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ITV’s popular period drama, Foyle’s War,
heads towards VE Day
COUNTDOWN
If there is a sense of occasion about the next two episodes of ITV’s Foyle’s War to hit our screens, it is understandable. For these shows are the very last of Anthony Horowitz’s BAFTA award-winning wartime detective
dramas, the final episode itself coincid- ing with VE Day celebrations.
“That one has an interesting plot,” explains director Tristram Powell, “a real historical event which kick-starts the story. It devolves around the plan- ning of VE Day celebrations in Hastings, and then the two plots come together. I think Anthony is brilliant at crafting the elements of the story so that they interlock.”
Cinematographer James Aspinall admits he was a fan of the programme (which launched in 2002) but had not worked on it before the final block of three, the first of which – Plan Of Attack – was aired earlier this year. Coming on to such an established and successful series, his challenge was to meet the standard of all that had gone before while putting his own stamp on the look of the show.
“I went for a more contrasty look than on previous ones I’d seen,” he explains. “There’s a lot of browns and greens in Foyle’s War, and I liked that. But you couldn’t do too much with the overall look of the show because they did have a certain style, which they wanted to adhere to. So I wasn’t trying to make it look like Se7en.”
With each episode taking just over four weeks to shoot, and many heads of department being newcomers to the series, assiduous preparation was cru- cial. Powell had worked with Aspinall before and had no fears that his DP wouldn’t be up to the task.
“James is a delight to work with; he’s very quiet and quick. He’s very responsive to any ideas and thoughts, and very experienced. His lighting is great; he makes it look very good, and atmospheric. Essentially he’s got a great feel for whatever the material is, and he’s very good with actors, too. He operates himself quite often, which is where you form that close relation- ship, I think.”
Aside from Horowitz himself, it is the three leading cast members, Michael Kitchen, Honeysuckle Weeks and Anthony Howell who remain the constant throughout this long running series. “They have been a team for quite a long time,” Aspinall adds. “But I’ve worked with Michael before several times, so that made things a bit easier.”
A little history with Kitchen was useful, for he is a mercurial actor who seems able to do a lot with very little.
“He’s very clever,” Powell agrees. “He unloads as many lines as he can
to the other actors, knowing that what people love about his character is the way he reacts rather than what he says. He never likes his character giv- ing information, he’ll always try and hand over things like names and places to the other actors so he can just sort of respond with a look or one of those smiles of his.”
“Interestingly,” adds Aspinall, “with Michael you don’t really see what he’s up to until it’s cut together. Then you see what he was trying to do. He’s very clever in that respect; his performances are always beauti- fully understated.”
In many ways, the design is under- stated too, reminding the viewer that these are different times as they get drawn into the compelling police pro- cedural elements that Horowitz con- jures up so well. Powell is quick to pay tribute to production designer Martyn John and his team who worked closely with Aspinall to establish this look.
“The design and the look is done on a very tight budget,” Powell says. “When people say they enjoy the peri- od look of the show it’s really done with remarkably little, I think. You rely a lot on finding good locations which will do half the design work for you. That plays a huge part in the look.
“For example, in one episode we featured a secret mapping centre.
I had the idea that we would find a really good-looking Georgian country house and have the RAF mapping centre sort of imposed on it. So there were details like old portraits and paintings and sculpture and stuff.
But there was also the office bits and pieces and telephones, maps, dia- grams, notice boards and so on, which were all laid in on top of that.
“What was good about that was the rooms were naturally rather ele- gant and quite big so they were great to light and get some movement into. There was a wonderful curving Georgian staircase up and down which the officers and the women who worked there would dash. Everyone did a great job there, I felt.”
By contrast, the final shots of the final episode take place predominantly within Foyle’s police station in Hastings, as the enigmatic detective solves his last mystery. “Then the police station closes, he walks out, shuts his door and that’s it,” Aspinall recalls, fading to black on a British tel- evision favourite. ■ ANWAR BRETT
Foyle’s War was originated on 16mm Fujicolor Super F-64D 8622, ETERNA 500T 8673 and ETERNA 250D 8663
Photo main: Michael Kitchen as Foyle; inset right: on the set of Foyle’s War (ITV) with Director Tristram Powell, Honeysuckle Weeks, Anthony Howell and Michael Kitchen
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