sign in sign up
<<
Home , Anthony Blunt, Carol Smillie, Dervla Kirwan, Ken Stott, Kim Philby, Ronni Ancona

Cambridge Spies

Cambridge Spies

Introduction ...... 2 Cambridge Spies – A Who’s Who ...... 5 The Intelligence organisations ...... 6 Cast and crew ...... 7 Cast interviews is Philby ...... 8 is ...... 10 is ...... 12 Rupert Penry-Jones is ...... 14

Cambridge Spies 1 Introduction

Cambridge Spies The story of the most notorious double agents in the history of spying – four very British traitors

As early as the late Twenties, the Soviet Intelligence Fywell. Certain events and characters have been had formed a plan for infiltrating the British created or changed for dramatic effect. Intelligence establishment.Amongst those who were cultivated and nurtured by Soviet handlers At Cambridge University in 1934, the four young were four bright young men destined for influential men are courted by Soviet agents and recruited positions in Government and the media. Later they into a world of covert intelligence and . would rise in the ranks of the establishment in Fired by youthful idealism, passionately committed , infiltrating the highest offices of power in to social justice and to fighting , they are the land, appearing to serve their country in the bonded by friendship based on shared conviction most loyal way imaginable. and shared sacrifice.

They would become notorious for being the most Peter Moffat says:“This is the story of four young devastatingly successful spies in the history of but devastatingly effective double-agents who modern intelligence, whose actions would lead to knew from the start that they stood or fell the deaths of many British and American people. together. Burgess is the loudest spy in the history Their names were ,Anthony Blunt, Guy of espionage, a gifted gob and wicked wit. Philby is Burgess and Donald Maclean. the most successful spy of the lot, becoming Head of Counter Intelligence in MI6. Blunt is cool, Cambridge Spies is a fictional drama inspired by real viciously funny and clever, while Maclean veers events and based on extensive research. It stars between being warm and friendly and drunk and Toby Stephens, Samuel West,Tom Hollander and difficult. Until Burgess and Maclean’s desperate Rupert Penry-Jones as Philby, Blunt, Burgess and flight to on June 23, 1951, they live in Maclean, and follows them from their early each other’s pockets.” university days and throughout their careers as spies in a four-part drama written by Peter Moffat, Producer Mark Shivas says:“Philby, Blunt, Burgess produced by Mark Shivas and directed by Tim and Maclean believed that what they were doing

Cambridge Spies 2 Introduction

was not betraying their country, but serving it. But story centred on the fact that, for about a year, the how long can you hold on to youthful idealism? KGB was convinced that the four spies were Peter Moffat’s script is about friendship, passion and double-crossing them and that theirs was an conviction – it’s about how far they were prepared elaborate British intelligence plan to feed to go to realise their ideals, and their unshakeable misinformation to the Russians.The KGB had the faith in their beliefs.” spies followed by hopeless agents in Britain who weren’t adept at being discreet. “I was intrigued by these men and how much they were despised and loathed,” says Moffat.“They are Finding the truth was a considerable challenge for just amazingly complex and incredibly awful people Moffat.“The spies were so self-serving that many who placed themselves under the most unthinkable accounts of the same events were contradictory. pressure in pursuit of idealism. I wanted to try to This made it difficult to discern the truth, because understand why they were fired so much by that theirs is a world full of liars.” idealism and what happened when their ideals became tarnished.” Director Tim Fywell concurs:“One of the most striking things I discovered when researching the However, when he started his research for the story is that it was shrouded in secrecy and half- drama, one obstacle stood in his way.The truths.And because of this subterfuge and secrecy, misinformation surrounding their activity made it we had to make a decision on certain issues, virtually impossible to find one definitive account of such as who recruited who to join the KGB what actually took place. Producer Mark Shivas at Cambridge. explains:“Peter read a large number of books and had to decide what he thought was the most likely “What Peter’s script does so well is balance history story that would make the most dramatic sense.” with the human side of these men, and the cost of their to their country and themselves. It A turning-point came when valuable KGB archive explores how they justified their treachery and material became available.“Vasili Mitrokhin was a how it impacted on their personal lives.” KGB archivist who copied thousands and thousands of documents from about 1920 But what really drove Philby, Blunt, Burgess and onwards,” explains Moffat.“He made a copy of each Maclean so readily to embrace Communism? document for himself and in 1991 smuggled the Fascism was on the rise in Europe and while Hitler entire archive out of the to Britain. and Mussolini had both come to power, the Revolution in Russia was young but growing in “Interestingly, there were so many young men at strength.“Very few people understood what an evil Cambridge dabbling in Communism that the KGB man Stalin was, and the centre ground between used this as a smokescreen to recruit those most those two polar extremes seemed to the four spies likely to succeed as Soviet spies,” he continues. to represent a sort of soggy middle that wasn’t prepared to do anything about Hitler. So they came To put the scale of this information into context, to believe that communism was the only way to from 1942 onwards Donald Maclean’s contribution fight Fascism.” on British Intelligence alone came to 45 volumes of the KGB archive.The archive provided Peter Moffat It was during the War between 1939 and 1945 that with much new material that was to shape the the spies made their most devastating impact. story of Cambridge Spies. The archive also yielded a Burgess and Blunt passed secret military number of revelations which Moffat subsequently documents from the Foreign Office on Allied included in the drama; chief among them that strategy. Philby informed the Russians of the Melinda Maclean clearly knew her husband was a breaking of the Nazi secret code “enigma” and Soviet spy.This information came from a KGB identified British agents inside Russia to the operative working in Britain at the time called KGB – many of whom he had taught in the “Ada”. More importantly, the main body of the of espionage.

