy gold. “Just when everyone had said farewell to the old TV Centre and moved to W1A, I had a meeting in the BBC and saw a drama producer I knew in the stairwell trying to do a deal because in this new open-plan era it was the only place she could go that was private.” He’s right. It’s not uncommon to find senior staff locked in toilet cubicles whispering into mobiles. Sacking someone in an open-plan office is tricky. There are soundproofed “meeting pods” designed for this purpose but they’re usually full and look like sets from Woody Allen’s 70s futuristic comedy Sleeper. All the jokes in W1A about health and safety are also real. But Hugh Bonneville says this is not exclusive to the BBC. “It happens on any film or TV set these days and it’s ten times worse than it was ten years ago.” Does it happen on ITV’s Downton Abbey? “Oh sure. If someone is going to look into a mirror you need to fill out a long risk assessment form about possible damage to their irises. I’m exaggerating of course, but that is what John Morton has tapped into, the spread of a risk-averse culture and the way we’ve adopted all these acronyms, targets, hurdles, barriers and red tape rather than just getting on with the job of making programmes.” Despite these quibbles, Bonneville is firmly in favour of the licence fee. “I love the hidden joys of coming across a programme on the World Service or BBC4 you wouldn’t find anywhere else. You couldn’t run either of those services on commercial lines. Working on Downton Abbey, we have had a lot of contact with PBS in America and they’re constantly on their knees with a begging bowl. They really struggle. I’d hate to see us going down that route.” notice during our conversation when faced with a slightly tricky question about Clarkson or BBC management, Bonneville deflects it with a bit of jokey W1A-style banter. But when I ask him about the election and whether he thinks there should be more debate about arts funding, he gets serious and passionate. “I did most of my early work at the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. Dozens of our leading actors and writers would say the same. When the financial crisis hit Germany in 2008, they increased their arts budget by eight per cent because they recognised it as part of the engine room of the economy. Why can’t our politicians recognise that the arts are not an indulgence but an industry that employs tens of thousands of people.” I point out that Downton is one of the most successful British TV exports, so why are they bringing it to an end? Is it because the cast and creator Julian Fellowes want to move on to other things? “Not at all,” says Bonneville. “Series five was supposed to be the last so this one is a bonus and it feels right for the story. Of course it’s sad. We’re filming the final episodes now. When we finish there’ll be tears.” The day we meet, Julian Fellowes is quoted in the papers as saying he’d like to revisit Downton Abbey at a later date with a film version or even a spin-off TV series set in the 1970s. This is clearly news to Bonneville, who rolls his eyes and then says with a heavy dose of sarcasm, “Great idea. I think we should combine those two thoughts. Let’s make a film set in the 1970s in which Lord Grantham wears flares and a kipper tie. I can see it now.” W1A begins on Thursday 23rd April at 9pm, BBC2 Read more: Sarah Parish on W1A: "I used to feel terrified coming into the BBC" Preview: "W1A goes like an arrow to the heart of the BBC's foibles"
Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West play with fire as Taylor and Burton
“BBC4 should do The Making of... and release it as a comedy,” says Kirsty Lang
“I think we have great chemistry,” says Helena Bonham Carter, talking in a cod American accent and smiling coquettishly at Dominic West, her co-star in Burton and Taylor. “I try to lure him back into my bed but he won’t have me.” It’s the sort of remark that could make headlines except she’s talking of the film in which they appear together for the first time – a biopic about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s final tempestuous reunion in a 1983 stage revival of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. “Dominic’s very funny,” she says, slipping back into her normal voice. “I didn’t want it to end.” After an hour with them, I believe it. Bonham Carter and West are like a double act switching in and out of their screen personas and teasing each other mercilessly. BBC4 should do The Making of... and release it as a comedy. Burton and Taylor charts the relationship between two of the 20th century’s greatest screen icons when they meet again on stage, having been married and divorced twice. Private Lives