{"id":436080,"date":"2011-06-05T00:45:41","date_gmt":"2011-06-05T00:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/06\/05\/mad-men-uk-exclusive-preview-of-the-bbcs-6m-ride-to-1956-with-dominic-west\/"},"modified":"2011-06-05T00:45:41","modified_gmt":"2011-06-05T00:45:41","slug":"mad-men-uk-exclusive-preview-of-the-bbcs-6m-ride-to-1956-with-dominic-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/05\/mad-men-uk-exclusive-preview-of-the-bbcs-6m-ride-to-1956-with-dominic-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad Men UK: Exclusive preview of the BBC’s \u00a36m ride to 1956 with Dominic West"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Cole Moreton<\/a><\/p>\n

Last updated at 1:45 AM on 5th June 2011<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The BBC is hoping The Hour can attract the same sort of devoted following as Mad Men<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

From the outside, Hornsey Town Hall looks grim and abandoned. But if you press the right buzzer and step through a side door, you walk straight into 1956 \u2013 and onto the set of a stylish new television drama that\u2019s already being hailed as the British answer to Mad Men.<\/p>\n

\u2018Silence,\u2019 says a female voice, and men in suits with slicked-back hair come striding down the corridor, on cue.<\/p>\n

The actress Romola Garai steps out from behind a filing cabinet, looking immaculate. She collides with Dominic West, who used to be a star of The Wire but is unrecognisable in high-waisted trousers and braces.<\/p>\n

\u2018I love you,\u2019 says West, in the clipped tones of a Fifties newsreader, which is what he is today.<\/p>\n

She laughs. \u2018What does that mean?\u2019<\/p>\n

And the invisible voice says, \u2018Cut. Wrap.\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see why The Hour has been compared to the aforementioned U.S. show, about Don Draper and his glamorous friends in the American advertising industry, which has won multiple Emmys and was imported by the BBC to great acclaim.<\/p>\n

Both re-imagine roughly the same period in history (Mad Men begins just four years later, in 1960), albeit on opposite sides of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Both feature great-looking lead actors wearing elegant clothes, working from clever scripts dealing with gender politics that crackle with sexual tension. Both have a similar theme \u2013 as Draper\u2019s ad agency drives change in America, so The Hour has a set of sharp young journalists rewriting the news as Britain emerges from austerity.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An assistant adjusts the seam of Romola Garai’s skirt as Dominic West looks on. The period detail in the office scene is painstakingly accurate, from the authentic phone, cigarette case, ashtray and typewriter on the desk to the press cuttings and BBC floor plans on the wall, and newsreel cans on the shelves<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018It\u2019s understandable that people compare us to Mad Men,\u2019 says the producer, Ruth Kenley-Letts.<\/p>\n

\u2018I love Mad Men. It\u2019s a great show. If the comparison encourages people to watch, that\u2019s great. We\u2019re also very different, though.<\/p>\n

‘We have a huge thriller story going on throughout our show, which they don\u2019t, and we\u2019re in the world of BBC television in 1956, which isn\u2019t the U.S. advertising industry. There\u2019s more politics; we have the Suez Crisis as our backdrop. That\u2019s not something Mad Men does. Our show is going to be less glossy, less shiny.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"West<\/p>\n

West and Ben Whishaw on the set of fictional BBC TV programme The Hour<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The BBC has played down the comparisons, but is still hoping The Hour can attract the same sort of devoted following as the American series \u2013 which it recently lost to Sky Atlantic. Early footage reveals The Hour to be realistic but still more seductive than any vision of the Fifties we\u2019ve seen on screen lately.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re really keen to show that England at that time wasn\u2019t just fusty, drab Vera Drake and fogs,\u2019 says production designer Eve Stewart \u2013 who also devised the look of the Mike Leigh film, and was nominated for an Oscar for her work on The King\u2019s Speech.<\/p>\n

\u2018This place wasn\u2019t as brash as America. We were still impoverished, but there was a huge surge in confidence, with the space age just beginning and the Festival of Britain taking place here. People started going for cool and light colours, shiny surfaces and man-made graphics. We wanted to show the cutting edge, on screen.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n