Cambridge Spies 3 Introduction

Maclean was Stalin’s main source of information establishment that inspired one to kick against it about communications and policy development and, from that point of view, I can understand why between Churchill, Roosevelt and, subsequently, in the Thirties they wanted to rebel against the Truman. Most notably, whilst working on the system.They felt Communism was the only answer Manhattan project, he reported on the to the wave of Fascism sweeping Europe. developments of the US atomic bomb programme, which resulted in the Russians testing their atomic “Making Cambridge Spies reminded me of my time bombs earlier than the Americans had expected. as a student when there was less to be motivated They all played a key role in sustaining the about than in the Thirties,” continues Fywell.“There and continued to act as high-ranking MI5, MI6 and was an apathy among students who seemed more Foreign Office officials while regularly sending concerned with the size of their credit cards than information to the Russians. But it was Philby who any political issue of the day.And now of course we was considered the most active and most impressive are entering another very crucial and scary time in of the four – and it was Philby who sent Burgess to history, when students and people want to make tip off Maclean that MI5 were about to arrest him. their voices heard.There’s a moment in the film when Maclean is being attacked by his wife, “When they were unmasked and when the extent Melinda, for being a Russian spy and how he is of their treachery became clear the shock was destroying their family life. His argument is that seismic, not just within the intelligence community, America has the Bomb and powerful weapons, and but throughout the British and American is prepared to do anything to maintain that power. Establishments.When Blunt was unmasked in 1979, I think that has some resonance in particular to the weight and scale of hatred and loathing poured what’s happening now.” upon him was enormous,” says Moffat. Tim Fywell’s directing credits include Madame “Blunt’s homosexuality and upper-class background Bovary, North Square and The Woman In White, as well was inevitably the main reason for the level of as the forthcoming feature film I Capture The Castle. hatred directed at him,” continues Moffat.“It was Producer Mark Shivas was formerly Head of Drama so disturbing for the establishment that people like and Head of Films at the BBC. His credits include Blunt could be liked, trusted and be the purveyor Talking Heads 2,The Glittering Prizes,The Six Wives Of of so much faith because of the class that he was Henry VIII and the feature film A Private Function. born into.” Cambridge Spies was filmed on location in When Tim Fywell was casting the lead roles he Cambridge, and Spain and is a BBC Two found himself with something of a dilemma.After production in association with Perpetual Motion Stephens, Hollander and West read the scripts, they Pictures Ltd.The executive producers are Laura all wanted to play the part of Guy Burgess and Mackie, Gareth Neame and Sally Woodward-Gentle. Penry-Jones was keen to take on the role of Kim Philby.“Three out of four of the lead actors wanted Further information about Cambridge Spies is to play roles other than the ones they were given,” available on the BBCi history website, explains Fywell. However, Fywell cast Hollander as .co.uk/history Guy Burgess but the other three were more than happy with their roles, as Fywell confirms;“They were all committed to the drama but initially had their own ideas as to who they wanted to be, though they did make it clear that they would be happy with whichever part they were given.”

Fywell, an English graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge in the Seventies says that the university’s privileged way of life inspired a rebelliousness in him.“It was the kind of

Cambridge Spies 4 Cambridge Spies – A Who’s Who

Harold Adrian Russell (“Kim”) Philby Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (1911-1988) (1910-1963)

Kim Philby, so called after the character in Kipling’s Born in Devonport, Devon, Burgess was educated The Jungle Book was born in Ambala, India, the son at Eton, at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and of Harry . He was educated at at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a and Trinity College, Cambridge, Communist. Recruited as a Soviet agent in the where, like Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess and Donald Thirties, he worked with the BBC (1936-39), wrote Maclean, he became a Communist and was war propaganda (1939-41), and again joined the recruited as a Soviet Agent. He was employed by BBC (1941-44) while working for MI5.After World the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and War II he joined the Foreign Office and in 1950 was head of anti-communist counter-espionage became secretary of the British Embassy in (1944-46). In 1949-51 he was posted in Washington Washington DC, where Philby was chief MI6 liaison DC as a chief liaison officer between MI6 and the officer. Recalled in 1951 for “serious misconduct”, CIA, but was asked to resign because of his earlier he and Maclean disappeared, resurfacing in the Communist sympathies. He was a journalist in USSR in 1956. from 1956 until 1963, when he admitted his espionage and defected to the USSR, where he was granted citizenship and became a colonel in the KGB (Soviet Intelligence Service).

Anthony Frederick Blunt Donald Duart Maclean (1907-1983) (1913-1983)

Maclean was born in London, the son of Liberal Born in , , he was educated cabinet minister Sir Donald Maclean. He was at Marlborough School and Trinity College, educated at Gresham’s School and studied at Trinity Cambridge, where he was made a Fellow in 1932. College, Cambridge. Influenced by Communism, he At Cambridge, he became a Communist. He acted joined the diplomatic service in 1935, working in as a “talent-spotter” for Burgess, supplying names Paris,Washington (1944-48) and Cairo (1948-50) of likely recruits to the Russian Communist cause and, from 1944, was a Soviet agent.After a “nervous and, while serving in British Intelligence during breakdown” in 1950, he became head of the World War II, he passed on information to the American Department of the Foreign Office, but by Russian Government. He assisted the of 1951 was a suspected traitor and, in May of that Burgess and Maclean in 1951. In 1964, after the year, after Philby’s warning, disappeared with defection of Philby, Blunt confessed in return for his Burgess to the USSR. He was joined in 1953 by his immunity, and he continued as Surveyor of the wife, Melinda (b.1916) and children, but she left him Queen’s Pictures (1945-72). His full involvement in to marry Philby in 1966. Maclean became a espionage was made public only in 1979 after the respected Soviet citizen, working for the Foreign publication of The Climate Of Treason by Andrew Ministry and at the Institute of World Economic Boyle. Blunt had been Director of Courtauld and International Relations. Institute of Art (1947-1974) and among his publications was Art And Architecture In France 1500- 1700 (1953). His knighthood awarded in 1956 was annulled in 1979. Source: Chambers Biographical Dictionary.

Cambridge Spies 5 The Intelligence organisations

MI5 The Security Service

Military Intelligence section five; the British security and counter-intelligence service.“Our purpose is to protect national security and economic well-being and to support the law enforcement agencies in preventing and detecting serious crime.”

Source: www..gov.uk

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service

Military Intelligence section six; the British secret intelligence and espionage service.The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for obtaining secret information in the interests of national security, the economic well-being of the UK, or in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime.

Source: www.faststream.gov.uk

KGB Russian: Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezapasnosti

The secret police of the former Soviet Union. Known as NKVD from 1934 until 1946 (Russian: Narodny Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del).

Cambridge Spies 6 Cast and crew

Cambridge Spies

Main cast

Kim Philby ...... Toby Stephens Anthony Blunt ...... Samuel West Guy Burgess ...... Tom Hollander Donald Maclean ...... Rupert Penry-Jones Melinda Marling ...... Anna Louise Plowman James Angleton ...... John Light King George VI ...... Anthony Andrews Queen Elizabeth ...... ...... Patrick Kennedy Jack Hewit ...... Stuart Laing Lord Halifax ...... Colonel Winter ...... ...... Production...... credits ...... Writer ...... Peter Moffat Director ...... Tim Fywell Producer ...... Mark Shivas Executive Producers ...... Laura Mackie ...... Gareth Neame ...... Sally Woodward Gentle Co-Producer ...... Alison Gee Director of Photography ...... David Higgs Production Designer ...... Mike Gunn Costume Designer ...... Charlotte Walter Hair & Make-up Designer ...... Lisa Westcott Editor ...... Chris Gill Composer ...... John Lunn Casting Director ...... Karen Lindsay-Stewart

Cambridge Spies 7 Toby Stephens

Toby Stephens is Kim Philby

Bond movie, . “I like the fact that people have separation in their lives.You go away during the day and do something different, and when you come back home you can talk about your day. It’s very difficult to do that when you’re involved in the same project. It becomes too claustrophobic. I ’t think we’d ever want to do a play together, it would drive us crazy. Having said that we both really enjoyed Cambridge Spies because we only had about three scenes together and it was novel for us to work on the same project.”