was a perfect piece of casting – a comedy about a divorced couple who end up in adjoining rooms in a French hotel while honeymooning with their new spouses. But the 1983 production, which ran for nine months on Broadway, Los Angeles and in London’s West End, was a car crash, panned by the critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Liz Taylor was drinking heavily and although Burton was on the wagon, he was not a well man and died the following year at the age of 58. The question at the heart of the film is why they undertook such a long, gruelling stage tour when they were so unwell. The press assumed it was for the money. They were getting $70,000 a week, which was a huge sum. But screenwriter William Ivory has another theory. “They didn’t need the cash. Richard Burton knew the tour would probably kill him and he knew Liz was bad for him but he was an addict. He couldn’t keep away from her. He couldn’t help himself.” Although the chemistry remained, Burton and Taylor never did get back together. Burton met his last wife, Sally, around that time and married her while on tour, sending Taylor into a fury that exploded nightly on stage. They started inventing lines particularly during the fight scenes. Burton would scream abuse like “Slattern, vermin and fishwife”, while she appeared to take pleasure in hitting him even when it wasn’t in the stage directions. “They were very competitive with each other anyway,” says Dominic West, “but after he got married, Liz would deliberately try and throw him. She even walked on stage with her pet parrot Alvin to see how he would react.” These days Alcoholics Anonymous would call them co-dependents. Taylor could drink Burton under the table. He admired her for it. She spent the entire Private Lives tour trying to get him to have a drink. He wouldn’t give in, which drove her mad. They were two people who lived life to extremes. “He was easily bored,” says Ivory, “and Liz could never bore him.” West says playing Richard Burton was intimidating: “It’s the voice. You have to get it right. The film opens with Burton quoting from King Lear, a role he always wanted to play but never managed and the stage direction on the script is ‘Burton has the most beautiful mellifluous voice you’ve ever heard’, which put the fear of God into me.” “No pressure then,” says Bonham Carter, arching an eyebrow. West: “Well, when I drank and smoked all night, it worked pretty well but I didn’t have the stamina to keep it up.” Both actors say the real revelation of the script was just how funny and sassy Liz Taylor was in real life. She had a bad press from British critics who thought she had led Richard Burton astray. West says Burton was constantly asked by British journalists whether he felt he had sold out to Hollywood and that it hurt him terribly. Orson Welles once said, “Richard Burton had a great talent. He’s ruined his great gifts. He’s become a joke with a celebrity wife. Now he just works for money, does the worst s***.” Helena Bonham Carter relates one particular TV interview she’s seen where Liz Taylor leapt to Burton’s defence. “She said, ‘Shut up, he just did Hamlet, for God’s sake.’ She was like a huge Rottweiler when people tried to put him down and she was right. There is far too much snobbery about stage versus film. They’re different mediums and she was a great screen actress.” It’s clear that they both did huge amounts of preparation for the roles, meeting people who knew the couple and reading biographies. Bonham Carter even consulted an astrologer to find out more about Liz Taylor, who died in 2011. “She was really insightful. She told me Elizabeth was a water person. Water is sexual and sensual and that’s the place she operated from.” West is smirking throughout this revelation. Did he visit the astrologer as well? “Helena gave me the number but somehow I never got around to it.” Instead, he immersed himself in Richard Burton’s recently published diaries and recounts a wonderful story about him and Liz Taylor going to a fair near their holiday home in Mexico. “She volunteered to be strapped to a wheel and have knives thrown at her. She was quite a woman,” he says admiringly. “And she had a big appetite for life,” adds Bonham Carter. “She was a good eater. Unlike actresses these days, she liked her food”. Both look fascinated when I tell them how I met Richard Burton when I was 17, having been at school with his and Liz Taylor’s adopted child, Maria. He took us for a ride in his Rolls-Royce followed by tea at the Dorchester. I remember him watching me admiringly as I stuffed yet another cream puff into my mouth, saying, “I like to see a girl with a healthy appetite,” before quizzing me about what