Julian Rhind-Tutt (left) as Government representative Angus McCain. Whishaw (right) as ambitious reporter Freddie Lyon, complete with Brylcreem and broad-shouldered suit<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The star of the show is Ben Whishaw who, at 30, has already played Hamlet on stage, the poet Keats in Bright Star and Bob Dylan in I\u2019m Not There.<\/p>\n

\u2018I play Freddie, a young journalist, a troublemaker. He has a reputation for disturbing the status quo and questioning authority. Freddie is subversive and mischievous, kicking against the system, which makes him feel quite contemporary.\u2019<\/p>\n

Investigating a murder leads him into a life-threatening confrontation with secretive members of the Establishment.<\/p>\n

\u2018When we began filming, the whole WikiLeaks thing was coming out, and Julian Assange\u2019s self-proclaimed war on secrecy. That\u2019s very much how Freddie might view himself. He\u2019s trying to uncover the things the government is burying.\u2019<\/p>\n

Is he an all-round good guy?<\/p>\n

\"Rhind-Tutt<\/p>\n

Rhind-Tutt jokes with West on set<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018No,\u2019 says Whishaw. \u2018There is a lot of ambiguity in this series. The mission he sets himself springs from a personal motivation, something in his past to do with how he was treated by the ruling elite. He\u2019s got a chip on his shoulder.\u2019<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s obsessed with conspiracy theories, as shown by his cluttered desk. Standing over it on set,\u00a0 as the actors take a break, you can see the astonishing level of detail in the props. Copies of Picture Post and cardboard files relating to Suez are piled beside a vintage Adler typewriter. Pinned to the wall are newspaper clippings relating to flying-saucer sightings and the disappearance of two RAF Canberras over the Pacific. There are even half-filled crosswords and notes written by Freddie, one of which reads, \u2018MI6 visit the scene \u2013 what time?\u2019<\/p>\n

All of it helps an intense method actor like Whishaw get into his role.<\/p>\n

As he says later, \u2018The most important thing for me is to try to understand Freddie\u2019s perspective on the world. That\u2019s the joy of being an actor, having to stretch to encompass someone else\u2019s view. I always wanted to be an actor, from the age of about five. It was make-believe, it was play, it was dressing up, it was fantasy. It was being in a world other than this one.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Hour has been compared to the critically-acclaimed U.S. show Mad Men which is about Don Draper and his glamorous friends in the American advertising industry<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Some will watch The Hour and wish they were back\u00a0 in the world of the Fifties. But not Whishaw, whose father \u2013 an IT man from Bedfordshire \u2013 was born during that decade.<\/p>\n

\u2018The deference towards power, the rigid positioning of society, always knowing your place \u2013 these are things that influenced my mum and dad,\u00a0 definitely, but I think it\u2019s a good thing that we\u2019ve thrown them off. I don\u2019t feel the show has an agenda that says the Fifties were a better time. It\u2019s using a period and a set of historical events to tell a story for now.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

To make it plausible requires a lot of work: \u2018The props are incredibly detailed. As Freddie says, \u201cThe devil is in the detail.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Dominic<\/p>\n

West in make-up for his role as Hector Madden. He says: ‘I’m playing my dad, really. The older I get, the more I realise I’m him. He had greased-back hair, always wore a tie and jacket and was very much of the Fifties. He couldn’t quite handle The Wire because of the bad language, but he would have loved this. Maybe that’s why the Fifties are in vogue again – because everyone our age is realising we are our parents’<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Which is what the designers of Mad Men discovered when they found themselves obsessing about the shape of the ice cubes in Don Draper\u2019s bourbon. Square if he\u2019s drinking in a nightclub \u2013 but rectangular if he\u2019s at home, because they would have been made in a metal tray. Viewers were watching that closely \u2013 and will be again when The Hour is aired.<\/p>\n

\u2018We do share that attention to detail with Mad Men,\u2019 says Eve Stewart. \u2018We do have to get it absolutely right. We\u2019re only a generation away, so people are very up on what was really there and what wasn\u2019t. We had to make sure we had the right china for the BBC in 1956.\u2019<\/p>\n