For Stephens, playing Philby was an extraordinary experience. He knew little about Philby other than he was considered the most successful of the spies and worked for the longest as a .As with all the spies, honest accounts of Philby’s activities as a Soviet agent weren’t readily available.

“I knew bits about all of them but the one I knew the least about was Philby. Ironically, we attended the same prep school,Aldro School, in Surrey,” he says.“Uncovering the truth about Philby proved difficult because of the misinformation that surrounded the lives of these four men. Firstly, after it all happened, MI6 didn’t want to release any information about him because the whole episode was an embarrassment to them. Secondly, his own “He only ever wanted to be a spy.” biography, written when he was in Moscow, was Anthony Blunt vetted by the KGB and proved useless. It was quite difficult trying to find out what was true and what When Toby Stephens accepted the part of Philby, was false and, as a consequence, I don’t think many he had only a vague knowledge of the journey he people know what his real story is. In the end, I just was about to embark on; a journey that would had to play him as the person Peter Moffat had catapault him into the mind of one of the most created, rather than a villain. devious and manipulative spies in modern history and mark his first performance on screen with his “Peter’s script portrays Philby as somebody who wife,Anna-Louise Plowman, who plays Melinda started out with rather naïve ideas about world Maclean.Toby’s parents, Dame and politics – an idealistic Communist at Cambridge,” the late , co-starred in many stage says Stephens.“He did become cynical and bitter, and television productions. He and Anna-Louise but when he was recruited to the KGB he believed however, are not overly keen to do the same. utterly in Communism as an antidote to the Fascism that was sweeping through Europe.” “This is the first time we’ve worked together professionally and it’s not something I would For Stephens, the four men had little in common choose to do a lot, I don’t think either of us want except for their mutual belief in Communism.“I to become an acting couple!’ says Stephens, who think they were very different people, and what’s played the villainous Gustav Graves in the latest remarkable is that they bonded for such a long

Cambridge Spies 8 Toby Stephens

period of time. But what brought them together demonstrates is that being a spy is a strange was their common belief in Communism and the thing to do.You can’t discuss what you’re doing whole subterfuge of what they were doing, the with anybody.” excitement of it and the fact that they had no one else to talk to.” Stephens is philosophical about his experience in Die Another Day.“I saw it as a one-off opportunity. To Stephens, one of the most ironic aspects of the You only get one crack at being a Bond villain,” he relationship between the four men is that the very says.“I’d never made an action movie before or ideal that wove them together was, in the end, to indeed a movie on that scale.There was a lot to keep them apart when they defected to Moscow. learn. It was a completely new ball game for me They all made incredible sacrifices during their and I loved every minute of it. It was hard work but lives, he believes, and, in a bizarre and twisted way, it was also a huge amount of fun.” felt fiercely patriotic to England.

“I think Philby’s greatest sacrifice was having to run away to Moscow. I think that must have been the biggest sacrifice of all, which is ironic in itself: the fact that they were doing everything for Moscow and yet when they actually got there they found an incredibly grim place,” he says.“They believed Stalin’s Russia was this real economic and military power but, when they got there, they saw it for what it really was – a rather shambolic and poverty-ridden place.”

Upon his graduation from Trinity, Philby entered journalism, seeking employment with politically moderate newspapers in order to mask his communist beliefs.When the broke out he travelled undercover to Spain to spy on the Falangists rebelling against the Republic.

In 1939, he was employed by as their German correspondent and found himself in an excellent position to spy on the Nazis for Russia. By this time he had established himself as a right- wing Nazi sympathiser. He was later recruited to join the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and, subsequently, MI6 where he acted as liaison between the CIA and MI6. In 1963, he defected and fled to Russia. Philby died in 1988, and was recognised before his death with the , and after death with a postage stamp bearing his image.

But what is the reason for our fascination with spying and spy thrillers? “There’s something very appealing about being a lone wolf, out there doing daring deeds, just you and a pistol,” explains Stephens.“That’s an image that’s been created by the movies. But I hope that what Cambridge Spies

Cambridge Spies 9 Samuel West

Samuel West is Anthony Blunt

my parents did. Political theatre in the Seventies was much more widespread and believed in than it is now.”

Sam’s current political allegiances are more personal.“I vote for the Socialist Alliance at the moment. I look at their list of priorities and what they stand for – like taxing the rich to pay for education and hospitals, re-nationalising the railways, defending asylum seekers – and I don’t think any of them are outrageous claims and none of them are Labour Party policy.”

To say Sam West researched the background to his character is an understatement. His first source of information was his mother.“Most of what I knew about the Cambridge spies came from and my mum. She was in his play, , and played The Queen in the first-ever production to be made about their lives. My first piece of research was to ask her to send me the script!”

His research was vast.“I was extremely fortunate that Miranda Carter’s biography of Blunt was published just as I was researching the role and that was a huge source of information for me.” He also watched Corin Redgrave’s Blunt Speaking, (“one of the best one-man performances I’ve ever seen”) “She liked all homosexuals. She liked pansies and read voraciously the Communist Manifesto, – queers and such. She said about him,‘Oh well, Conspiracy Of Silence and Marx For Beginners. one can’t blame them all.A lot of people made terrible mistakes – one shouldn’t really go on West believes that Blunt was excited about the ideals persecuting them.’” of .“I think he did have a fatal arrogance but Isiah Berlin on how Queen Elizabeth, I don’t think loyalty to one’s country should stand The Queen Mother described Blunt above loyalty to one’s principles. But what separates after his death Blunt and his comrades from students today is that there is much more focus on the personal nowadays Samuel West, son of actors and and much less focus on the idealistic.” , flirted with Communism when he was younger and was a member of the Socialist Sam has strong views on the war in Iraq.“I think Workers Party.“We had two papers delivered to national boundaries are largely arbitrary.And those the house every day, the Daily Mail, which the of us who are anti-war are not necessarily so housekeeper would read, and Newsline, the daily because we’re pro-Iraq, it’s because we’re pro- journal of the Workers Revolutionary Party run by human, and I think the things that make us human Corin and , which my parents are greater and more powerful than the things that used to read. I grew up with that ethos though I make us British.The nature of that loyalty or the didn’t necessarily believe in it – I got used to it. It nature of that country is largely defined by people was a movement that came naturally out of what who Blunt didn’t respect,” he says.“They were the

Cambridge Spies 10 Samuel West

people who got us into the First World War and they were the people who told Blunt his sexuality was illegal. If somebody tells you the love you feel for someone else is wrong, then naturally it’s hard to respect them.This may be a simplistic argument, but if you’ve spent your time at school trying to define yourself other than the way you play rugby, then old men catapult you into the terrible massacre of the First World War and refuse to fight Fascism when it turns up in spades – I think your notion that the State can never be wrong is going to be quite shaken.”

According to West, it was a source of great regret to Blunt that his mother died before he was unmasked, such was his love of notoriety and attention. She had no idea he was an atheist, a spy and a homosexual.West believes, spying aside, that Blunt’s achievements were notable.