books I liked. I remember him as warm, kind and down to earth, not at all like the aloof superstar I’d imagined he’d be. “Was he wearing a brown polo neck jumper?” asks West, “That’s what they put me in for the entire shoot. I’d like to think he was better dressed.” Sadly, I can’t remember what Burton was wearing. I was so overwhelmed by getting a ride in a Rolls and having tea at the Dorchester with one of the greatest celebrities of the day. In the film, West and Bonham Carter bear an extraordinary resemblance to the couple. They both had to wear blue contact lenses. Bonham Carter proudly gets out her phone to show me a close-up of her with Taylor’s famous violet eyes. William Ivory says the whole production hinged on getting her and West together: “We had to get actors of sufficient stature to play Burton and Taylor and these two have that star quality.” So how do you follow a role like that? Helena Bonham Carter is off to play a spy in a David Hare film and Dominic West will be portraying a gay activist during the miners strike in a film called Pride. When he says it’s another wonderful script, she asks if there is a part for her. “If you’re prepared to play a Welsh miner’s wife or lesbian, I’ll have a word,” replies West. He then says he’s worried because he’ll have to lose loads of weight for the role as his character was the second person in Britain to be diagnosed with Aids. “The problem is I am walking to the South Pole after that and I really need a spare tyre for the journey.” “You crazy man,” shrieks Bonham Carter: “Tell him he’s crazy.” When I ask West whether he thinks it’s wise for him to walk to the South Pole – even for charity – given that he and his wife Catherine are expecting their fourth baby, he says, “I always get terrible postnatal depression so I thought I should get away for a bit.” At this point Helena Bonham Carter’s mobile starts vibrating on the table. “It’s Tim” she says referring to her husband, the film director Tim Burton and then says, “Hi honey, I’m just doing an interview,” in her Liz Taylor voice. When he hangs up soon after she quips rather naughtily that her husband “never takes very long”. Our time is also up, but I’m left wanting more of this particular double act. Burton and Taylor is on tonight 9pm, BBC4
From Birdsong to Les Misérables, Eddie Redmayne is taking Hollywood by storm
"There was something both grounding and surreal about watching Gladiator, Wolverine and Catwoman doing vocal exercises"
Chiselled cheekbones, hair gelled into spikes and a tightly fitted tweed suit with drain-pipe trousers are the first things I register about Eddie Redmayne as he bounces into the Claridges hotel room booked for our interview. I can see why Burberry asked him to model for them. Flattery is often the best way to open an interview with an actor (they’re an insecure lot) so I tell him that Radio Times readers loved his performance in the TV adaptation of Birdsong last year. “How do you know?” he asks, a cheeky grin spreading across his angular face. “Did they write lots of steamy letters?” There was plenty of steam in Redmayne’s performance as the young British army officer having an affair with a married Frenchwoman, but he says it was one of the hardest jobs he’s ever done. “Because the drama jumps between war scenes in the trenches to an indoor period drama, there would be days where I would spend the morning up to my neck in mud, get hosed down over lunch and spend the afternoon doing a love scene in the drawing room.” Mud, rain and amorous clinches with a Frenchwoman are also features of the young actor’s latest, and possibly starriest, role to date, the film adaptation of Les Misérables. The stakes are high – Les Mis is the world’s longest running musical, seen by more than 60 million people in 42 countries worldwide and the film is a big-budget affair with a high wattage cast including Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen. It’s no surprise that Eddie Redmayne should be included in such a high profile venture, but what is interesting is that he’s one of several Old Etonians dominating the acting world at the moment. The list includes Dominic West, Damien Lewis, Tom Hiddleston and Harry Lloyd. Redmayne points out that they’ve all continued to do theatre alongside their TV and film work. As well as Birdsong and the film My Week with Marilyn, Redmayne also starred in Michael Grandage’s Richard II at the Donmar Warehouse in 2011. Old Etonians have also conquered showbiz on the other side of the Atlantic. After the success of Hugh Laurie in House, Damien Lewis in Home land and Dominic West in The Wire, Eton’s headmaster commented that, “When HBO want a gritty, hard-bitten, authentically American