Tag Archives: Barrington Pheloung

Exclusive ENDEAVOUR interview with writer Russell Lewis on ARCADIA

THE ENDEAVOUR ARCHIVES: CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF MORSE ON SCREEN

Arcadia: A mountainous district in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. In poetic fantasy it represents a pastoral paradise and in Greek mythology it is the home of Pan.

– Oxford English Dictionary

Russell Lewis on ARCADIA

An exclusive ENDEAVOUR interview

by Damian Michael Barcroft

With thanks to Arthur Octavius Prickard

We continue our journey discussing the last series of ENDEAVOUR as well as previewing tonight’s film with writer/executive producer – Russell Lewis.

DAMIAN: ARCADIA was notable for many things of course, but perhaps some of the most significant aspects were the departure of Detective Sergeant Peter Jakes (Jack Laskey) and the introduction of Woman Police Constable Shirley Trewlove (Dakota Blue Richards). Were these two events connected?

RUSS: Yes and no. I had originally introduced Trewlove in FILM 1: RIDE in a much bigger way – she found the first body, which was not in the Ghost Train… but that’s another story. However, with all else that was crammed into FILM 1, it was suggested that her introduction was dropped back to FILM 2. So, it became a bit of an Emma Peel/Tara King handover. One out, one in.

I was very sorry to lose Jack – but you play the hand you’re dealt.

DAMIAN: I’ve often bemoaned the fact that ENDEAVOUR has so many rich supporting characters but so little screen time to share with all of them. Indeed, characters such as Bright and Dorothea for example, often have their scenes trimmed or cut altogether. With this in mind, why add another regular cast member?

RUSS: Well, Jack’s departure meant we were a Sergeant down in CID – and it seemed to be a good opportunity for Strange to start his climb up the greasy pole. You lose Strange from uniform, and someone has to step in. Thus, Trewlove.

DAMIAN: Has there ever been any pressure from either ITV or Mammoth Screen to make ENDEAVOUR more diverse in terms of creating characters or casting?

RUSS: The network, like all broadcasters, quite rightly has a responsibility to make sure that life onscreen reflects and represents life off-screen – but they’ve never been prescriptive. 1967 Oxford is a very different place to 2017 Oxford – so we need to be true to that to a certain degree. To have replaced Strange in uniform with another bloke would have been a bit swapping like for like, and I thought it would be more interesting to see a young woman in the boysie atmosphere of Cowley nick.

I believe she’s brought a welcome new dynamic to the set-up. Dakota’s just terrific, and it’s been wonderful to watch her become an integral part of the team. But, in answer to your question, neither the network nor Mammoth asked me to add a woman to the line-up of Police characters. Rather I felt it was an oversight on my part. Even Carry on Constable depicted women in the Police Force – then it was a Force, now it’s a Service. And if you go back even further you’ve got Joyce Grenfell’s immortal Ruby Gates in the St.Trinian’s series.

So, in part, Trewlove’s creation owes something to those characters. I just wondered what might happen if we played it straight, rather than for laughs. Shirley Eaton was the epitome of that kind of cool, capable and resourceful character across a multitude of British pictures from the period. Ms.Eaton’s character in Carry on Nurse for example.

I know it’s the second time I’ve mentioned the series, and The Carry Ons may seem a curious well upon which to draw for a drama, but they’re a fascinating archive of little period details and social history. Not the more rompy, period costume numbers, particularly, although they’re enormous fun — but certainly the first seven or so, up to Cabby. And then the odd one here or there that looked at some aspect of British life or another.

Seriously. If anyone wants to understand the British… start with The Carry Ons. All the oddities and preoccupations of our long island race are contained therein. Class. Sex. The lavatory.

So, that’s sort of where Trewlove came from. Not an Ice Queen – just nobody’s fool. Smart as a whip, and as brave as you like. I guess the other template, to a degree, is Betjeman’s Myfanwy. ‘Ringleader, tomboy, and chum to the weak.’ And, of course, a bit of Sue Lloyd’s “Jean” from The Ipcress File.

DAMIAN: Protesters outside Richardson’s supermarket shout to end the illegal regime and freedom for Rhodesia reminding me that we’ve touched ever so slightly on politics before in our discussion of TROVE when I asked if you infuse any of the characters with your own personal politics and you replied “I suppose all the characters, stories, etc., are infused to some degree”. I wonder if political events from last year such as Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump might make for a more intense “infusion” in the future?

RUSS: Trump might be a stretch. The audience might not believe such a character could exist in any credible world. Besides, Tim Burton and Danny DeVito got there first with Batman Returns. ’68 (if it happens) with Paris and Prague is already of interest, and probably goes some way towards answering your other point.

DAMIAN: If such recent events suggest voters on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly leaning more to the right of politics, doesn’t it make for an interesting dichotomy that film and television makers who, it could be argued, are supposed to represent and reflect their audiences are in most cases vocally to the left?

RUSS: No dichotomy at all for a politically correct, virtue-signalling, snowflake, Leftard luvvie, and fully paid up member of the metropolitan liberal elite such as myself.

The Right has more than enough media outlets to make the case for its interests. If it falls to us, in the interest of balance, to do our bit as a loyal opposition, so be it. But Right/Left is almost too simple a paradigm, and plays into the hands of those who seek to divide and rule. Typically, across the last few decades, it’s been the Right that’s held sway and provided the pricks to kick against, but you’ll note we didn’t roll up our tents in ’97. The divide is, as always, between justice and injustice; the powerful and the powerless.

At such a time, with extremism of every stripe on the march, it’s important to hold the line. To bear witness. To question. To challenge. To give a voice to the voiceless, the ignored, the marginalised. To stand with those who daily, in so many ways, both great and small, live the case for compassion and humanity. If the best way we can do that is through a Wallace Beery wrestling picture, then, I promise you, it’ll be the best damn Wallace Beery wrestling picture you ever saw.

Just remember. Kelvin MacKenzie wrote ‘The Truth’. Jimmy McGovern wrote ‘Hillsborough’.

DAMIAN: Would it be fair to say that Detective Constable Morse is more liberal and Detective Inspector Morse more conservative or is this simply a reflection of the two periods in which they appeared?

RUSS: I’m not sure about appeared. That Endeavour’s backdrop is the middle through late 60s is more likely to be germane. The Detective Chief Inspector never struck me as particularly conservative.

DAMIAN: And that’s all from Question Time this week, we now continue with our usual programming. In my research I found that there was a John Richardson who was an English Quaker minister and autobiographer. Did he have anything to do with the naming of the supermarket?

RUSS: Would that we’d been so canny. They ended up as Richardson because it was the nearest we could clear to Robertson (which was their original name – but wouldn’t clear because of danger of confusion with the Jam makers). ‘So, here’s to you, Mrs.Robertson…’ &c. The story started out – in part – as a salute to Mike Nicholls and The Graduate. And some of that survived.

DAMIAN: We spoke last week of your mischievous nods to future films and in ARCADIA we see packs of Frosties and adverts for cat food in the supermarket! Did you get permission to use Kellogg’s brands but not the Brekkies cat food or is there some hidden meaning behind the name Brecco?

RUSS: I assume permission must have been forthcoming on the former, but not the latter. Art and Design were responsible for stocking the shelves of Richardsons – so some mischief may well have been theirs.

DAMIAN: The first series was set in 1965, the second was 1966 so I’m wondering why both the third and fourth are set in 1967 – was it a very good year?

RUSS: We quite simply didn’t get through all the ’67 stories. More practically, I’m anxious not to run out of sky before we reach the end of the decade, which has always felt to me like the natural point to bring our part of the story to a close. Also – the happy result of a two volume ’67 means that, should we return with ’68, then it will broadcast exactly 50 years after it’s set. And there’s something pleasing about half a century between then and now.

DAMIAN: Early in ARCADIA, the Thursday family share a box of chocolates in front of the television. Win, Joan and Sam can all be seen chewing with a guilty look on their faces as Fred asks who had the Savoy Truffle. Well, who was the culprit?

RUSS: You know my methods, Barcroft. Apply them!

DAMIAN: Yes Sir. In fact, it was a “Good News” box of chocolates! We’ve discussed your fondness for Horror, Western and Film Noir many times in our previous interviews but I think we’re yet to address your obsession with The Beatles (we’ll do Tony Hancock another time). Indeed, from the very beginning, hasn’t ENDEAVOUR been awash with references to The Fab Four?

RUSS: The 60s are unimaginable without them. I don’t know if it’s an obsession, but their output year by year has been very helpful in getting one’s head into the right place. ’68’s ‘The Beatles’ a.k.a. the ‘White Album’ has already got me thinking about the way forward. The clue lies in the liner notes, such as they are.

As for The Lad Himself – last week’s film originally had a slew of nods, but they bit the bullet. I’m sure they’ll come again.

DAMIAN: Naturally, there a lots more references as usual ranging from the aforementioned The Graduate, Raymond Chandler and John Bunyan (House Beautiful also a nod to LEWIS) but I was concerned by Max’s joke “the last of the red hot livers” a play on words of the Neil Simon play which didn’t appear until two years later. Shouldn’t there be a rule that characters don’t make references to cultural events that haven’t occurred yet?

RUSS: Max was invoking Sophie Tucker – widely known as ‘The last of the red hot mamas’ – swapping out ‘mamas’ for ‘livers’ to reflect the state of deceased’s cirrhotic organ. The joke, such as it is, works for a modern audience for its being – unintentionally on Max’s part – but a letter away from Mr.Simon’s play. That said, as a phrase, ‘the last of the red hot… <insert your choice here>’ certainly had some currency prior to the play.

DAMIAN: ARCADIA featured one of the most thrillingly intense sequences of any ENDEAVOUR film thus far. Just before they find Verity and the bomb, Endeavour asks Jakes, “This time next month you’ll be riding the range – any regrets?” to which he replies “Life’s too short”. In comparison to both INSPECTOR MORSE and LEWIS, ENDEAVOUR puts our friends in peril on a much more regular basis and given that you’ve toyed with our nerves regarding Thursday’s possible demise in NEVERLAND and again if we count CODA, isn’t there a danger of you becoming the writer who cried wolf?

RUSS: My impulse always inclines towards the fatal. Damien Timmer is far more charitable. But one of these days the undertaker will be sent for…

We were all very fond of Little Pete (and even fonder of Jack) and thought it would be nice for the character if we gave him a happy exit – after all his childhood unhappiness.