“He was in the palace! How cool was that? He was a complete snob and loved the titles, the knighthood and people knowing who he was, which is arrogant but I don’t think we should sell his achievements in the establishment short.As Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art he turned it from a finishing school into an international centre for and it has remained of world-wide importance. He didn’t believe in private ownership and was responsible for opening up The Queen’s art collection to public viewing.”

West is adamant that his socialist roots will remain with him forever.“While I don’t call myself a revolutionary anymore, I’m not going to turn into a Tory when I’m 50.” When considering the actions of his character and the passion that drove him,West understands and, in some ways, sympathises with Blunt.“Could I do what he did? Yes! To call Blunt evil and a traitor is one-dimensional because then one refuses to understand him.That is the real sin.”

West recently directed Cambridge Spies co-star Rupert Penry-Jones in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Old Vic and is set to direct Cosi-Fan Tutti for ENO in September at the Barbican. He is currently playing Dr Frankenstein in Van Helsing for Universal studios.“I get spectacularly killed by Dracula,” he says,“although I do get the first line of the movie – I get to say ‘It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!’”

Cambridge Spies 11 Tom Hollander

Tom Hollander is Guy Burgess

beginning but in that week I learned that there was a lot of stuff in it that was open to interpretation and that started to confuse me. My intellect starts to fight my creativity. I start thinking,‘Well, that didn’t actually happen,’ so I’m better off keeping myself in a state of ignorance, and trusting that what they’ve written is true.”

Hollander plays Guy Burgess, a flamboyant and unabashed homosexual who, with the help of his friend and on-off lover Anthony Blunt, recruits Donald Maclean and Kim Philby to help them in the Communist cause. Burgess’s recruitment technique was slightly unorthodox, however: he chose the best-looking young men and attempted to seduce them both politically and sexually.

Hollander believes that Burgess was a “very sad man”, whose “life was most vividly lived when he was in his early twenties – the most exciting years of Burgess’s life were during his time at Cambridge.”

Hollander says he is nowhere near as politically active as Burgess was, and says that one of the hardest things about playing Burgess was “committing to somebody who cared so much about politics”. He finds the fact that Philby, Blunt, Burgess and Maclean were willing to sacrifice their “He was immensely energetic, a great talker, reader, lives to the Communist cause incredible.“It would boaster, walker, who swam like an otter and drank be interesting to know whether at the end of their like some Rabelaisian bottle swiper whose thirst lives they would have done it all over again,” was unquenchable.” he muses. Cyril Connolly “I’ve never had a part that had such a range of Tom Hollander is known for his versatility. He has writing. Never, ever,” Tom remarks about Peter played parts as varied as King in Stephen Moffat’s script.“It’s a magnificent part. Burgess gets Poliakoff’s acclaimed BBC drama ,to the most fabulous lines.” He thinks that Burgess Logie in Enigma, via Lieutenant Commander comes across as an independent thinker and a Anthony Meredith in , yet he tries to rebel:“Here was sensitivity and flamboyance all in do as little research as possible; he just quizzes the one role, which was the challenge of it.” In his his co-stars. view, Cambridge Spies and The Lost Prince are the most exciting television projects he has worked on. “For Cambridge Spies I asked Sam West questions for research. He knew everything, so we just asked Hollander believes that Burgess and Maclean were him!” he laughs.“I tend to try and just find the bits very emotional men. He thinks that one of the of myself that correspond to the parts as written in hardest things about being a double agent is the the script.We had a week of rehearsals together fact that they are unable to have “relationships with and I did start to do a bit of research in the anyone based on honesty and trust”. It could be

Cambridge Spies 12 Tom Hollander

this detachment from others that led to the strong bond between the four men, as “they were the only people that knew each other truly. But eventually they cracked up and moved apart from each other.

“Burgess is such fun, he’s winging it always,” observes Hollander.“Who doesn’t want to live like that? Who wouldn’t want to do no work and come top of their exams?” he adds.“Burgess had a go at living like that.”

Cambridge Spies 13 Rupert Penry-Jones

Rupert Penry-Jones is Donald Maclean

and we’re all very close. Laurence is seven years younger than me but we go and see everything that the other is in.”

For Penry-Jones, Maclean’s loyalty towards his father and his belief in Communism tore him in two different directions.

“Maclean is the most sensitive of all the Cambridge spies,” explains Penry-Jones.“He finds leading a double life the most difficult thing to deal with; the fact that his father had been a politician made it especially hard. If his father knew what he’d chosen to do, he’d turn in his grave. He feels that he’s betrayed his father, even though he is dead; it’s a battle he fights his whole life.”

Leading the double life of a spy is difficult enough, says Penry-Jones but having a wife and children made it doubly hard.“Maclean is battling with this sense of betrayal all the way through, he’s tormented. Philby seems to sacrifice the odd woman here and there, Burgess loses his boyfriend, Blunt doesn’t really sacrifice anything. But Maclean battles with his loyalties to his father and has to leave his wife – he is not even supposed to tell “Donald Maclean is a very nice individual indeed them what he does.The others only have and has plenty of brains and keenness. He is nice themselves to think about. looking and ought, we think, to be a success in Paris from the social as well as the work point of view.” “I don’t think you can deny the fact that they stood Foreign Office Personnel Department when up for what they believed in, especially during those recommending Maclean for his posting to Paris times when you were either a Communist or a Nazi. I think especially in that class and during that Rupert Penry-Jones comes from something of an time, at places like and Cambridge, being acting dynasty. Both his parents and his younger part of a club or a gang was very much the in thing brother are all in the business; his mother,Angela and they were all desperate to have their secret Thorne, played the role of Daphne in the much- clubs – I’m sure that influenced them.” loved Eighties comedy, Three Up,Two Down, his father, Peter, recently appeared in the controversial In the first episode, there is a scene that Penry- drama, Shipman, and his brother, Laurence, is Jones will remember for years to come.To mark currently starring in BBC One’s Doctors. the end of their time at Cambridge, Philby, Burgess and Maclean jump from a bridge into the river A close-knit family is as important to him as it is to Cam, naked. his character, Donald Maclean, in Cambridge Spies. “I suppose the family is my common denominator “We were standing there getting ready to do the with Maclean,” says Penry-Jones.“It’s very scene,” he explains.“Toby Stephens,Tom Hollander important to me and would always take priority. and myself were on the bridge and there was a There are four of us, my parents are still together traffic jam of punts queuing up behind us because

Cambridge Spies 14 Rupert Penry-Jones

they couldn’t come through until we had finished the scene. So when we heard ‘action’ we all got our kits off and stood up on the bridge and we could hear about 50 people sitting in the punts starting to cheer!”

Penry-Jones obviously knows how to get noticed. The actor, who once dated , started his acting career at school (“I was about 13 when I decided to be an actor, you have to start young these days!”) and later joined the National Youth Theatre.