character to head up a mini-series, they instinctively think: Old Etonian.” I ask Redmayne why he thinks Eton is such a petri dish for thespian talent. Straight off the bat, he names two inspiring drama teachers: Hailz-Emily Osborne and Simon Dormandy. “They treated us like professionals and we had a state-of-the-art theatre which meant that the adjustment between school and working professionally didn’t feel like that much of a leap.” Mrs Osborne in fact remembers being entranced by a 13-year-old Eddie when he first took to the stage. “He had been given a non-speaking role as Queen Charlotte in an excerpt of The Madness of King George. All Eddie had to do was stand and look terribly concerned while the elder boy hammed it up and went mad, but I was just riveted by him. He came across as so professional, even at that young age,” she recalls of her star pupil. Singing was also part of his t raining at Eton and he went to Cambridge on a choral scholarship. That, and a part aged 12 in the Sam Mendes-directed West End production of Oliver! would prove key when he auditioned for the role of the young revolutionary Marius in Les Mis. He says he wasn’t intimidated walking onto a set with Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway because singing is such a great leveller: “There was something both grounding and surreal about watching Gladiator, Wolverine and Catwoman doing vocal exercises,” he says, laughing and imitating someone going “Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah” in different keys. The director Tom Hooper – who won an Oscar for The King’s Speech – insisted on filming the musical live to make it more authentic. That means the actors are really singing instead of miming to a pre-recorded soundtrack. Redmayne says when you’re shooting a film from five in the morning until eight at night, it’s about training your voice for a marathon rather than a sprint. “Twenty takes means singing the same song 20 times so you really have to be at the top of your game vocally. And you never knew when you were going to be doing a big solo number, so the poor drivers on this film had to get used to us crazy actors driving to Pinewood at dawn doing endless voice warm-ups.” When I asked what he learnt from working with big stars like Crowe and Jackman, he says nothing about the Oscar-winning star of Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind, but is very complimentary about the Wolverine actor. “Hugh was the leader. He would keep all our spirits up and every Friday he would buy all the cast and crew a lottery ticket because by that time we were on our knees. His capacity for generosity of spirit was extraordinary. “Learning from other actors is not just about work, it’s also about how to be…” he pauses and thinks for a moment as if searching for the right words. “It’s such a confusing world, acting. You go from being nobody to being given far too much attention. It’s a constant oscillation which is hard to get your head around, so I watch and learn from people I think deal with it well.” The anecdote about Jackman is also very telling about Redmayne. I come away with the sense that he is a very decent, grounded young actor who is aware of the pitfalls of showbiz and is trying very hard not to let his recent success go to his head. He also refuses to concede that being an Old Etonian can in any way be construed as a disadvantage in the acting world. So when I ask if he worries about being typecast as a posh boy, his reply is suitably considered. “I think our historic and literary heritage in this country means there are many good stories to tell and a lot of them tend to be period pieces and I’m very lucky to be part of that.” Moaning is clearly considered churlish in Redmayne’s book. “Actually I recently played a Texan meth addict,” he says, grinning. “That’s not typecasting.” I cast my eye once again over his well-cut, grey tweed suit and try to imagine him badly dressed, but I can’t. Les Misérables is released in UK cinemas nationwide on Friday 11 January
Michael Palin on Brazil, sex, slaves and convincing the BBC to make his shows
The former Monty Python star reveals all about his latest travel adventure in South America