DAMIAN: There must have been lots of night shoots on location for this film. I can think of lots of advantages and disadvantages for this but do they generally prove easier or more problematic for cast and crew?

RUSS: Technically, it’s not problematic, but it does put a lot of pressure on the circadian rhythms of cast & crew. Health & Safety and good working practices means that a certain amount of hours have to elapse between shifts, and so, if you’ve got a night shoot, or a couple of nights, then you can only slowly get the ship back on an even keel, You claw back a couple of hours a day – or schedule them close to a natural break – a full day off.

DAMIAN: I presume you did your research and timed yourself running to see how long it would take to get to the phone box on Merton Street and the second rendezvous on New College Lane?

RUSS: Naturally. I also had a large sum of money in a briefcase as a handicap. Nothing if not a Method writer. And I always commit identical murders before sitting down to write each series. Just to make sure I get the details right.

DAMIAN: Marion Brooke (AMNOX) from MASONIC MYSTERIES makes an appearance in this film but wouldn’t it be even better if Endeavour bumped into Hugo De Vries one day?

RUSS: Each thing in its season. I shouldn’t be surprised to see him sooner or later.

DAMIAN: You’ve written some cracking lines for Thursday over the years but his comments after visiting the hippy commune are priceless…

THURSDAY: Consider the lilies of the field? Come that old madam with me, and he’ll be considering my boot up his arse.

…ARCADIA sees Thursday becoming increasingly impatient, perhaps even intolerant, culminating in the dramatic showdown of CODA. Does his behaviour in series three mark a permanent shift in the dynamics of the relationship between Thursday and Endeavour?

RUSS: I think we’ve always seen it as something organic. We didn’t want it to become set in aspic, or predictably cosy, but rather something that evolves naturally out of events. I think you’re already getting some insight onto their developing relationship in Series IV.

DAMIAN: It seems such a pity for Jakes to have left Oxford just as Endeavour and the audience were getting to know him. If Jack Laskey hadn’t signed on to star in the Canadian spy thriller X COMPANY, would we have had to wait much longer for the warmer Jakes?

RUSS: No. I don’t think so. Like Bright’s relationship with Endeavour – they’ve been through a lot together, and if that didn’t change how they related to one another then I think it would be a bit repetitive to watch, and a bit unrealistic in terms of human behaviour.

DAMIAN: At the end of the scene in which Jakes helps Endeavour move into his new flat, we hear Ebben, Ne andro lontana from the opera La Wally by Alfredo Catalani, is this because, like Jakes, Wally decides to leave her home forever?

RUSS: Wasn’t one of mine. A wheeze of Mr.Pheloung’s.

DAMIAN: Other than this film, NEVERLAND was arguably the most revealing in terms of our understanding of Jakes’ character and backstory. This combined with his first name might suggest Peter Pan and Pan was the god of shepherds and flocks in Greek mythology which ties in with Jakes moving to Wyoming with his fiancee to work on her father’s cattle business. Add ARCADIA into the mix and we’re back to Greek mythology and a pastoral paradise – correct?

RUSS: Again – yes and no. ET IN ARCADIA EGO. The notion that even in paradise Death stalks the land. If memory serves, we originally wanted the Poussin, a.k.a., ‘Les bergers d’Arcadie’ to be the picture Endeavour saw at Bixby’s do in RIDE, but we couldn’t get clearance – copyright on images belonging to The Louvre, and they wouldn’t let us use it. Perhaps because we were suggesting it was a forgery. I can see how that might worry them, but to anything more sentient than a bowl of custard it’s sort of obvious that we’re in the business of pretend. The Rijksmuseum was a lot more amenable. But it’s mildly frustrating – and sometimes makes layering the puzzle a lot harder than one would like. Things one would presume to be public domain that turn out not to be.

DAMIAN: Well, it was a lovely send-off at the Lamb and Flag with most of the gang together one last time but Jakes sees Endeavour pass the window outside. We know Endeavour is forever on the outside looking in, but why didn’t he go in for a pint?

RUSS: A morbid dislike of ‘good-byes’ – formal and informal. In his way, he’d become surprisingly fond of Jakes.

DAMIAN: And it was beautiful of Endeavour to give Jakes those premium bonds for his kid but I don’t think many in the audience would have fully appreciated how generous this actually was given the debt Endeavour is in (partly due to his late father’s gambling problems) which isn’t explored until CODA and doesn’t really come across at this point. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to convey this context to the audience sooner?

RUSS: We’d been trying to crowbar in his paying off his father’s gambling debts since TROVE – but hadn’t been able to find space for it. Revealing it in CODA serves the plot, but also gives insight into the essentially private and stoic nature of Endeavour’s character. It’s something he hasn’t shared with anyone else.

Perversely, as a member of an audience when watching stuff, I find it quite enjoyable to have to retro-fit facts to what has gone before. It gives a piece a bit more life in the mind of the viewer. I don’t think much would have been gained by knowing Endeavour’s straitened financial circs ahead of the Premium Bonds. It would have made him even more of a martyr – something Shaun Evans is always keen to avoid. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

DAMIAN: Yes, I also teach my Grandmother to suck eggs in my spare time. Anyway, in addition to the scenes with Jakes, there were some lovely moments with Endeavour and Joan and I particularly liked her comments following their discussion of Jakes (who she briefly dated in series one) and his fiancee Hope…

JOAN: Out of all the people, who’d have thought? Love, I suppose. Don’t know until you meet the right one.

…and it’s beautiful to see that she can’t stop smiling around Endeavour throughout the entire scene. There was a lovely chemistry between the two from the very beginning but at what point did you decide that they’d fall for each other?

RUSS: From the moment I had her open the door to him for the first time.

DAMIAN: Wouldn’t Thursday be pleased if his daughter ended up with a gentleman like Endeavour?

RUSS: Would you? He’s quite a difficult, haunted… damaged character, isn’t he? Brilliant detective, but emotionally… something of a train wreck. That early, formative loss. See how deep the bullet lies. They’ve been circling one another for two and half years. Endeavour’s been denying his feelings – compartmentalising – for all that time. Both of them, really. Joan’s been intrigued by him from the off. He’s not like anyone she’s met before. Kind, and respectful, and lost, and brilliant, and emotionally guarded. Dysfunctional in his way. Jakes grabbed her arse. Endeavour gave her his coat, and walked her home.

Sara Vickers is a wonderful actor, and a delight to write for. She just got it right. Nailed it every time. Joan’s bravery, and intelligence, and utter decency. All of it so beautifully understated. Her scenes will always have a very special place in my heart.

DAMIAN: Another delightful scene was Bright’s introduction to Trewlove who seems rather taken by her (“My door is always… well, if not actually open then not infrequently ajar”) – smirks all round from Endeavour, Thursday and Jakes. Does this scene together with his comments to Mrs. Robinson regarding her missing daughter (“Believe me, I do apprehend something of your anxiety”) and later revelations in PREY suggest he sees her as something of a daughter figure?

RUSS: Anton has an almost preternatural grasp of what underpins much of Bright’s dialogue. There are things that he instinctively chivvies out – reading, quite literally, between the lines. To watch him do his thing… Never less than astonishing. Riggers (Sean Rigby) wrote that being in a three-hander with Anton and Roger was like being at a masterclass. They do create rather wonderful music together.

There have been some Bright things we were unable to include in SERIES 3 & 4… As has proved with many of my deeper designs, perhaps the third knock will open the door.

DAMIAN: Green Shield Stamps and toys at the bottom of cereal packets, ARCADIA was affectionately nostalgic wasn’t it?

RUSS: Mmm. Being dragged around the local supermarket – with interminable stops for gossiping – is an overriding childhood memory.

DAMIAN: And was that an Eric Morecambe “Wha-Hey!” I heard when Sam finds the coveted Thunderbird 2?

RUSS: You’d have to ask Jack Bannon.

DAMIAN: Now then, not wishing to make a song and dance about it, but you were rather miserly in your preview of last week’s film if I may be so bold. So, I’d like to offer you the opportunity to compensate for that now and shower us with fascinating titbits about tonight’s film…

RUSS: Well – since you mentioned The Beatles earlier… Endeavour goes pop. It’s a collision between two worlds – that of Endeavour’s generation and that of his parents. What’s acceptable, and what’s not. The Permissive Society – so called. What would the neighbours say? Vague shades of another INSPECTOR MORSE story – I’ll leave it to you to work out which. But it’s quite an oblique brushing of the shoulders – thematically. Directed by Michael Lennox – who’s done something very special with it. Rather not go into too many details.

But I had a lot of fun with Matt Slater putting together the songs for it. The first is sung by Sharlette – who’s got a gorgeous voice, and is quite a find; and the other features the actors who make up The Wildwood. We recorded it at RAK Studios (founded by Mickie Most in 1976) one Sunday in early-ish summer – and that was a high point. Shaun came down. And the Great Ziegler. Enormous fun.

In retrospect, I wish we’d done ALL our ‘period’ non-classical music this way. Watch this space. Or listen to it, more like. Perhaps one day – when we get to the end — we’ll go back and retrofit the entire back catalogue. Though that might mean we’d have to retitle ‘SWAY’.

DAMIAN: Last week you chose DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION and GREEKS BEARING GIFTS as your first two “Desert Island Dexters”. Can you tell us about your next two choices please?

RUSS: This is far harder than it looks. It was always a terrific show from first to last, but I think it’s generally agreed that it hit a real purple patch between S4 through S6, from which I could pick more or less any film. However… THE INFERNAL SERPENT- a great, dark, coil of a story by Alma Cullen. Fabulous misdirection. The central guest performances were just terrific – Cheryl Campbell, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, and Geoffrey Palmer. And John Madden weaving his magic again. As you know, we borrowed (pinched!) Geoffrey Palmer’s character from this for TROVE. I hope Alma didn’t mind what we did with him.

And the first of a probably a few by the great Julian Mitchell. (I can see I’m not going to get to cover all my faves.) CHERUBIM & SERAPHIM features my dear friend Charlie Caine as the DJ. We’ve known one another since we were six — so I’m having that. And, of course, it’s the story in which we meet Gwen and Joyce. Anything that gives us a window on Morse’s past is always a favourite. And this is one of those stories. Unconventional in its way. It could have been quite an easy misfire, Morse amidst the Rave scene, but Julian, as ever, proved a master of his materials and handled it with great insight and sensitivity. Youth and age. A story laden with melancholy and regret.