Penry-Jones has just finished performing in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the with girlfriend , in a production which was directed by Cambridge Spies co-star Samuel West.

Cambridge Spies 15

Love Again

Love Again

Introduction ...... 18 Cast and crew ...... 21 Cast interviews Hugh Bonneville on playing Larkin ...... 22 Larkin’s women ...... 24 Tara Fitzgerald plays Monica ...... 26 Amanda Root plays Maeve ...... 28 Lorraine Ashbourne plays Betty ...... 30 Philip Larkin biography ...... 32 Synopsis ...... 33 Related programming on BBC Two ...... 34

Love Again 17 Introduction

Love Again

Using privileged access to unpublished letters and Much of Larkin’s best work is about love – its recordings of his work which feature across the power, its capacity for both triumphant joy and soundtrack of the film, Love Again examines the last dreary misery, its enduring legacy – but to Larkin, 30 years in the life of poet Philip Larkin, from his love was always countered by the potentially appointment to Hull University Library to his death neutering effect of commitment, the deadening from cancer in 1985. Larkin is played by Hugh paralysis of the “re-lay-shun-ship”. Love Again is a Bonneville, seen most recently as the villainous film about the aspects of Larkin’s life that informed Grandcourt in BBC One’s Daniel Deronda and as and reflected his own experience of love and about the young John Bayley in Iris. the women who represented that love – and through whom he was inspired to write some of The film concentrates on Larkin’s complex his most powerful and lasting work. relationships with his mother, Eva, and the three very different women who were his long-term Writer Richard Cottan (whose previous credits lovers: Monica Jones (played by Tara Fitzgerald), a include the Bafta-nominated Men Only) says:“This film university lecturer who inspired his first-published is an attempt to capture the essence of Philip Larkin collection of poems, The Less Deceived; Maeve and reclaim him both as a man and as one of the Brennan (played by Amanda Root), a senior library sharpest and most readable poets of the last century. assistant and strict Catholic who was very much Whilst there’s no denying Larkin’s reactionary saloon- the muse behind The Whitsun Weddings; and Betty bar politics, they shouldn’t be allowed to outweigh his Mackereth (played by Lorraine Ashbourne), Larkin’s humour, sensitivity and, above all, genius in shedding stoic secretary during his time at Hull. light on ordinary lives and loves.”

Love Again 18 Introduction

With new material provided by Maeve Brennan and Larkin was really afraid of being sucked into that Jean Hartley (Larkin’s former publisher), and with kind of life. He loved women, he loved sex, he loved support from the Larkin Society at Hull University, romance but, above all else, he knew he was a great Love Again is a fresh and authentic portrait of one writer and he wouldn’t sacrifice that. of the foremost figures of 20th-century poetry. “And he didn’t see why he should have a traditional In particular, previously unheard taped interviews marriage because he thought he could have great between Larkin and his mother have helped to shed relationships with different women and explore light on perhaps the most influential woman in different sides to himself in the process,” says Larkin’s life. Director (who was White.“I don’t think he set out to be cruel to nominated for an Emmy Award for her anybody; he just got himself in this emotional documentary about WH Auden, Tell Me The Truth muddle.That’s why it makes such a fantastic story – About Love) says:“Larkin’s relationship with his how this seemingly dull and unattractive librarian mother was full of both enormous affection and held such a huge allure for women, and had such bitter frustration and was clearly a massive influence complicated relationships with them. on him right up until her death. I think it informed many of his attitudes towards women, marriage and “I talked to Maeve Brennan, who had a long commitment. On the tapes, you can hear her relationship with him,” continues White.“You passive/aggressive manner. She obviously had a huge understand through her what it was that was so hold over him. He saw how unhappy his parents’ attractive about this bald guy with glasses who marriage was and he didn’t want to repeat it.” doesn’t seem to have much charisma at all. She talked about how special and how sensitive he was, This complex relationship, coupled with the and how he made her feel like the most important difficulties he witnessed in his parents’ marriage, person in the world. doubtless explains the bluntness of probably his most famous lines of poetry: “The interesting thing about Maeve is that she is a very strict Catholic and she believes absolutely that They fuck you up, your mum and dad, you should not have sex before marriage. She and They may not mean to, but they do, Larkin had this very heady romantic relationship, They fill you with the faults they had but it was years before it was consummated. Even And add some extra, just for you. when she finally made the ultimate sacrifice for him, he still couldn't commit himself to marrying “It’s not that he didn’t like children, in spite of some her. Maeve felt terribly let down, but Larkin just of the abrasive comments he makes about them in couldn’t do it.” the letters – or that he thought having children was dreadful,” explains White.“Jean Hartley specifically Love Again, produced by Simon Heath, also stars says how good he was with her children. It’s more Dame as Larkin’s mother Eva;Tara that he was afraid of passing on all the mistakes his Fitzgerald as Monica;Amanda Root as Maeve; and parents made, and he didn’t want to fuck up the Lorraine Ashbourne as Betty. Ben Miles and Sarah next generation. He saw having children as a huge Smart play his publishers, George and Jean Hartley. responsibility which he wasn’t prepared to take for two reasons; because it would stop him writing and “BBC Two’s commitment to the arts is because he would be afraid of messing the whole strengthened this year with some landmark thing up. programmes designed to capture the imagination of our audience and inspire lovers of literature “He was also wary of being drawn into the draining everywhere,” says Jane Root, Controller, BBC Two. everyday effort of it all. Kingsley Amis, who had children in his early twenties, was for ever writing “Love Again is the first of three dramas celebrating and asking Larkin if he could lend him a fiver – he the lives of some of Britain’s foremost writers and didn’t have enough money to go to the pub starring some of the biggest names in British film. because it had all gone on nappies and baby food. Later in the year there’s Nick Dear’s two-part

Love Again 19 Introduction

drama about Byron, starring Jonny Lee Miller, and Guy Jenkin’s film about Samuel Pepys, starring .

“The literary season began with the launch of Essential Poems (To Fall In Love With) on St Valentine’s Day and continues throughout the year with The Big Read, which aims to get the whole nation reading the world’s best-loved books. Reading is a hugely personal experience, and I think that this season, with key pieces like Love Again, will help viewers to get inside the minds of the great writers and their works like never before, and turn them into an enjoyable shared experience.“

Love Again is produced by World Productions for BBC Two.The BBC executive producer is Roger Thompson (BBC Arts).

Love Again 20 Cast and crew

Love Again

Cast credits

Main cast Hugh Bonneville ...... Philip Larkin Tara Fitzgerald ...... Monica Jones Dame Eileen Atkins ...... Eva Larkin Amanda Root ...... Maeve Brennan Lorraine Ashbourne ...... Betty Mackereth Sarah Smart ...... Jean Hartley Ben Miles ...... George Hartley

Production credits

Executive Producer ...... Roger Thompson Writer ...... Rick Cottan Producer ...... Simon Heath Director ...... Susanna White Associate Producer ...... Bill Shapter Production Executive (BBC) ...... Paul Luke Director of Photography ...... Mike Eley Production Designer ...... Nic Pallace Casting Director ...... Di Carling Costume Designer ...... Robin Fraser-Paye Hair and Make-up Designer ...... Marilyn MacDonald Script Supervisor ...... Irene Chawko Film Editor ...... Jason Krasucki

Love Again 21 Hugh Bonneville

Hugh Bonneville on playing Larkin

nearly every scene and working almost as hard as the crew.And shooting the whole thing in under three weeks was exhausting,” says Bonneville.“But there was a great atmosphere on set and we had a lot of fun.