Michael Palin is standing in the luxurious white suite of a Love Hotel in Rio. There is a hot tub, an indoor swimming pool and a bed the size of a football pitch. Hugh Hefner would love it, but Palin is examining the room-service menu with horror. “No tea and biscuits here,” he says, cocking an eyebrow as the camera zooms over his shoulder to reveal a selection of sex toys. There’s something rather shocking about seeing Michael Palin looking at pictures of such objects. There are lots of references to sex in Palin’s latest BBC travel series because it’s a journey across Brazil and sex is something they’re very keen to talk about. So, as he travels the country from north to south, he’s offered a herbal version of Viagra made from Amazonian plants (which he refuses), attends the Gay Pride Parade in Rio de Janeiro with a group of transvestites and interviews one of Bahia’s most famous female chefs, a buxom lady of some charm who leans across the table as she tucks into her fish stew and proclaims that good food is like an orgasm . I meet the former Python in altogether more sedate circumstances at a restaurant near BBC Broadcasting House in London, where the food is good but not orgasmic although he does persuade me to have a glass of wine when I had sworn not to drink at lunchtime. Having just watched the first three episodes of Brazil, I’m struck that what you see is what you get. Palin in real life is exactly like Palin on TV: warm, modest and equable. He really is Mr Nice Guy. No wonder he’s the only Monty Python member who has remained constantly on good terms with all the others. While we’re eating, a woman comes over and introduces herself as the director of a charity that helps HIV-positive children in Africa. She tells him she is a huge fan, passes him a card and asks if he will lend his support. He takes it, smiling warmly but promising nothing. I imagine this happens to him all the time. Brazil is the first series Palin has made about just one country. All his other travel series have been epic journeys from pole to pole, across the Himalayas and the Sahara and then through eastern Europe. So why does Brazil merit so much attention? “It was somewhere I had never been. It’s a very large country that geographically I’d always missed on these other arbitrary journeys that I’d made. And it’s going to be hosting the next football World Cup and the Olympics, so I wanted to get in there before everyone else." Brazil’s economic boom also makes it interesting. While Palin’s team were travelling around the country, Brazil overtook the UK as the world’s sixth-largest economy (ranked by nominal GDP). It’s the B in the rapidly growing BRIC nations, but the one that everyone seems to overlook in favour of an earlier fascination with China, India and Russia. Yet Brazil’s boom is integral to China’s. Its huge agricultural and mineral resources are feeding Chinese growth. “They continually tell you about the new middle class,” says Palin, “how 40 million people have been taken out of poverty in the past ten years.” Brazil reminds him of Australia because everyone lives on the coast while the vast interior remains relatively empty apart, of course, from its indigenous people. The new series begins in the north east of the country, because that’s where modern Brazil was born, in the 15th century, under Portuguese colonial rule. What surprised Palin most was how African it felt, how the carnivals owe as much to African rituals and religious beliefs as they do to Catholicism. It’s a little-known fact that Brazil had the largest slave population in the world, much bigger than the United States’. West African slaves were brought over to work on the vast sugar plantations that fuelled the country’s first economic boom, but they so outnumbered the few Portuguese colonists that they were able to preserve their African culture in a way that North American slaves could not. To this day, most of the population of Brazil’s north-eastern states, such as Bahia, is black and the West African influence can still be seen in the food, music and dance, and in animist religions such as Macumba and Candomblé. From the northern coast Palin’s team travel inland by road, river and finally light aircraft, deep into the Amazon jungle. There they stay with the Yanomami tribe, who until the 1980s had had no contact with the outside world. Palin says it’s the first time he has met people whose lives have not changed for thousands of years. He describes how the Yanomami are being threatened by the incursion of miners into the Amazon, who have brought with them diseases such as measles to which the tribespeople have no immunity. I ask him whether he feels guilty about taking a camera crew there. “There’s no real answer to that,” he says. “It’s very difficult to get to, there are no tours and you have to have special permission to travel. But we are not the first to go. As soon as contact begins, change comes, and hopefully this programme will highlight the Yanomami’s plight.” The series also reveals Britain’s role in Brazilian history. On the positive side, we gave them football. On the downside, it was a British explorer by the name of Henry Wickham who stole thousands of