THE ENDEAVOUR ARCHIVES / WPC734 / ARCADIA

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Exclusive ENDEAVOUR interview with composer Matthew Slater

Interview copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2017

Matthew Slater – Composer

An exclusive ENDEAVOUR interview

by Damian Michael Barcroft

DAMIAN: As a very young boy I was given two records from an uncle which I played constantly. One was Children’s TV Themes (1972: Cy Payne & His Orchestra) and the other was Star Wars and Other Galactic Space Themes (1978: Geoff Love & His Orchestra). The latter, in particular, showcased some very cheesey disco-pop versions of music from film and television but they started a life-long passion for orchestral music and soundtracks and I’ve since amassed a huge collection of original scores. Now, I enjoy all sorts of musical genres from Frank Sinatra to indeed opera, however, my first and true musical passion will always be soundtracks. Needless to say then, it’s an absolute thrill and a pleasure for me to be able to do this interview with an actual composer so thank you very much indeed. I wonder, what sort of music were you listening to as a child?

MATTHEW: Thank you for asking me and you’re more than welcome. Your reference to the ’78 disco version of Star Wars did make me laugh out loud. When I first played that version of Star Wars to my children they were incredulous as to why they hadn’t heard of it before. Being a child of the 70’s this pop version did resonate with me a little more than it perhaps should have done. Can’t help but wonder what Mr Williams would have thought of it?

I always had a leaning towards music written for picture there was something powerfully attractive about the story telling aspect of it. Star Wars obviously was playing constantly in our house. In fact, anything by John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, John Barry and Ennio Morricone there would be a good chance I’d be listening to it.

DAMIAN: At what point did you realise you wanted to be a composer?

MATTHEW: The Purley Way cinema, Croydon, December 1982. I can remember queuing around the block with my Mum to get into the cinema to see E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. I watched that film in complete awe and amazement. The direct emotional contact the score had on me was profound and from that moment on I wanted to be a composer. I had a very unconventional route into the world of orchestral music for picture; not following the conservatoire route completely but learning through the times of electronic and experimental music in the ‘90’s and in many other areas of music before becoming a professional composer for picture.

DAMIAN: Can you remember the first time you became aware of soundtracks and the artistic possibilities of the synthesis between sound and screen?

MATTHEW: December 1982! That film did show the power music can have to picture. I once remember seeing a documentary where John Williams couldn’t quite make all the hit points work in the final twelve minute sequence in the film, bearing in mind that Williams was conducting to spots and streamers on screen which is largely a lost talent and very difficult to do compared with the click tracks we all have today which make the recording process considerably quicker. Spielberg famously said that he’d take the picture away from the screen in the recording studio and let Williams conduct the end sequence as he would if it were a concert work or symphony. Spielberg would then recut the end of the film to fit the most musically emotional performance by the orchestra and to me that’s why it’s one of my most emotionally charged moments in modern cinema where the combination of music and picture combine in perfection.

DAMIAN: Which film/tv composers have inspired you most as an artist?

MATTHEW: Certainly the greats as I’ve already spoken about but I think there is an enormous wealth of talent from composers like Danny Elfman, Thomas Newman, Alexandre Desplat, James Newton Howard, Michael Giacchino and George Fenton. I also have a great deal of respect for Christopher Gunning, especially his concert works. So, in answer to your question, all the above! Dominik Scherrer also has a sound that is completely different which I find intriguing and has influenced me a little.

DAMIAN: And if I asked you for your favourite film or television scores?

MATTHEW: Star Wars, E.T. and To Kill A Mockingbird is sublime for film. For T.V., now that’s a more difficult question for me. I don’t tend to buy or listen to many T.V. scores, mainly as I think the music now must do a subtly different job to that in music for film. I find the combined world of orchestral and electronic scores very exciting. There are some great dramas in recent years all with very different sounds and feels and many are excellent at linking music with picture but few that you could necessarily hum the theme tune to.

DAMIAN: In recent years, Classic FM has started to play the odd film/tv theme and BBC Radio 3 has its Sound of Cinema programme but other than that, I’ve always felt that soundtracks never really get the respect and exposure that they deserve. Would you agree?

MATTHEW: I think that’s changing. More and more people are wanting to become composers than ever before; the advent of technology has widened the creative net for people wanting to score to picture. Just look at the number of scoring to picture courses and classes that have been established over the past ten years and it seems to be increasing every year which can only be a good thing if the foundations of composing music itself are not lost in the technology.

DAMIAN: You worked on the orchestration for the following original INSPECTOR MORSE episodes (THE DAUGHTERS OF CAIN, DEATH IS NOW MY NEIGHBOUR, THE WENCH IS DEAD and THE REMORSEFUL DAY) not to mention eight series of LEWIS. Additionally for ENDEAVOUR, you’ve worked as an onset music supervisor and arranger, composer of original songs and now also orchestrator and composer of the music score. So, you’ve obviously worked closely with Barrington Pheloung for many years, how did the two of you come to work together on MORSE, LEWIS and eventually ENDEAVOUR?

MATTHEW: Alan Bullard, my composition teacher at my college, suggested I enter a competition run by the Society for The Promotion of New Music to work with Michael Kamen on a week-long master class at the South Bank in London, culminating in a recording with a small ensemble at Angel Studios, also in London. I duly sent off my scores and thought nothing further of it. A few weeks later I received a letter saying that I’d been chosen as one of five from hundreds of applicants to attend the masterclass. Unfortunately, (or one could say fortunately in my case) Michael’s scoring commitments meant he was unable to come to London for the masterclass and that Barrington Pheloung would be taking the masterclass instead. I knew of Barry as I was a Morse fan so happy days all round. The class ensued as did the recording and I was the only one of the five composers who wanted to conduct their own music. I jumped at the chance in fact. Something must have impressed Barry as he invited me down to his studio and by the end of the day offered me a job as his music assistant. That was around 1996 so I started making coffee for him and now some years later have conducted and composed the music for four ENDEAVOUR films and have pretty much done all jobs regarding the creation of a score to picture from tea boy to composer thanks to Barry.

DAMIAN: In all your years working with Barrington then, what do you think you have learnt most from him?

MATTHEW: His huge appreciation of the quality of the musicians we both work with and how to run an efficient yet relaxed recording session. If it’s right on the second take, move on to the next cue. Done. Of course, quality must always be maintained but he taught me not to get into the take after take after take mentality.

DAMIAN: To what extent would you say Barrington’s music was an influence and how does it figure in the way you approach the music for ENDEAVOUR – for example, do you feel free to completely do your own thing or are you perhaps restricted in terms of, if not emulating his music, trying to remain faithful and consistent with the tone already well established?

MATTHEW: Having worked with Barry for over twenty years it would be very not hard to have had some of his musical influence naturally come into my own music. It wasn’t a process that I think needed a great deal of thought when scoring ENDEAVOUR. I’d worked with Barry, Colin Dexter’s and latterly Russell Lewis’ characters for years so they seemed naturally embedded in me although Morse, Lewis and now Endeavour all have a subtle musical difference yet are definable as sitting in the same dramatic world. It’s an unprecedented situation I think, especially when dealing with an enormous body of film work over thirty years. Having the opportunity to work with some wonderful directors in this series also allowed a blend of the established world of Endeavour and my own sound to come in and in the right places we could go somewhere different and new. I also had the opportunity to work closely with Tom (exec. prod.) and Helen (prod.) more than perhaps would be normal due to schedules etc. which I found a very creative experience with the exchange of ideas between everyone.

DAMIAN: You composed the complete score for PREY (SERIES 3: FILM 3) and also films 1, 3 and 4 for this series. But what can you tell us about the two original songs that you wrote for film 2 which your collaborator, Russell Lewis, tells me was like him playing Lorenz Hart to your Richard Rogers?

MATTHEW: Ha! Wonderful question! What a kind comment from a lovely talented man and friend. I had a call from the production office on the Thursday saying that two original 1967 sounding classics were required, at least in draft form for a scene being shot on the Monday – I’d already had a little time to think about it beforehand after going on set to talk through some ideas with Mike and Helen. Without giving anything away it naturally left Russ and I little time. There were a few lyrics in the script but not songs. I asked Russ whether he’d mind writing a few more verses to give me a handle on the songs. He fantastically provided, and in about 30 minutes each song was written both lyrically and musically. It just seemed to work between us – Mike Lennox the director instantly liked them and that was that! We went into RAK studios in London and recorded with a rhythm section, brass, strings and the actors themselves singing to make sure it all looked and sounded as real and convincing as possible. It was a great day, even Shaun, Helen, Mike and Russ popped down to listen to the process. No pressure for me then!! Joking aside everyone was incredibly supportive and complementary.

Working with Russell like this was an absolutely pleasure and I was thrilled to be asked to collaborate with him. I was on set during one of the playback scenes when I overheard two actors trying to Google one of our tracks to see who originally wrote it in the ‘60’s which was a rather humbling experience. Russ is such a great writer that it’s a composer’s dream to get to play with themes, songs, clues, historic references, operatic and orchestral masterpieces all within the one series. It’s challenging to say the least but when that musical primer presents itself everything else comes together.

DAMIAN: If the script writing work dries up, do you think Russ has a future as a lyricist?

MATTHEW: I think there’s little chance of the writing ever drying up for Russ but yes, I would wholeheartedly say there’s another world out there just waiting to be explored. I’ll leave that one with you…

DAMIAN: At what point in the production do you become creatively involved with each film and to what extent are the musical choices, both the underscoring and source music, discussed with Russ?

MATTHEW: That very much depends on each film. Some require a lot of discussion and work during production and filming whilst others occur during post production so it’s generally down to how much and what type of music is woven into the plot. Russ, the directors and producers also have their input at each stage so each film has its own unique way of unfolding in terms of collaborations with the composer. That’s what makes the whole ENDEAVOUR process so exciting as each film I’ve ever worked on sets up new challenges and the fun is how are we going to deal with each musically.

DAMIAN: And I’d like you to take us through the process of how you approach composing the music for ENDEAVOUR. You talk to Russ, look at the script and then what happens – is there much research involved or do you initially begin with your immediate responses and feelings?