But there are differences from the U.S. drama.<\/p>\n

\u2018Theirs is the world of advertising and so very much to do with the surface. It\u2019s a glossy, beautiful, sanitised image. If you look closely at Mad Men you won\u2019t see any human detritus, such as snippets of paper, broken pencils or old sandwiches. You won\u2019t see a dirty ashtray. The British seem much happier to have all of this shown.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The production team’s ideas board to capture the period, with images of Gary Cooper and fabric samples<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So you will see full ashtrays on The Hour. Stewart\u2019s research has taken her to house-clearance sales and auctions, as well as the Path\u00e9 news archive, the Geffrye Museum for furnishings, the Robert Opie museum of brands and packaging and the Victoria & Albert Museum.<\/p>\n

\u2018It has an amazing department where you can go in and look through the drawers and touch original pieces of wallpaper, so you have a feel for it.\u2019<\/p>\n

The show follows characters as they move from Alexandra Palace, the home of BBC TV since the Thirties, to state-of-the-art studios in Lime Grove, west London, to replace newsreels with a radical new programme called The Hour. Most of the series has been shot in the town hall in Crouch End, north London.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A noticeboard from The Hour’s set featuring the Queen and news items<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018I used to pay my parking tickets here,\u2019 says Ruth Kenley-Letts. \u2018The last of the council workers only left a year ago. So much of it \u2013 from the door handles to the lighting \u2013 is in keeping with our look. It feels like the building has saved us, as a production.\u2019<\/p>\n

The biggest difference between The Hour and its American cousin is the budget. Mad Men costs about \u00a31.4 million an episode \u2013 far more than The Hour\u2019s production company, Kudos, was allocated by the BBC.<\/p>\n

\u2018We have had a lot of challenges to face,\u2019 says Kenley-Letts.<\/p>\n

\u2018Doing street scenes is costly, for example, because you\u2019ve got to find a street without yellow lines and parking meters and clear it of cars.\u00a0 I had to say we could only afford to shoot outside on a certain number of days.<\/p>\n

\u2018In episode six we have a riot scene. We wanted to show the moment Nye Bevan gave his famous speech about Suez in Trafalgar Square. That involves 30,000 protesters. Abi (Morgan, the writer) wanted Freddie to go down there and report it. I said, \u201cNo way!\u201d We couldn\u2019t afford the crowds.<\/p>\n

\u2018Eve came up with the idea of using an old launderette round the corner from here, where people could be sheltering from the protest. That was clever. But then Jamie, our director, said there was a way of doing it with CGI. We are managing to afford two policemen\u00a0 on horseback.\u2019<\/p>\n

Back in the town hall corridor, Dominic West is being groomed for his next scene by the hair-and-make-up artist Debbi Salmon.<\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019s got to have the short back and sides, Brylcreem, the low parting, blow-dried into place. Dominic isn\u2019t very keen on the Fifties hairstyle, but that\u2019s tough luck.\u2019<\/p>\n

They tease each other.<\/p>\n

\u2018Debbi and I have a battle every day, which is me wanting to be more dishevelled than she wants,\u2019 says West.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The devil is in the detail: A desk with a Fifties Adler typewriter and lamp and contemporary magazines<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Salmon protests: \u2018It\u2019s the Fifties.\u2019<\/p>\n

And West retorts, \u2018Yes, it\u2019s the Fifties. And I\u2019m strung out, I haven\u2019t slept for four days. It\u2019s possible to have a hair out of place.\u2019<\/p>\n

Are we talking about the actor or the character?<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re talking about both,\u2019 says West.<\/p>\n

\u2018But even when they slept on their office floor, as my character has, they woke up looking immaculate. Apparently.\u2019 Salmon laughs.<\/p>\n

West plays Hector Madden, the frontman of The Hour.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m playing a sort of Richard Dimbleby, who perhaps wasn\u2019t as decorous as I am. They didn\u2019t have the dentists, the diets were appalling. We do glam it up a bit \u2013 but not as much as The Tudors.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Production<\/p>\n

Production sketches<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

West is wearing a dark blue suit sourced by costume designer Suzanne Cave.<\/p>\n

\u2018For the men it\u2019s a conservative look,\u2019 she says. \u2018Jackets with boxy, broad shoulders, but narrow and slim around the hip, and wide, high-waisted trousers with the trademark turn-ups.<\/p>\n