“I knew nothing about Larkin’s work before starting the project, apart from vague memories of studying High Windows at school,” he says.“He’s a fascinating character, full of contradictions, who would probably be mystified that his life has become the focus of so much attention. But I hope he would approve of the film: as with Iris, it’s a celebration of a major talent and explores the complex relationships that inspired that talent.

“I’ve become a fan of Larkin’s prose, too. His essays and letters are so witty and wicked. It’s easy to see why ’s show, Pretending To Be Me, which is based on this material, has captured the public’s imagination. I didn’t want to see the show when it was in Leeds because I thought it would freak me out so close to filming. But curiosity got the better of me and I ended up seeing it twice! Apart from donning Larkin-esque spectacles, Sir Tom kept his hair on, so to speak, so I soon “Larkin wasn’t intentionally a breaker of realised there was no danger of our women’s hearts.” characterisations overlapping. I think on film, which Hugh Bonneville discovers the man behind the mask. is perceived to be more ‘realistic’ than theatre – even though in many ways it is less so – you have to attempt a physical impression when portraying Shaving off his luxuriant locks and adopting a slight someone who actually lived.At least that’s how it stutter to characterise one of the greatest poets seems to me: the baldness, the speech impediment this country has ever produced was nothing new that affected him into his thirties, the physical for actor Hugh Bonneville, who’d previously braved awkwardness – all characteristics which informed the razor to play the equally bald and haltingly his view of himself and of the world around him. spoken young John Bayley in Iris.The film about the life of writer Iris Murdoch went on to win several “He felt unattractive, nothing to write home about, awards. Bonneville's performance was impressive yet he was a keen photographer who took lots of – he received the Best Young Actor Prize at the pictures of himself.When I asked Jean Hartley, Berlin Film Festival in 2002. Larkin’s publisher, why a man who felt so ungainly would take so many self portraits, she replied, The star of , Madame Bovary and The ‘Because he always thought the next one would Cazalet Chronicles, Bonneville’s most recent TV make him look good’. I find that very entertaining; appearance, as the deliciously wicked Henleigh he had a sort of melancholic vanity. Grandcourt in the BBC One adaptation of Daniel Deronda, was exceptional. Love Again is his first “Talking to Jean brought Larkin to life for me,” he leading role.“It’s a new experience for me, being in says.“She was keen to emphasise his wit, warmth

Love Again 22 Hugh Bonneville

and courtesy, at least when in of her think that’s one of the reasons he turned down the family, contradicting the idea that Larkin was rude, offer to become Poet Laureate on the death, in aloof, misogynistic and a child-hater!” 1984, of Sir . He prided himself on each word being the right word in a poem, and Although Bonneville does not share Larkin’s feeling that capability ebbing away must have been controversial beliefs, he takes a rational view of utterly dispiriting.Again, it reminds me of Iris Larkin’s much-vaunted bigotry:“It’s so easy for us Murdoch: a writer obsessed with the precise use to condemn anyone who’s gone into print with of language, being robbed of that talent by illness views we consider unacceptable without putting and age. them in the context of the era in which they were expressed.We might well say that Larkin was a glib “Larkin always had a strong foreboding that he racist, but he was a product of his own time. He would die at 63, and he did. I’m a great believer in probably subscribed to Enoch Powell’s views – I the idea that you shape your own destiny. If you don’t know – but he wouldn’t have been the only believe you're going to suffer under this cold or one of his generation to do so. He thought that bug, then you will. Thatcher was the best thing since sliced bread and that jazz died with the arrival of Charlie Parker. “In the early Eighties, he wrote to Kingsley Amis Agree or disagree, I don’t think it makes him a along the lines of,‘Do you realise that neither of us lesser poet. is likely to live beyond this decade?’ For Larkin, the glass was always half empty – that Eeyore-like take “Those who were close to him paint a picture of a on life which became his trademark.Alongside his decent and often considerate man. But the fact blinding shafts of perception about being human, it’s remains he compartmentalised his life with different his lugubrious negative wit which I find so women, never thinking what the fallout would be captivating and, perversely, so enchanting.What if should those separate worlds collide, as they did. he had written to Amis saying,‘Wouldn't it be He certainly didn’t set out to be a Lothario or a wonderful if we could outlive the Eighties?’ Well, breaker of women’s hearts. I think he loved each of that just wouldn’t be Philip Larkin.” them in his own way but he got himself into complicated, almost farcical situations and promptly stuck his head in the sand – couldn’t face wedlock, couldn’t imagine starting a family,” says the married father-of-one.

“It's all there in his writing: the suspicion of relationships, the determination not to repeat the charmless aridity of his parents’ marriage. Even though he felt incredibly close to Maeve Brennan and Monica Jones, he couldn’t commit entirely, not because the grass was always greener, but because he felt – in part, at least – that domesticity would stifle his art.

“He became very depressed in the last 10 years of his life. His inspiration had left him, his hearing was going and, as a result, he avoided public situations, which only added to this image of him being curmudgeonly and anti-social.

“In those last years, when he and Monica lived together, there’s a real sense of inertia about him, he didn’t write anything of which he was proud. I

Love Again 23 Larkin’s Women

Monica Jones Maeve Brennan (Tara Fitzgerald) (Amanda Root)

• Modern, flamboyant, bohemian lecturer. • Senior assistant to Larkin when he was Head Librarian at Hull University in 1955. Soon after, • Monica was Larkin’s intellectual equal. their relationship began.

• Strong sexual chemistry between them.Their • A staunch Catholic, Maeve was against relationship lasted 35 years from 1950 until his pre-marital sex. death in 1985. • She brought out the softer, romantic side • The Less Deceived, his acclaimed book of poetry, to Larkin and this is reflected in some of his was inspired by her. later work.

• Monica was aware of his relationship with • It is possible he would have chosen her Maeve Brennan. if forced to make a choice between the women in his life. • She was the only one who lived with him, an arrangement which happened towards the end of • Maeve had no idea about his other relationships. his life.

• Monica Jones died in 2001 at the age of 78.

Love Again 24 Larkin’s Women

Betty Mackereth (Lorraine Ashbourne)

• Larkin’s secretary when he was Head Librarian at Hull University.

• She knew all his secrets and tried to protect him.

• Betty and Larkin became intimately involved much later in his life.

All three women were at Larkin’s bedside just before his death from cancer in 1985.