MATTHEW: It rather depends to the extent of music that’s incorporated into the story. If there is little then the editors, directors and producers will lay up what’s called a guide score. This is used to give the composer an idea of what emotions need to be conveyed at that point in the film. I usually receive a copy of the script well before this so have an idea of what I think will be required. Once the film has been locked off, that is there are no further structural changes to the film, I receive a copy of the film with the guide music score then head into the edit suite with the director, editor and producer and talk about each spot where music should or shouldn’t be, what’s liked, what isn’t and that gives me a good feel of where to start musically. Sometimes that might be to compose the last climatic cue first so we can all see where our film is heading towards musically and making sure everyone is on board for that and sometimes the film needs a more chronological approach from start to finish in terms of composing the score. That’s the beauty of ENDEAVOUR, each is unique and the challenge is to inject a new musical element that brings that episode together, yet remains within the music universe that is ENDEAVOUR.

DAMIAN: How long would you say it takes to write the complete score for a ninety-minute episode?

MATTHEW: That’s the six-million-dollar question. It’s the amount of time you have available to write it! Sometimes that’s a few weeks, other times it can end up being a matter of days to get a first draft of the score together. As dubbing the recorded music into the final film is one of the last things that happens before the film goes out for transmission, the music schedule often gets compressed as do many other areas of production that are at the end of the production process. That’s not always a bad thing though as I tend to work well under tight deadlines – perhaps I shouldn’t have said that…sssh, don’t tell anyone.

DAMIAN: Are all the scores recorded in chronological order and how long do these sessions take?

MATTHEW: Not always. For example, in this series we recorded film 2 first. It depends completely on which films are ready for scoring and that’s not always as it sets out to be at the start of the production process. Generally, yes, and of course that’s always a nice way to develop themes and ideas across a series so sometimes you have to think around corners to keep a sense of cohesion and development across a series.

DAMIAN: How do you decide on which individual orchestras and musicians to perform the scores?

MATTHEW: That’s an easy one. The London Metropolitan Orchestra were formed back in 1987 with the first INSPECTOR MORSE film. Many of the players still play on the ENDEAVOUR sessions today and are some of the world’s finest musicians without a doubt. It’s always an honour to work with the LMO as it’s like working with friends who just happen to be world class musicians.

DAMIAN: Finally, if you had to choose just one piece of opera that best reflects the character of Endeavour Morse, what would it be?

MATTHEW: I’m going to swerve this one I think. Over the thirty years so many wonderful operatic works have been used in the films, many reflecting different aspects of Morse’s character, others annoying him terribly. We’ve seen him through INSPECTOR MORSE, LEWIS and now the events in ENDEAVOUR that led him to THE REMORSEFUL DAY. I don’t think any single opera has the scope of thirty years of Endeavour Morse, much like his much loved Times crosswords, he works on so many levels.

DAMIAN: Matthew, thank you so much.

MATTHEW: You are more than welcome!

All the interviews and articles on this website are original and exclusive and I would please ask that the copyright be respected. Therefore, please do not use quotes or any other information contained here without permission. Thank you.

The Endeavour Archives: TROVE also previewing RIDE

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THE ENDEAVOUR ARCHIVES #47A

Russell Lewis

An exclusive interview

by Damian Michael Barcroft

With thanks to:

Anthony Aloysius St John

Sam Costin

& George Gathercole

PROLOGUE:

‘BACK TO WORK’

12 APRIL 2015: It’s early Sunday morning and my special “K” and I are driving through Oxford. For me, having never visited before, but knowing the city so well from literature, film and, of course, television, it’s a surreal and dreamlike experience. To give you an inkling of my exhilaration, we pass The Eagle and Child where I like to imagine J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis still sitting there conversing over drinks in the Rabbit Room. And, speaking of rabbits, who can explore Oxford without thinking of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and the Liddell family? However, I’m not writing on behalf of the Oxford Tourist Board, and if I mention our excitement as we also drive past the Randolph Hotel, it might serve to tip the reader that I’m here on police business and I’ll surely get to the point sooner rather than later.

Today is the eleventh day of shooting for the first film of Endeavour series three but the first on location in Oxford. I arrive at Unit Base where the cast and crew have set up camp for the duration of the Oxford shoot. It’s neither glittering nor glamorous, indeed, it is after all, just a car park and one may be forgiven for believing they are about to witness the setting up of a car boot sale for the day rather than the production of a major ITV drama. However, there are one or two clues that I’m in the right place: a vintage AEC Renown double-decker bus circa 1967 (reg. FWL 371E) and just behind it, various location vehicles and trailers – some of which brandish the likeness of the Mammuthus primigenius.

It is now precisely 08:00 and I meet script editor Sam Costin who is enjoying his breakfast until I disturb him (Sam has script edited every single Endeavour film thus far and really does know where the bodies are buried!). As we make our way to Radcliffe Square, the first of the day’s three locations, Sam asks me if Russ has told me anything about today’s shoot. No. He didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I wouldn’t ask although it was obvious what he was referring to and surely everyone who’d seen the shocking events of the series two grand finale was wondering the same thing.

Both Sam and K smile. In trying to take everything in, I must be the last to notice and can’t see the wood for the trees – an army of technicians and artists: art department and props, assistant directors, cameramen, grip, sound and make-up (hello Irene!) all busy blocking my view until magically disappearing as rehearsals come to an end and cameras roll…

Oxford’s finest back to work. And I was too! Last year I had the privilege of interviewing the writer and executive producer of Endeavour, Russell Lewis, to discuss all the films from the pilot up to the end of series one. I’m very pleased and proud that these exclusive interviews will continue as we explore the second series while offering the odd peek into what to expect from the third…

12/04/15 08:22 Setting up for the first location shoot for RIDE © Damian Michael Barcroft

PART I:

‘TROVE’

DAMIAN: Russ, the first series was broadcast between 14 April – 5 May 2013 and the second from 30 March – 20 April 2014. Why has series three taken so long to reach the screens?

RUSS: Blame the World Cup. Rio 2014 knocked the TV schedule out of shape, and meant we weren’t able to go into our usual production/broadcast slot. So – you’ll have to excuse me if my recollections are even more unreliable than usual. Production began on Series II almost three years ago now – and I would have started writing them even before that. Apologies in advance.

DAMIAN: How did Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor help inspire the story for Trove?

RUSS: They took part in an OUDS [Oxford University Dramatic Society] production of Marlowe’s ‘DOCTOR FAUSTUS’ – and the Oxford City Police were charged with looking after them. Early drafts had Strange and Jakes on protection duty – making sure nobody ran off with Elizabeth Taylor’s diamond ring. The opening sequence was intercut with the play in performance. ‘Stipendium peccati, mors est.’ I’d planned to have Endeavour trading Shakespearean quotations with Burton in the pub, but given when we shot, we just couldn’t make the timeline fit convincingly. DOCTOR FAUSTUS was on in… February, I think – and we weren’t shooting until Spring. Leaves on trees, etc. So… It had to go. But, the theme of the play, the notion of an unholy bargain – what price a soul? — survived.

DAMIAN: There’s a visual reference of their visit to Oxford that still survives the cut?

RUSS: When the Barbara Batten by-election posters go up, you might just glimpse a Playbill on the wall…

DAMIAN: It must have been a painful tug on the old purse strings to open the series with a parade through Oxford celebrating 900 years since our islands fell beneath the Norman Yoke, what were the logistics of closing Broad Street and were there a few raised eyebrows from the money men?

RUSS: They weren’t too highly raised. The Mammoths wanted something eye-catching for the opening. And 1066 to 1966 seemed too happy a coincidence to ignore. Probably all the rest of it – the Wolvercote Horde, etc., was spun from that. 1966 seemed to be very much about Britain re-assessing its identity, and its place in the world. A touch of Neo-Victorianism/Edwardianism for the Dedicated Followers of Fashion. Adam Adamant Lives!

We shot on a Sunday, so as not to disrupt Oxford too much. We had a good number of supporting artistes, but – as with the crowd scenes in ROCKET — a lot of it is smoke and mirrors.

DAMIAN: So it’s May 1966. Four months have passed since the end of series one in which Morse has been “counting paperclips at County” and Thursday has a spring in his step as Morse finally returns to Oxford City Police. How much of this episode, or indeed the whole of series two, existed in your mind as you wrote the final draft of HOME and what, if anything, changed along the way?

RUSS: When we got to the end of Series 1, we didn’t know if there would be a Series 2. We never do. It’s all about the figures. I think we got the official word from the Network quite some time after HOME went out. I suspect I had some of it in mind. I’m afraid that isn’t a terribly helpful or illuminating answer. It’s just difficult to recall after such a passage of time. I’m sure three years doesn’t sound very long, but TROVE is eight films ago. These things occupy every waking thought for the duration of production, but as soon as it’s done I’m afraid most of it tends to get wiped from the memory banks to make room for the next. Either that or the mind tends to forget pain! Perhaps we should do our Series 3 Q&A when we get to the end of this one!

But, for what it’s worth, I think – should we come back for a Series 4, and assuming stuff doesn’t get vetoed – that I’ve already got all the stories for that run, and possibly the one after, already fairly well nailed down. Which is probably tempting fate, and now we’ll be ignominiously cancelled and cast into outer darkness.

DAMIAN: While discussing the story arc for the first series in one of our previous interviews, you said that you absolutely know how Endeavour will end and that the final scene is actually already written. You also stated that you have certain key points mapped out for all the major characters. I’m wondering if that end is still the same and if any of the aforementioned key points appeared in series two?

RUSS: Certainly – I’ve got the way-points mapped out. And the end is still the same. Series 2 – what were the way-points? Well – Morse & Monica. A ‘proper’ relationship. The first glimpse of the Brotherhood. Thursday’s past – which I’m sure we’ll get to when we look at SWAY. Some have made this new series. Others haven’t. There was one reveal that was written for this series, but which, in the end, we couldn’t schedule. It’ll keep. Other things… some of the events in this series were decided by things happening off-screen – artistes’ availability in the main. Again – blame FIFA.

DAMIAN: Strange takes his Sergeant’s exam at the end of series one and the viewer could be forgiven for thinking that he was on his way to becoming the Chief Superintendent we know and love from the original series. However, you quickly establish that he failed by “three lousy points” early in TROVE. Was this the original plan or did you reconsider his timeline and think it was too early for his first promotion?