rubber tree seeds from a plantation near Santarem and took them to Kew Gardens, where they were grown into seedlings and exported to British colonies in Ceylon and Malaysia thereby undermining and ultimately destroying the Brazilian rubber boom of the late 19th century. Palin goes to see the relics of that boom in the Amazonian city of Manaus, where the rubber barons built a magnificent baroque opera house in the belief that they would create a version of Paris in the jungle. Further downriver, Palin finds another ghostly reminder of that era: the ruins of a purpose-built industrial town called Fordlandia. It was built in the 1920s in the middle of the jungle on the orders of Henry Ford, who wanted to secure cheap rubber production for his car factories. The experiment was an epic failure when disease killed both the workers and the rubber trees. The Amazon trip includes a 14-hour journey on an overcrowded ferry. The air is hot and humid. Sweat can be seen dripping off the passengers. As he steps onto the boat, Palin turns to the camera and asks, “Can I survive this?” It’s the sort of travelling that’s fun when you’re backpacking in your teens and 20s, but at 69 must be getting tough. He bats away any such suggestion. “A bit of discomfort makes for the best bits of the film because it means you’re getting places most people wouldn’t get to." This is his eighth big travel-based series since he made Around the World in 80 Days almost 24 years ago. He always travels with the same team. “We’re all getting on now. Nigel the cameraman is 65. I call it Saga filming.” The arrival of grandchildren makes him less inclined to travel. “My grandsons are six and three and I love watching them growing. It reminds me of being with the Python team – I can be silly and irreverent.” There is something quite old-fashioned – in a comforting way – about this Palin series. There’s no element of the freak show, neither are there any snide remarks about strange foreign customs that are so common in reality TV shows these days. His model, he says, is David Attenborough, who gives the audience information without getting in the way. He says the greatest compliment he ever had was from an Ethiopian who thanked him for showing his country in a positive light when most TV crews came only when there was a famine. But I wonder aloud why the BBC keeps commissioning Palin’s shows, given that one of the TV controllers is reported to have said the corporation didn’t want any more travel series featuring white, middle-aged celebrities. Palin’s response is that all his seven series hitherto have had good audiences and the accompanying books sell well, too. He admits, when pushed, to having to justify his programmes to BBC executives more than he used to. “They want to know all the details in advance about what they’re going to see,” he says. That must be problematic, I reply. He wriggles uncomfortably in his seat and glances guiltily at our minder from BBC Publicity. Michael Palin hates any hint of conflict and is either too nice or too wise to bite the hand that feeds him. He admits that the budgets are smaller and that does show at times. Has travel changed much in the 25 years since he started making these programmes? “Communications have changed and that’s taken a lot of the adventure out of it,” he says. “We used to go for up to a week without any contact with London. Now you can talk any time you want [via a satellite phone]. “I phoned my wife from the top of the Tibetan plateau to tell her how breathtakingly beautiful it was. Unfortunately the plumber was round, so she wasn’t that interested!” As for flying, the man who pioneered global travel doesn’t think that there should be a third runway at Heathrow, even though he has spent many an hour circling London when the airport was overcrowded. “I think we should restrict air travel in the UK instead. There is no need to fly to Manchester or Glasgow. We can take the train.” He says Brazil will have to sort out its infrastructure before the 2014 World Cup and the next Olympics. The traffic jams in Sao Paulo are notorious and the Metro in Rio currently has only 33 stations compared with 270 on the London Underground. And then there are the notorious slums, or favelas, that cling to the hillsides above Rio’s beaches. “The favelas have traditionally been controlled by the drugs gangs, so it’s like St Tropez surrounded by Mogadishu,” says Palin. “But they’re driving out the dealers and putting in electricity, sanitations and community centres. I’m sure they’ll succeed because there is huge public enthusiasm for these sporting events. The Brazilians are great at celebrations. They have an Olympic Opening Ceremony every other day.”