Love Again 25 Tara Fitzgerald

Tara Fitzgerald plays Monica Jones

anything else. If only she had kept it that way it would not have been such a tragedy for her.”

Larkin never married any of the three women but kept them all in his life in some way until his death, and Monica was aware of his other relationships for much of the time. Happily, Fitzgerald thinks it unlikely that she’d ever find herself in a similar situation:“I’d like to think that I would be strong enough to leave, but it’s difficult for me to judge. She was obviously very deeply in love with him.”

Larkin’s relationship with his stoic secretary, Betty, may not have posed much of a threat to Monica, but she had a real shock when she met Maeve, a young Catholic woman who became Larkin’s senior assistant at Hull University. Maeve brought out a softer, romantic side to Larkin and Fitzgerald believes that if forced to make a choice between the three, Larkin would have walked down the aisle with Maeve.

“No man is an island and these three women thought they could change Larkin. I think, out of all of his women, he might have married Maeve, but I don’t think he would’ve been faithful because I don’t believe that was his way. He was honest with While the love of one great woman is high on the Monica about who he was, whereas I think Maeve wish list for many men, it clearly wasn’t enough for had no idea, really. She was protected from his poet Philip Larkin who, until his death in 1985 other side. He could be comfortable and relax with enjoyed the companionship and love of three very Monica – let it all hang out,” laughs Fitzgerald.“I different women: Monica, Maeve and Betty. think it must have been a terrible shock for Monica – this is my take on it – when she realised that he Monica, played by Tara Fitzgerald in Love Again, met had fallen for Maeve, who was so pure and Larkin at the University College of Leicester in religious, almost the antithesis of what he was 1947, where he had taken up a post in the library. about in some ways.” She was the most constant and, arguably, the love of his life, but his relationships with the other Despite Larkin’s love for the other women, there’s women began to take their toll on her state of no denying that he had very strong feelings for mind.“She gave up a hell of a lot for him,” says Monica and she was one of his early inspirations. Fitzgerald, best known for her roles in The Woman His first published work, The Less Deceived, was In White and The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall:“I think if dedicated to her and received critical acclaim, you’re madly in love with somebody, to begin with, putting him on the map as one of the country’s you’ll do anything for them, you’ll play the role you finest poets. want them to see you in. Of the three women who fell for Larkin, Monica is “Monica and Larkin were the greatest mates and the only one who has since passed away, which had great sex. I think they were more mates than made researching the role an interesting

Love Again 26 Tara Fitzgerald

experience for Fitzgerald.“I couldn’t go to Monica for inspiration or understanding; on the other hand, I didn’t feel beholden to a living person, which is a huge responsibility. Hugh Bonneville and I talked about it and he said he felt the same way about Larkin.

“There were a lot of things said about Monica, and I thought they were rather interesting because she was obviously quite a flamboyant, strong personality. But no one seemed to know her in an intimate way apart from Larkin.”

Fitzgerald admits that playing the bohemian lecturer, who died aged 78 in 2001, was “unlike anything I’d done before”.

She says:“To get a real sense of Larkin’s relationship with Monica I went up to Hull University and to the Larkin Society. I read The Less Deceived, the book he dedicated to her, to get a sense of their relationship.There is a definite disconnectedness and suffering in The Less Deceived compared to Larkin’s later work, which was about the discovery of something. I also read an unfinished story about Monica by Larkin and, in it, she comes across as this witty, intelligent woman.”

Fitzgerald believes that it’s easy to see why Monica fell for Larkin:“Monica moved me and I could see why she would’ve fallen in love with him. I think she loved him because he was obviously a genius; they had a very strong sexual chemistry and were intellectual equals.They also had common pursuits like walking, jazz and crosswords; they just had a fantastic time together. I think she found him intellectually exhilarating. I don’t know if many men of that time could have handled such a modern woman as Monica Jones.”

Love Again 27 Amanda Root

Amanda Root plays Maeve Brennan

“When I first met Maeve, within 20 minutes I could see why Philip Larkin had fallen in love with her,” says Amanda.“She has vivacity and a real energy and is genuine and honest. I immediately warmed to her.There I was, marching around Hull University with her, and suddenly I had to stop and think that this woman is in her seventies and she still has incredible energy.

“She had a great positive outlook about everything that happened and would have had an incredible amount to get through after Larkin’s death, discovering about Betty and so on.”

Maeve Brennan was senior assistant to Larkin when he was Head Librarian at Hull, but she soon became the object of his desire when he ran scared of Monica’s constant demands for commitment. While Monica was feisty, in control and on an intellectual level with Larkin, Maeve was a young, innocent Catholic woman who brought out a more romantic side to the poet. However, Larkin ran straight from the frying pan into the fire, as Maeve didn’t believe in sex before marriage and longed for commitment from the poet.

“Her Catholic faith is so important to her, she While Tara Fitzgerald had to rely on painstaking didn’t undertake pre-marital sex lightly,” says Root. research and written word to prepare for playing “She writes in her book that it was done with Monica, Philip Larkin’s love of nearly 30 years, ‘grave consequences’. I think it really tested her and Amanda Root had the privilege of meeting Maeve really got to her because of her faith.The idea that Brennan, the woman whom she plays in Love they were hopping in and out of bed just wasn’t the Again, and found her to be a wonderful and case at all. It would have happened on very rare warm-hearted person. occasions because of her beliefs – it was a weight upon her conscience every time. “I’ve never played anybody who’s still alive,” laughs Amanda, whose television roles include Persuasion, “That sort of thing would be hard to convey to a Waking The Dead, The Forsyte Saga and Anna modern audience but what the audience will see Karenina. “I met Maeve and she was very generous and understand is this woman who is really holding and sympathetic towards me, and very open about on to her beliefs – she’s a loving, a giving and her relationship with Larkin. She was wonderful and sensible woman who is young when she first meets I wanted to do her justice in the film. I felt very Larkin. She’s desperately trying to hang on to what passionate about trying to get her across in the she believes in,” says Root. right way – her beliefs and the truth about her relationship.” Root remained in close contact with Maeve throughout filming, exchanging cards and letters.“I Amanda and Maeve met at Hull University, where was keen to let Maeve know how the bedroom Maeve worked with Larkin back in the Fifties. scene went because I knew she was very

Love Again 28 Amanda Root

concerned that it was done in the right way. It was important that it had dignity and was discreet, and Maeve said that’s the way it would have been – it would have been a very different relationship than we imagine today.”

One thing that did spice up the bedroom scenes for Root was playing opposite her old friend, Hugh Bonneville.“I played Hugh’s mother-in-law in Daniel Deronda and it’s far nicer playing his lover!” laughs Root.“I’ve known Hugh for a long, long time and it’s always a joy. I hadn’t seen him for a while before doing Daniel Deronda and I was struck by how down to earth he is, given the success he’s had.