RUSS: No – it was the original plan. More of which will be revealed… It would have been too easy – and too obvious – to have Strange take the Exam at the end of Series 1, and attain his stripes – purely on merit — by Series 2. The scene between Strange and Endeavour in the pub – a man can’t serve two masters – was key, really.

DAMIAN: We’ve spoken at length about the influence of and your passion for the horror genre in the past with particular reference to FUGUE. In TROVE however, there were a few moments in which I was reminded of the old noir films and literature such as the work of Chandler, Hammett and the Bogie movies but was there the particular and more British influence of Graham Greene and his Brighton Rock or The Third Man in mind while writing TROVE?

RUSS: It was very much ENDEAVOUR does noir. So far as we can. It’s something I’ve tried – with various degrees of success and failure – to nod to across the show, as it’s a genre of which I’m hugely fond. The lonesome highway with the gas station/motel is pure Americana. Equal parts Hopper and James M Cain. I think the original stage directions had a fizzing neon sign, and Jim Reeves on the Jukebox/Radio… but in the end… Budget.

The thing with a straight whodunit is that it can teeter over into becoming just a dry puzzle – a mental exercise with very little heart or emotional heft. “Where were you on the night in question?” And that’s fine if you’ve got a grey afternoon with a Golden Age novel – you can go back and forth, flicking through the pages, checking out a character’s alibi, seeing if their story stands up – but for something you’re watching, it’s got to have – for me at least – some kind of drive and forward momentum. It’s got to be ABOUT something. It’s got to have a story.

As for Graham Greene… I’d be very pleased if anything we did came within hailing distance of his greatness. The Third Man is a touchstone – Roger Allam is a massive fan too. It wasn’t Rosalind Calloway by accident.

But yes – I was after a very noir feel with TROVE – the world of the Private Eye; untrustworthy cops; dodgy show-business types, &c..

Roger in search of Harry Lime!

DAMIAN: Morse tells us he doesn’t vote in this episode but I wonder if you’re ever tempted, after a glass of Blue Nun perhaps, to infuse any of the characters in Endeavour with your own personal politics?

RUSS: Alas, no Nuns for me – Blue, Red, Singing or otherwise. I suppose all the characters, stories, etc., are infused to some degree.

DAMIAN: If there was one disappointment I had with this series, it was that I was sorry not to see more of Morse’s flat from the first series. It was dank, melancholy and a little oppressive – very Miss Havisham but on a budget and perfect for young Morse. Why did you decide that it was important for him to be in new lighter and more spacious digs for series two?

RUSS: I think it was principally a matter of logistics/location availability. But also, I needed him to be somewhere he could run into Monica across the hallway. And I don’t think we had that option in his first place. There’s an ebb and flow in Endeavour’s fortunes. Sometimes he’s ahead. As often as not, he’s behind. One thing that didn’t make the cut in Series 2 was the notion that his father had left quite considerable gambling debts – and that Endeavour was paying them off out of his wages, a bit at a time. However – it does get a bit of a nod this time out.

DAMIAN: Apart from Adele Cecil (Judy Loe) in the Inspector Morse episodes Death Is Now My Neighbour and The Wench Is Dead, Nurse Monica “with a moped” Hicks (Shvorne Marks) is the only other onscreen and ongoing relationship for Morse thus far. What’s the connection between Morse and Monica that was perhaps missing from his previous romance with Alice Vexin (Maimie McCoy) in ROCKET?

RUSS: I think Alice had an idea of Endeavour. An ideal. The one she couldn’t have. And then – once she’s had her heart’s desire, she probably realized that he wasn’t the man she’d made him in her mind. Monica just saw him as who he was; a man – and a rather damaged one at that. She found him at a low point, and helped get him back on his feet.

DAMIAN: Matthew Copley-Barnes (from the Inspector Morse episode The Infernal Serpent played by Geoffrey Palmer) features in TROVE this time played by Jamie Parker. When a character from the original series occasionally makes an appearance in Endeavour (fans will also remember The Last Enemy’s Alexander Reece in FIRST BUS TO WOODSTOCK for example), are they under contract to play them again should their services be required in future episodes?

RUSS: No – alas – the guest players are brought on board for one film at a time. Obviously, we’d go back to them if at all possible. I wouldn’t want to recast. So if they weren’t available, or felt disinclined to come back, then I’d have to rework the idea. It’s something I’m sure we’ll do at some point – it was mooted on this new series – as I’m keen to develop the idea of our Oxford as a living place, where you’re quite likely to bump into people you’ve met before, but in the end we just ran out of sky. Also – as with I.M. – some of our guests are already proving to be the leading lights of the next generation. So, I suspect getting some of them back would be a tougher go – second time around.

DAMIAN: It can’t be easy to cast a young Geoffrey Palmer or Barry Foster, do you have any input or preference as to who plays these characters?

RUSS: Some. And probably not so much as a megalomaniac would find agreeable. Susie Parris – our Casting Director — pulls off wonders and miracles for us. The budget allows about 22 speaking rôles per film, including our regulars – and Susie manages to find maybe forty to fifty actors per series that make the cut. You can probably multiply than number by anywhere between two to ten, depending on the part, to get a rough estimate of the number of actors that audition – or, as they call it nowadays, ‘interview’. I don’t know how Susie does it – short of being an actual angel. The patience of Job. How she puts up with us…

As for casting heritage characters. It’s walking a tightrope a lot of the time. It can be tricky when it comes to acknowledging Morse’s future history. People want to feel they’re doing ‘something new’ or breaking fresh ground. Directors have enough to think about without my relentless fanboi gripes – and actors don’t want to do an impression, or some sort of received performance. So…

For me, and I suspect for a section of the fandom — the devil is in the detail. Some you win. Some you don’t.

I’m never left in any doubt that too much of what could be perceived as fan-service might alienate those who have come to Endeavour on its own terms. So that’s something else one has to try to navigate. But I’ve never approached it with the notion of – ‘Oh, this will please the cognoscenti’. Rather it’s there are characters from IM that caught my imagination as a viewer that I’d like to see in different circumstances. Some of them can be quite slight encounters. The merest brushing of shoulders. If I had ENDEAVOUR having stories with these characters of such weight that they couldn’t possibly forget one another over the intervening 20-odd years, then it would be doing a retroactive disservice to IM. Hopefully there’ll be some audience members who were too young for IM first time round – and Endeavour will lead them to the source of all good things. If they then arrived and were asking themselves – ‘Why doesn’t Morse remember this person?’ or ‘Why is that character pretending not to know Morse?’ then I’d have failed.

As it is – I think with all the characters we’ve deployed, we’ve respected that Prime Directive. At the end of TROVE – Thursday tells Endeavour that Copley-Barnes had told him he would ‘remember him’ – and Endeavour responds with something along the lines of ‘A vainglorious fool like that? Somehow, I doubt it.’ And I don’t think that Copley-Barnes would have remembered Endeavour. Far too self absorbed to keep a lowly Detective Constable in mind for twenty-five years.

Copley-Barnes was Alma Cullen’s wonderful creation, and played to perfection by Geoffrey Palmer. So – he was just too fascinating a monster to resist getting out of the dressing up box. As it was, Jamie Parker – who I’d seen play Hal to Roger Allam’s Falstaff – had just been working with Geoffrey Palmer, and so grabbed the challenge with both hands, and a certain amount of relish. Despite all the foregoing – and for good or ill, Series 3 probably features — in terms of heritage characters and conceits — far more connective tissue to IM than the previous two.

DAMIAN: Morse makes some powerful enemies in TROVE and Strange is initiated into a certain ancient fraternity. Will there be more secret handshakes in the future?

RUSS: They haven’t gone away. But I think they’ll be a little less overt in their machinations going forward. Licking their wounds, probably. Biding their time.

DAMIAN: We’ve previously talked about the use of music in the show and I know from my interview with Barrington Pheloung that he doesn’t care much for Wagner! Indeed, because of this, Wagner was sidelined in the original Inspector Morse in favour of Mozart. However, you told me that “time will cast ever darker shadows upon his heart, and that will be reflected in his evolving musical taste”. Will Wagner finally get his just desserts on the turntable?

RUSS: I would hope so.

DAMIAN: What more can you tell us about tonight’s episode?

RUSS: Not much. It’s Easter Bank Holiday. And a funfair has come to town. It’s a whole bunch of notions – some drawn from the period, some not – hurled with wild abandon into the Endeavour blender. But it’s a very different story shape to anything we’ve done before. It started with Donald Campbell, and Bluebird… I had a relative who was there on the fateful day. And one hydroplane led to another. The 60s has most definitely arrived, and I guess it struck me at some point that the Psychedelic Age had something in common with another Age altogether. That there were fascinating parallels. From there it just kind of grew…

DAMIAN: And can we look forward to any “fragrant ladies”?

RUSS: Always. This first half of ’67 probably features a surfeit of them.

DAMIAN: Russ, thank you very much indeed.

RUSS: A pleasure, as always.

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THE ENDEAVOUR INTERVIEWS: Barrington Pheloung

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BARRINGTON PHELOUNG

An exclusive interview

by Damian Michael Barcroft

~ With thanks to Papageno ~

MORSE is the loneliest of men. However, despite numerous doomed relationships and tragic love affairs, often overshadowed by the ghosts of girlfriends past, he does have one constant companion which is his music. In addition to being a devoted listener of BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 (although this is mainly to catch every episode of The Archers and the occasional Desert Island Discs) and Classic FM, Morse has an extensive library of LPs which highlight his many musical heroes including Wagner, Mozart, Puccini, Strauss, and not least Rosalind Calloway, to name but a few.

©itv/MammothScreen

Since 1987 to the present day, music has featured so prolifically and prominently throughout the original Inspector Morse, Lewis and now Endeavour, that it is also inconceivable that every single note has been the responsibility of just one man. Indeed, in addition to composing all the original music for the three series, he has also arranged all the classical pieces and various “source music” that you hear in each and every film which are performed under his supervision. It is, therefore, a true honour to present this exclusive interview with one of my musical heroes, Mr Barrington Pheloung.

©itv/MammothScreen

DAMIAN: Barrington, you were first approached to write the music for the original series back in 1985 and I believe your first brief was to compose a theme that epitomized Morse’s cultured and cryptic mind while simultaneously capturing his melancholy nature. You did this with one of the most memorable and iconic television themes of recent times, expressing various aspects of the character with music that is both beautiful and yet haunting. Can you describe the complex character of Morse?