‘The obvious thing with the women is the silhouette: the nipped waist, the structured undergarments. Romola Garai has the perfect figure to dress for that period. She didn\u2019t need any help; she just put the clothes on and they looked fantastic.\u2019<\/p>\n

The accessories have to be just right too. \u2018For men, it\u2019s collar bars, tiepins, cufflinks, the right watches. If a woman isn\u2019t wearing a brooch, it\u2019s almost like she\u2019s not dressed.\u2019<\/p>\n

West says that filming The Hour has given him a new respect for people who were his age during the Fifties.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Whishaw with Fifties cutting-room equipment, complete with notebook and pencil. Says Eve Stewart: ‘The most daunting thing was getting the right technology. We wanted to show a BBC studio of 1956 in full working order, so you’ve got to make sure the lights are right, the grids are right, the cameras are right; then in the gallery all the monitors have to work and the buttons look correct’<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018These people have just come through war and rationing and everyone dying, and rubble all over the streets. It really is a crisis time: the economy is collapsing, America has left us, Russia is threatening nuclear war, Hungary has just been crushed. If we had those headlines today we\u2019d be panicking. There was a greater sense of mortality then, but a greater resilience.\u2019<\/p>\n

His parents married in 1957.<\/p>\n

\u2018I remember listening to my mother on a reel of film from that year; I couldn\u2019t believe how she sounded. We made a decision that we weren\u2019t going to speak exactly as one might have done. We\u2019ve eased back on that, except when I\u2019m on television. It\u2019s like a telephone voice.\u2019
West\u2019s character has a different background to his own, though.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An authentic telex machine and stub-filled ashtray. Says production designer Eve Stewart: ‘The hardest thing to find was a working telex machine. We spent weeks ringing around, to Reuters news agency, enthusiasts, anyone. We found one, but X-Men wanted it as well, and they had heaps of cash so they got it. When at last we found another, in a friend of a friend’s garage, I thought, “Well, it won’t work.” But we plugged it in and it did, like a godly intervention’<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018I went to school at Eton, so people make assumptions about me, but I\u2019m a suburban Northerner really. Hector went through the war, got two medals, came home and presented a sports show. He gets the job on The Hour through nepotism \u2013 his father-in-law is powerful \u2013 and because he\u2019s a good frontman. He\u2019s a himbo. But he makes good and learns to do it well.\u2019<\/p>\n

As soon as this job is finished, the actor will go on to play the serial killer Fred West for ITV.<\/p>\n

\u2018I haven\u2019t begun to read into it properly; I don\u2019t want to confuse the roles \u2013 although Romola says I come across as a serial killer in our romantic scenes. She says, \u201cWhenever you\u2019re flirting I wonder if you\u2019re actually going to kill me.\u201d There\u2019s a reason why one gets cast as Fred West, and it\u2019s probably not very flattering.\u2019<\/p>\n

When he smiles I can see what his co-star means. But then that commanding female voice echoes down the corridor, calling actors to their places, and West turns and walks away from me, back to Romola \u2013 and all the way back to 1956. The Hour has come.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Hour\u2019 will be shown on BBC2 over the summer<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

View article:
\nMad Men UK: Exclusive preview of the BBC’s \u00a36m ride to 1956 with Dominic West<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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But if you press the right buzzer and step through a side door, you walk straight into 1956 \u2013 and onto the set of a stylish new television drama that\u2019s already being hailed as the British answer to Mad Men. \u2018Silence,\u2019 says a female voice, and men in suits with slicked-back hair come striding down the corridor, on cue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":436081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-436080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"yoast_head":"\nMad Men UK: Exclusive preview of the BBC's \u00a36m ride to 1956 with Dominic West - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/05\/mad-men-uk-exclusive-preview-of-the-bbcs-6m-ride-to-1956-with-dominic-west\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Mad Men UK: Exclusive preview of the BBC's \u00a36m ride to 1956 with Dominic West - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"By Cole Moreton Last updated at 1:45 AM on 5th June 2011 The BBC is hoping The Hour can attract the same sort of devoted following as Mad Men From the outside, Hornsey Town Hall looks grim and abandoned. 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