BARRINGTON: Morse had an incredibly cryptic mind (as do I finishing off The Guardian crossword – only two to go) but Kenny McBain and Anthony Minghella who wrote the first screenplay wanted me to explore the complexity of this character. He loved cryptic crosswords and classical music and therefore he was very close to my character.

©itv/MammothScreen

DAMIAN: For all his intelligence, Morse is rather inarticulate when is comes to communicating – especially with the fairer sex. To what extent would you agree that your music expresses the emotions and psychological makeup of Morse that are often implied rather than ever explicitly stated?

BARRINGTON: Less is always more. Morse is not inarticulate but slightly fumbling when it does come to his relationships with women.

DAMIAN: I hope you’ll forgive my lack of professionalism when I confess that I’m a huge fan of your work and own every Morse album that has ever been released. One of my favourites is The Passion of Morse, which in addition to the majestic Sinfonietta in Morse – The Morse Suite, also features some of your other work including Bach Sarabande, Cello Suite from Truly, Madly, Deeply, Bach Keyboard Concerto, Partita from The Politician’s Wife and Fantasia For the Little Prince. I really do recommend this album to both Morse completists and also those who might like an introduction to your other prolific work which has encompassed various film, television and theatre projects over the years. However, the main reason for highlighting this is because you mention in your sleeve notes for the album that some of the pieces, including the Morse track, are very personal and as much about you as they are about the film characters. Would it be too much of an intrusion to ask you to elaborate on this?

BARRINGTON: Every piece of music that I have written in my life has been based on my life and my own close family connections. Therefore I take this very seriously as an obligation.

©itv/MammothScreen

DAMIAN: You share more than a few of our favourite detective’s pastimes don’t you?

BARRINGTON: Yes I enjoy a pint at the pub and I certainly love chess and of course the cryptic crossword although Morse does The Times and I do The Guardian.

DAMIAN: Inspector Morse introduced the now familiar two-hour format for TV films and I’m wondering if it is true that the creative choices and stylistic features such as the use of slow camera pans were specifically designed to accommodate long sections of the beautiful music?

BARRINGTON: Our (Minghella and Kenny McBain) incentive was to try and produce a feature film rather than a television episode. Therefore, I was given much more scope to create longer sequences of music.

DAMIAN: You’ve said that you found it somewhat daunting when you were first asked to write the music for Lewis – why?

BARRINGTON: It was that I simply didn’t know where else to go. However, Kevin Whately’s character was so powerful and strong that I believed we had a new way to go and I even wrote him his own theme.

DAMIAN: The writer of Endeavour, Russell Lewis, seems to take an active interest in all aspects of production beyond simply writing the scripts. Obviously much of the music that is used frequently relates to certain plots and characters such as in First Bus to Woodstock (Un bel di from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and the character of Rosalind Calloway) and Fugue (perhaps most notably the inclusion of Verdi’s Otello in finding clues to track down the serial killer, Dr. Daniel Cronyn aka Mason/Gull). I’m wondering at what point in the production do you become creatively involved and to what extent the musical choices are discussed with Russ?

BARRINGTON: Endeavour, Morse and Lewis has always been a subjective choice. Sometimes by directors, sometimes by producers and writers but ultimately I’m given the final choice and more often than not, these are the works that I have conducted many times before.

©itv/MammothScreen

DAMIAN: Unlike much television and cinema, where the scores are often used to compensate for the lack of dramatic and emotional depth, your music is chosen carefully and selectively which results in a far more potent contribution to the overall meaning of both the story and its characters. For as much as audiences love and remember the soundtracks, the music is actually used rather sparingly isn’t it?

BARRINGTON: Yes indeed – less is more; always.

DAMIAN: Like Russ, you do enjoy to play rather cunning games with audiences in which you often tease us with various clues but also a few red herrings. Can you give us a few of your favourite examples?

BARRINGTON: On many occasions I have given red herrings in Morse code pertaining to the killer i.e. she did it – he did it.

DAMIAN: Although not as prolific as Colin Dexter’s cameos, you have also made a couple of appearances in the original series, how did this come about?

BARRINGTON: Indeed I have made many appearances on film because I was requested to be on set as the conductor/producer of the music and therefore I was just there.

DAMIAN: I can’t think of another composer who has written the music for a franchise with such longevity and you must be one of the few people to have worked on every single Inspector Morse, Lewis and Endeavour film. What’s the secret behind keeping the music fresh for both the audience and you as a composer?

BARRINGTON: Very simple, if I can’t think of an original theme or to keep a way to keep my music new then that will be time to give up.

DAMIAN: You did a concert at the Royal Festival Hall back in 1991. Is there a chance you might perform again in this country as I’m sure I’m not the only fan who would be thrilled to hear the Morse theme performed live?

BARRINGTON: I would love to as soon as I am asked.

DAMIAN: One final question. I must ask why, a man of your musical talent, is also running a lawn mower repair service?

BARRINGTON: I do indeed repair both my mowers here and in Australia where I have a 30 thousand hectare mountain however, I don’t repair anyone else’s mowers!

DAMIAN: If Russ is the brains behind young Morse, you are his heart and soul. Your music continues to enrich our understanding of the character and its been an absolute privilege to do this interview. Thank you very much indeed Barrington.

BARRINGTON: Thank you and may god bless.

~~~

Special thanks also to Amanda Street-Shipston of DNA Music Ltd.

www.dna-music.com

For more information about the composer, please visit his website:

http://www.pheloung.co.uk/

The final Endeavour film of series 2 is tonight at 8 on ITV

THE ENDEAVOUR INTERVIEWS: Russell Lewis Part III

RUSSELL LEWIS

An exclusive interview

by Damian Michael Barcroft

With thanks to Diogenes Small

and Mr. Tiger

ACT III

‘FUGUE’

(The nut cluster)

We’ve previously discussed FIRST BUS TO WOODSTOCK and GIRL, now we continue our journey through the first series of Endeavour with FUGUE and ROCKET in addition to previewing tonight’s film, SWAY…

DAMIAN: FUGUE was something of a gear change, a race-against-time serial killer thriller. For as wonderful as the swinging sixties were, this was also the decade which witnessed the horrific murders of the Zodiac Killer, Charles Manson and closer to home, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. You must have been very young at the time but I’m wondering if you can remember these events from your own childhood and if they influenced the script for FUGUE in any way?

RUSS: With the exception of the Zodiac Killer – the rest were a constant presence from as far back as I can remember. The relations amongst whom I lived and grew up were all quite elderly, and the Victorian preoccupations, death and morbidity (we’ll leave spiritualism and the lavatory to one side this time around!) loomed large. I was probably privy to far too many details of the Tate/LaBianca murders at far too early an age. This Be the Verse…

Of course, one says Tate/LaBianca, but in truth it’s the left side of the oblique with which the media, and, through them, the public, was most fascinated. Likewise, the Saddleworth killings have provided the yellow press with easy copy for almost half a century. I doubt there’s many of my generation for whom the perpetrators didn’t occupy far too much imaginary real estate. The maternal side of my family came originally from Barton upon Irwell, so that created an additional, I hesitate to say proprietorial, interest for them, but I suspect that certainly had a part to play. ‘Manchester… so much to answer for.’

But, no – FUGUE was absolutely not influenced by either. I think there may have been a line, I’m not sure whether it was for FUGUE or not, in an early Endeavour draft for one of the films about ‘that business up North’, but I can’t remember now if it ever made a shooting script, or a final edit.

I wouldn’t want to trivialise or exploit any of those crimes by drawing upon them to any major degree, or constructing a direct parallel, in a show like Endeavour. It’s just not the place. Nor the time. If one was looking seriously and specifically at those crimes from a dramatic point of view, fine. But, otherwise… To plunder them for an ‘entertainment’ – to borrow from Graham Greene’s taxonomy – wouldn’t, to my mind, be appropriate. I’m happy to look further back for a jumping off point, but something within such recent living memory… No. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that.

By comparison – and we may be getting ahead of ourselves — the Victorian murders in NOCTURNE sprang from a loose personal connection some thirty-odd years ago with the murder of Francis Savile Kent at Rode (Road) Hill House, which – at the time – led me to The Saint With Red Hands by Yseult Bridges, and another volume by Bernard Taylor, Cruelly Murdered, I think it was, which also dealt with the case. It stayed with me, I suppose. Percolating. Germinating. Waiting its moment.

It’s now one-hundred and fifty years in the past, and seems far enough removed to draw upon comfortably for something like Endeavour. (It was also drawn on – much closer to the time – to varying degrees by Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens, and also gets a run-out in a segment of Dead of Night, so we’re in pretty decent company). Yet, even there, our crime is but a faint echo – five murders rather than just the one – of its inspiration. In fact, I think the only direct point of contact is that the respective paterfamilias in both instances share the same forename. Though our Samuel was a tea-planter rather than a Inspector of Manufactories.

One final correction to be made. It’s been suggested that our luckless Victorian police Inspector (who ended his days a broken, hopeless drunk in a cheap rooming-house in Dorking) was a nod to Whicher – whose career never recovered from his failure to bring someone to book for the Rode Hill House murder. The truth is much closer to home. It was an affectionate tribute to the producer of the first series of Endeavour, Dan McCulloch – for whom, sober or not, the description holds some meaning.

DAMIAN: Indeed, the psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Cronyn (aka Mason/Gull), mentions the growing trend in American serial killers and references Charles Raymond Starkweather, Albert De Salvo (The Boston Strangler) and the bodies in the swamp at Fairvale (a nod to Psycho?). Furthermore, FUGUE also features many little allusions such as one of Cronyn’s aliases, Gull, who intends to claim five victims (a favourite suspect of the five canonical Jack the Ripper murders is Sir William Gull) and also the walled up body in the cellar of the farmhouse (Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat?). Do you have a fondness for the horror and Gothic genre?

RUSS: Yes, Sir William (one of Stephen Knight’s now much discredited ‘unholy trinity’) was certainly in my mind – but it was the sense of his surname as a verb that was uppermost. Fairvale – the cuckoo’s egg amongst the rest — was indeed a nod to Hitchcock. The walling up… certainly has Poe associations, but, if anything, I think I would have had A Cask of Amontillado, and the fate of the poorly named Fortunato (and his thousand insults!) more in mind, as he was alive at the time of his immurement, unlike the victim in The Black Cat – but again, the point of departure for all the murders comes back to the first key idea, which was to recreate famous deaths from Opera. Radames fate in Aida was too attractive to ignore. Again – the idea was to attack the thing which gives Endeavour such comfort and pleasure, and taint it in some way. As in FIRST BUS TO WOODSTOCK.

A fondness for horror/Gothic? You really will wish you hadn’t asked… One of my early prize possessions was Denis Gifford’s (sometime cartooning and writing partner of Bob Monkhouse, amongst many other achievements!) landmark A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, which I got hold of when I was nine or ten, from WH Smiths at Euston Station. (The important things stay with you.) Later, I acquired some of Alan Frank’s fine guides to the genre.

Universal, RKO, AIP, Amicus, Tigon, and the mighty House of Hammer were as familiar in my mouth as household words. And like many young boys, the Aurora ‘Glow in the Dark’ model kits of the classic ‘monsters’ became an obsession. An obsession clearly shared with the young Mark Petrie… Though, so far as I’m aware, no one ever came scratching at my bedroom window.

This was all in a pre-video recorder/DVD age. But I was lucky enough to be growing up at a time when BBC2 could be relied upon to broadcast a regular Saturday night Horror Double Bill – starting off with the Universals, but, then, moving on to a mix and match of Hammer classics, and many of the Corman/Poe/AIPs. It really was an education.

I was far too young to get into what were then X-Cert films – today’s 18 — which certificate such horror fare invariably bore. But good old TV came to the rescue by delivering the wig-out 70s, and such English curiosities as Scream and Scream Again; Psychomania; the late Hammer Draculas – AD1972; Satanic Rites, &c.; Pete Walker’s output: a brace of Phibes, (the latter featuring Robert Quarry, AIP’s own Count Yorga! for extra meta!) . Though, I suppose, of all that period, the film which casts the longest shadow is The Wicker Man. Ah… Sgt.Howie.

In some small degree FUGUE is a nod to both Phibes, and Edward Lionheart’s (Theatre of Blood) ‘collect the set’ m.o. And also – of course – though the ‘crimes’ were driven by a different motive altogether, Kind Hearts and Coronets. On the literary side… Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four, and Dame Agatha’s And Then There Were None.

We were hugely spoiled – for a brief wee while in the 60s and 70s — with TV shows in the genre; the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas; some ITV adaptations of the classics; Brian Clemens’s long running ATV Saturday night Thriller; Nigel Kneale’s Beasts; and then the BBC’s Supernatural, (mostly) by Robert Muller, came along in 1979 — tales told at the Club of the Damned. Made in studio, and directed multi-cam from the gallery. Staggering set designs and builds — of a kind you’d kill for now.

Robert Hardy wandering haunted canals and sitting at the table of a certain cafe in Ghosts of Venice. Gordon Jackson proving that there was much darkness beyond the kindly Hudson in Night of the Marionettes. Vladek Sheybal channelling Peter Lorre!! Oh my! So many gems. Between them, the Beeb, Network DVD and the BFI have reissued many of the above titles. If you have a taste for such, I can’t recommend them highly enough.

More recently, my fellow Spooks alum., the great LUTHERan, Neil Cross gave us a memorable addition to the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas, with his modern retelling of the MR James story Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad. And that appears to have re-established the tradition, though adherence has been sporadic, and more honoured in the breach…

No monograph on the subject – which I realise this is turning into – be it ever so brief, would be complete without mention of The League of Gentlemen – Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. Keepers of the dark and secret flame, I’m a great admirer of their work — both severally and individually. Their collective admiration, respect and affection for the genre is something to be cherished. Mark Gatiss’s Crooked House trilogy, and, more recently, the Ghost Story for Christmas – The Tractate Middoth — have been particular treats. The three-hander Rope homage in the outstanding Psychoville (Series 1, I think), was something very special indeed. Flawless writing, execution and performance. And now Number 9, and Ghosts, and the Great Detective, etc.. Long may they reign – in all their numerous guises and disguises.

As a boy, I was in and around some of the studios where some of these productions had been made – the Hammers, Amicus, Tigon – and even, I think I’m right, someone will correct me else, an AIP (The Masque of the Red Death was done over here, as I think, was The Tomb of Ligeia) — and, indeed, still were being made. It gave me an enormous kick to be amongst such history.

I was much given to prowling (haunting) empty sound-stages and backlots during lunch breaks. There is a certain… atmosphere on a deserted studio set. A pin-drop silence. Some residual heat from the lights. A particular scent of warm air. To which nothing quite compares. All very Sunset Boulevard, I’m sure, but there is something about bogus corridors and flights of stairs that lead nowhere which, if you have a mind at all susceptible to suggestion, excites the imagination. I found it mesmerising. Thrilling. Perhaps even sacred. Still do. Alas, very little is shot ‘in studio’ these days.

Amongst my very earliest memories is playing amongst a whole heap of Dalek casings on the back-lot at Shepperton, which would have been left over from the Peter Cushing Doctor Who outings. For years there was a particular aroma – which took a city boy a lifetime to identify – that I always associated with Shepperton. It drove me mad trying to work out what it was. But it wasn’t until we were in pre-production on TWTTW (The Way Through the Woods) that I was able to solve the mystery.

Chris Burt – who produced TWTTW — had an office in the ‘main house’ at the studio, and I was often holed up there with John Madden as we tried to crack some of the difficulties in adapting Colin Dexter’s novel. (There is a central conceit in the plot which it’s easy to get away with on the page – but because we have to present the thing visually it was as tricky as you like. In fact, thinking about it, there’s a couple of those. Colin is terribly canny and will sometimes tease his readers with a ‘someone saw something’ kind of sentence. Which is great, but how do we shoot it? Which ‘someone’? What ‘something’?)

Anyway, I digress – sorry, this is turning into a Ronnie Corbett story. But there, walking across to the house every day, was this scent again. Only this time, I was able to locate and identify the culprit. What was it that had haunted my senses for thirty-odd years? Only ‘box’ and nothing more… (Now I’ve told you, I can’t help but feel like Eric Idle’s waiter — Gaston, was it? — expounding his philosophy post the Mister Creosote sequence in the Pythons’ Meaning of Life!!) I think this is the point that the Harry Stoneham Quartet start playing the Parkinson theme and we roll end credits.

There’s a Lewis I wrote – my first when I came back onto the flight roster – set around Hallowe’en, which really was a massive nod to all of the foregoing. My love of the genre in film and TV, together with the writings of Poe, Lovecraft, M.R.James and many, many others, all got folded into that story. Falling Darkness, I think it was. I get confused as I did two for that series – the other was titled The Dead of Winter, and centred on Hathaway’s childhood connection to a stately home, and the family who live there. But we didn’t title them until quite late, and it could have gone either way – so I’m never 100 per cent sure which way round it was. It was the same with Series 1 of Endeavour – with the exception of, appropriately enough, FUGUE, the rest were all finally titled at the end of production. If we ever went again, I think I’d probably go back to that model – titles last. Otherwise things leak out – spoilers and so forth, which I’m not too keen on. At all.

One happy coincidence, however, that comes courtesy of my association with Morse, and which closes the circle, is that while we were prepping TWTTW at Shepperton, Sir Kenneth Branagh’s film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was shooting on the sound-stages and backlot. Once more I was able to indulge my weakness for wandering deserted sets – this time of a beautifully realised Ingolstadt, and come at last within the baroque – though still memorably melancholy – shade of the House of Frankenstein. Even through adult eyes, the magic was, and is, and will ever remain, undimmed and undiminished.

‘And much of madness, and more of sin – And horror the soul of the plot’!

DAMIAN: FUGUE features more screen time with Morse than is perhaps usual with many scenes in which he is alone. The episode also introduces Thursday’s family for the first time so I’m wondering if this was a deliberate attempt to highlight his isolation and loneliness?

RUSS: If he is alone, it’s probably because we wanted to underline his status – still at this stage very much the outsider. And introducing the Thursdays – their normality pushed the disconnect with the nature of the case.

DAMIAN: There’s a wonderful connection to the original series with the explanation as to why Morse suffers from vertigo (see Service of All the Dead) but am I right in thinking Masonic Mysteries was also an influence?

RUSS: Yes, Endeavour’s high-jinks were intended to sow the seeds of his later vulnerability – ‘C’mon! Show a little backbone, will ya?’. But the finale of FUGUE is one of those instances where – in early drafts at least — you’ll find “LOCATION DEPENDENT” in the Sluglines and Stage Directions. We had a good idea of what we wanted, but really couldn’t nail down what we might or might not be able to realise until a suitable location had been found. And so the Recce fed back into the script. Once we had the location for Alfredus College, we was able to tailor the action on the page to what could be achieved. Our nod to the genius of Harold Lloyd.

Masonic Mysteries is such a towering achievement in the Inspector Morse televisual canon that it is often there to a greater or lesser degree.

But I couldn’t close any discussion of FUGUE without mentioning director Tom Vaughan. That we were blessed with fantastic performances from the cast notwithstanding, Tom just ‘got’ FUGUE from the off, and gave us all we could have asked for and more. And then once Barrington Pheloung does his thing – aided and abetted by Matthew Slater… In the words of many a reality TV talent contest, it ‘takes it to the next level.’

~~~

ACT IV

‘ROCKET’

(The very rum truffle)

DAMIAN: Again, there was change in mood with the third film, ROCKET, which was perhaps a touch lighter in tone and humour. Is it a conscious decision to shape each film differently with its own unique identity and is this why every film has a different director?

RUSS: Well – each film has a different director for very practical reasons. Typically, the post production period of the first film occupies the shooting period of the second, and the shooting period of the second is the ‘prep’ time for the third film. I suppose it might be possible to bring back FILM 1 director for FILM 4, but it would be a lot to ask, as their schedule would run – prep FILM 1, shoot FILM 1, post FILM 1 – prep-FILM 4 – shoot FILM 4 – post FILM 4.

From my end – we only get to do four of these a year, and I want to try to get as much variety in as possible. It’s always Endeavour, but, hopefully, comes out of a different trap for each film. But it was lovely that we got Colm McCarthy back for HOME – a secret Dan McCulloch kept up his sleeve until the last moment.

DAMIAN: You’ve said in the past that there was a long and quite twisted backstory to writing ROCKET – would you care to elaborate for us please?

RUSS: You’ll have to jog my memory, as it’s quite a long time ago now. The final clue was always in my head – the accidental method whereby Endeavour unlocks the mystery. (Spoilers ahead!) Ah – now I remember. Yes. As I mentioned before, not everything you write ends up getting green lit and made, and some years ago – ten or more, I should think – I was asked to adapt a novel as 2×90 minutes. I… took some liberties. It was a pretty loose adaptation, as these things sometimes are, but I needed to find a way in, to make it more of a state of the union piece, and as a result I ended up looking at certain newsreels – amongst which sundry visits by members of the royal family were made to certain towns and factories, etc.. There was one with the DoE – it must have been the late 50s/early 60s – and the tone of it struck a chord somewhere. And then another of HMQ’s visit to… Stevenage, I think it was – there to admire the Thunderbird missile factory… Met by the Lord Lieutenant, etc.. ‘Have you come far?’ Bob Danvers Walker providing the narration. What a voice. And – to cut a long story – there was a changing of the guards at the broadcaster, and the new broom didn’t share their predecessor’s enthusiasm for the project, so it quietly died a death. But those newsreels were stacked away in the back of my mind…

Nothing is ever wholly wasted. A decade or so goes by… And thinking about stories for the first series of Endeavour, I remembered the newsreel. I’m fascinated by the long history of our island race – how EXACTLY did we get here? – changing social mores, &c. And the missiles and Her Majesty seemed too tempting to resist as a jumping off point. As soon as one thinks of factories and British films, a certain Boulting Brothers’ masterpiece (one of several!) can’t be far behind.

I thought it might be fun to have some kind of dynastic struggle behind the scenes amongst the owners of the factory. And the Plantagenets seemed a splendid model. Thinking of Henry, Eleanor and their fractious offspring brought to mind James Goldman’s staggeringly good The Lion in Winter. And the rest is…

So – those were the three things, the major ingredients for ROCKET stew.

I also had a the back of my mind that bit of folklore/urban myth about everywhere a royal personage visits smelling of fresh paint. So one takes that and puts it with the rest of it, and… Click!!!

Dan McCulloch brought us to director Craig Viveiros who was fairly untried with television. Little did we know that he wouldn’t just get the crate airborne, but would shortly dazzle us with barrel-rolls and loop-the-loops. Ridiculously talented just about covers it.

I’m very partial to a chamber piece – a precinct drama – which in effect is what ROCKET was. The factory and offices of Imperial Electric were a closed space. Our cut-off country house. We were two and a bit weeks in the old Tate & Lyle factory at Greenwich – possibly our longest stay at any location to date – which doubled for IEC — and I think the look Matt Gant (Production Designer) and his team of elves achieved simply dazzles. The way Craig and DoP John Pardue shot it… It’s just terribly stylish.

Likewise Chinon Court – the Brooms’ family home – which was Craig’s call for a location. I’d been terribly literal with the mediaeval vibe, but thankfully Craig, Matt and Dan saved me from myself, and went for this moderne masterpiece, which we then dressed with the odd bit of armour, etc., so’s not to lose sight of its inspiration. It fitted the look of the factory far more closely, and gave the whole thing a sense of completeness.

We were very lucky with our directors. Ed Bazalgette had the toughest gig of all, I think – opening the batting for us on GIRL; defending The Ashes almost, after the reception FBTW had received. He had so much on his shoulders – essentially setting up a new show – but he delivered with his customary brilliance, style and panache, and gave us not only a terrific film, but a perfect springboard for all that followed. An unbeaten double century.

But – back to ROCKET… Add the sublime Miss Jenny Seagrove, and the living legend that is Mister Martin Jarvis (every bit as lovely and mischievous as you might expect) as our Nora and Henry and it’s like all one’s birthdays and Christmases have come at once. That Martin had history with Morse (Greeks Bearing Gifts – What a film!) made the experience even more special. To hear that voice – THAT voice! – delivering one’s dialogue at the read… I mean… Come on!

DAMIAN: There are many moments for the fans to savour in this film but I particularly enjoyed the humorous exchanges between Morse and Strange (Bergman!) and the beautifully written and performed scenes with Alice Vexin (Maimie McCoy). I know Morse is currently busy with Nurse Monica but might we see Alice return one day?

RUSS: Yeh – dear old Strange. If not a cultural desert, then perhaps an area with very low precipitation. I’d forgotten about the Bergman, but now you mention it, that scene very nearly got cut from the final edit. Jokes are always a hostage to fortune – being seen as not furthering the plot, but I think I’ve said before, it’s the character stuff carries equal weight for me, and I think there might be some Jakes material lurking in this scene also, which probably saved it. You’ll have to forgive my memory – I haven’t seen it since it was broadcast. But, yes – Strange’s misunderstanding, possibly prefigures/draws on an exchange about Morse’s recent holiday destination in TWTTW…

Very sadly we did lose a scene between Dorothea and Strange, which came quite late in proceedings – once Endeavour was firmly on the scent. It is shot – and edited – and perhaps one day we’ll include all the stuff we couldn’t squeeze in. It’s a scene I like a lot – a rare two hander between Abigail and Sean. It sprang off the back of some oblique Endeavour mutterings in the cinema about Simeon Stylites. Also cut…

Ah… Alice Vexin… in the person of Maimie McCoy. I thought it was interesting to turn the usual coat inside out and have a character who had carried a torch for Endeavour, or rather her idea of Endeavour – enhanced by the passage of time. As Jakes observes in TROVE – ‘absence makes.’ There’s little quite so attractive as that which one cannot have. But I think once, almost immediately, that Alice had got it out of her system that the bubble was burst, and she could see Endeavour was not the brightest of prospects for something long term.

In terms of Endeavour’s development, it felt right to establish in the fourth film we’d done that he wasn’t going to lead some kind of prissy, asexual, weirdly monastic existence. He might be unlucky in love by the time we get to meet him as a Chief Inspector, but to imagine, or, worse, to actively want his twenties and thirties to be just this arid stretch of nothing seemed to my mind unrealistic, immature and more than a little bit Annie Wilkes! You dirty birdy! Of course Endeavour taking someone to bed on screen (as t’were) was a break with tradition, but we hoped we’d bring the audience with us.

Maimie’s this luminous, ethereal screen presence. A very sharp, very sensitive actor – both strong and fragile at the same instant, which was just perfect for Alice. And she and Shaun just nailed that relationship. I particularly like the way Craig V and his D.o.P. framed those scenes at the table in the pub. Very Kubrick.

One thing I’m keen to establish is the idea that Oxford is a living, breathing place outside of our adventures. The notion that Endeavour would not run into Alice, or, indeed, other characters previously encountered in a place so relatively small and socially insular (then! Before there are ‘letters’!) as Oxford strikes me as unlikely.

DAMIAN: As is now customary, please tell us a little bit about tonight’s film, SWAY – I believe you’ve been digging into Oxford history again?

RUSS: Yup, I’ve got a history of the Oxford City Police that contains a great section on Bonfire/Fireworks Night/November 5th, which was an annual blast of riotous town and gown mayhem. All leave was cancelled and the City Police deployed a large contingent of officers in ‘disguise’ to infiltrate the crowds and identify troublemakers for their colleagues to nab. I think I’ve mentioned before how the shooting schedule – late summer through winter – defines what we can and can’t realise, and so FILM by FILM the seasons progress – SWAY brought us to autumn, and November 5th seemed a good spot to hang the story on – there’s another reason it was chosen, which will become clear if you watch it, but I can’t go into it here for fear of spoilery.

“Le Minou Noir”

~ Damian Michael Barcroft ~

Follow Damian on twitter for more exclusive interviews

~~~

The Inside Story

Each week we’ll be looking at what information we can glean from each of the Endeavour films concerning significant events and encounters and how they relate to the original series. Today we continue with our study of Fugue and Rocket…

Morse appears in The Oxford Mail with the following headline: ‘TOP OF THE COPS – DETECTIVE CONSTABLE IMPRESSES AUDIENCE AT OPERA RECITAL’. Fugue

The psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Cronyn (aka Mason/Gull*), is asked to help profile the “Opera Phantom”. He makes reference to the growing trend in American serial killers and mentions Charles Raymond Starkweather, Albert De Salvo (The Boston Strangler) and also the bodies in the swamp at Fairvale (Fairvale is fifteen miles away from the Norman Bates/Psycho mansion and motel). Fugue

*It is interesting that Gull wishes to claim 5 victims – the same number as the canonical Jack the Ripper murders – one of the suspects was Sir William Gull. Fugue

Cronyn stabs Morse in the stomach with a knife. Fugue

Morse develops a fear of heights which he still suffers from in 1987. Fugue & Service of all the Dead

-Thursday’s family: Win (wife), Sam (son) and Joan (Daughter). Sam has/or is about to join the army and Joan works in a bank. Fugue

-Thursday speaks Italian. He came up through Italy after North Africa, landed at Reggio and then on to Cassino. Fugue

-Thursday also speaks German. Rocket

-There is a picture hanging on the wall of Thursday’s living room which is reminiscent of Housman’s “blue remembered hills”. The picture is to the right of Morse when he is resting shortly after the stabbing. Fugue

Oxford City Police are responsible for providing additional security while Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret is escorted on a tour of a factory for the official unveiling of the new Standfast Mark Two surface-to-air missile. The purpose of the visit is to help promote British industry abroad. Rocket

Alice Vexin discovers the body of Percy Malleson (aka Kendrick). Alice had a crush on Morse while at University and lived across the stair from Susan. Alice and Morse haven’t seen each other for seven years and he hardly recognizes her at first. Rocket

Morse tells Alice he has only been back in Oxford for a couple of months. Rocket

Morse and Alice meet on a date at the Fox and Hounds where she used to drink as a student. Morse says he likes police work but doesn’t fit in. Alice tells him that he was never like the rest despite Morse wanting and trying to be. She continues that he was difficult, awkward… all corners socially and so angry… but himself most of all.

After Morse’s failed relationship with Susan, Alice hoped he might seek comfort in her but instead, he just disappeared from her life.

Alice wears her hair like Susan did in the hope that it will remind Morse of her and perhaps be attracted to her. Morse says he doesn’t know if he is still in love with Susan but it is obvious that he is. Alice wonders if he could love her too.

Later, Morse and Alice spend the night together but soon afterwards, she tells him that she doesn’t think he is ready for a relationship and doesn’t want to be second best after Susan. The two go their separate ways. Rocket