“The thing that most struck me about Larkin during my research is that he was a man of great contradiction. I felt sympathetic towards him in many ways because he was struggling with lots of issues within himself. I’m not condoning the way he behaved, but I understand why he felt he couldn’t commit. He really did muck these women about and appeared to have his cake and eat it, but I don’t think he intended to hurt people.”

Love Again 29 Lorraine Ashbourne

Lorraine Ashbourne plays Betty Mackereth

Like Maeve Brennan, Betty is still alive today but she was less willing to discuss her relationship with Larkin, which is portrayed in Love Again.

“She wanted complete privacy,” says Ashbourne.“I would have loved to have met her as Amanda [Root] was able to do with her character, Maeve. I made a judgement about her from the letters I read and from speaking to the film’s writer, Rick Cottan.”

Ashbourne’s love of Larkin’s work may also have helped her prepare for the role and, she admits, it “was a great excuse to get to know Larkin even more. My favourite poem by Larkin is High Windows”.

While the drama’s costume department did their best to make Ashbourne look the part, she believes that the way she carried herself as Betty was more important.“She had a no-nonsense, rather practical approach, I believe, and that was more important to get across than to completely mimic what she looked like.

“She was a very strong lady with quite a lot of Betty was Larkin’s rock, the woman who knew all status within the library. She knew everything that his secrets and the one who tried to prevent both was going on and, in many respects, was always one Monica and Maeve knowing the full truth about his step ahead of everybody else.” relationships.As his secretary, Betty was the one who put order into Larkin’s chaotic life and, in In Love Again, Larkin’s relationships with all three some ways, it was perhaps inevitable that the two women are portrayed with dignity and the would become intimately involved. production team has taken great care to show the bedroom scenes as sensitively and true to life Lorraine Ashbourne says:“Betty’s the woman who as possible. organised Larkin’s life with military precision. He was dependent on her as he would be dependent “Betty and Larkin were there for each other at a on a wife. She met his needs on a practical level time when they both wanted a bit of affection and and was terribly loyal to him. some physical comfort,” says Ashbourne.

“She’s got a lot of power over him because she “There’s a marital relationship there without any knows him terribly well. She files his porn real commitment because Larkin found it magazines without judging him and, whereas Maeve impossible to commit to anyone.” and Monica have a lot to lose with him emotionally, she hasn’t, and that’s what I found very interesting While bedroom scenes can often be difficult for an about the part.” actor, Lorraine took it all in her stride:“The sex

Love Again 30 Lorraine Ashbourne

scene between Hugh [Bonneville] and I was absolutely fine – we were clocking off the number of actors we’ve both had on set,” she laughs.“I don’t get het up about things like that, really.We had a great crew around us and the scene wasn’t sexy; they never are.

Love Again 31 Biography

Philip Larkin (1922-85)

Philip Arthur Larkin was born on 9 August 1922, in poem, was published in The Times Literary Coventry. He was the second child, and only son, of Supplement in December 1977. Sydney and Eva Larkin. Larkin’s sister, some 10 years his senior, was called Catherine, but known as Larkin received many awards in recognition of his Kitty. He attended the City’s King Henry VIII School writing, especially in his later years. In 1975, he was between 1930 and 1940. He later went on to St awarded the CBE, and, in 1976, he was given the John’s College, Oxford, were he completed his German Shakespeare-Pries. He chaired the Booker degree, graduating in 1943 with a First Class Prize Panel in 1977, was made Companion of Honours in English. His closest friends at Oxford Literature in 1978, and served on the Literature were Kingsley Amis and Bruce Montgomery. Panel of the Arts between 1980 and 1982. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Library The first of his poems to be published in a national Association in 1980. In 1982, the University of Hull weekly was Ultimatum, which appeared in the Listener made him a Professor. In 1984, he received an on 28 November 1940. In June 1943, three of his honorary D Litt from Oxford University, and was poems were published in Oxford Poetry (1942-43): elected to the Board of the . In A Stone Church Damaged By A Bomb, Mythological December of 1984 he was offered the chance to Introduction and I Dreamed Of An Out-thrust Arm succeed Sir John Betjeman as Poet Laureate, but Of Land. declined.

In November 1943, Larkin was appointed Librarian In mid-1985, Larkin was admitted to hospital with at Wellington, Shropshire. Here, he studied to an illness in his throat. It was during this time that qualify as a professional librarian, but continued to he was awarded the much-prized Order of the write and publish. Following later appointments at Companion of Honour. He was unable, because of libraries in Leicester and Belfast, Larkin took up the ill health, to attend the investiture, which was due position of librarian at the University of Hull on 21 to take place at Buckingham Palace on 25 March 1955, and it was in October of that year that November. He received the official notification The Less Deceived was published. It was this courtesy of the Royal Mail. collection that would be the foundation of his reputation as one of the foremost figures in Philip Larkin died of cancer at 1.24am on Monday 20th-century poetry. 2 December 1985. He was 63 years old.

It wasn’t until 1964 that his next collection, The By James L Orwin Whitsun Weddings, was published.Again, the collection was well received and widely acclaimed and, the following year, Larkin was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

It was during the years 1961-71 that Larkin contributed monthly reviews of jazz recordings for , and these reviews were brought together and published in 1970 under the title All What Jazz:A Record Diary 1961-68. He also edited the Oxford Book Of Twentieth Century English Verse, which was published in 1973.

His last collection, High Windows, was published in 1974, and confirmed him as one of the finest poets in English literary history. Aubade, his last great

Love Again 32 Synopsis

Brief Synopsis

Love Again begins in 1955, with Larkin taking up his post of Head Librarian at the University of Hull. His love affair with Monica Jones is already five years old and, with the publication of The Less Deceived, he is about to be catapulted into the public eye. But while Monica enjoyed the reflected glory of their relationship, Larkin was terrified of the extra commitment she wanted. In response, he began a secret affair with one of his library staff, Maeve Brennan.While this relationship drew from Larkin some of his most romantic insights, it floundered on Maeve’s Catholic faith: she didn’t believe in sex before marriage – and marriage was something Larkin could never face.

Over the next 15 years, Larkin juggled Maeve and Monica, all the time playing faithful son to Eva while writing some of his greatest poems. But with Eva’s death and the end of his relationship with Maeve, the poems dried up. Not even a brief affair with his loyal secretary could provide some solace – or inspiration. Having sacrificed his life for his writing, Larkin was left with nothing. Until, haunted by impending death and his failed talent, Larkin, in his later years, finally returned to his soul mate, Monica.Their time together was short, but provided a glimpse of what might have been, had he not died from cancer in 1985.

Love Again 33 Related programming

Related programming on BBC Two

As part of the BBC’s strengthened commitment to the arts in 2003, BBC Two features three dramas – Byron, Samuel Pepys and Love Again – as well as two documentaries about and Byron.

Byron George Orwell – A Life In (working title) Jonny Lee Miller stars as the charismatic, Pictures hedonistic and wildly rebellious Lord Byron in a George Orwell is the author of one of the most major two-part drama by Nick Dear about the famous books of the 20th century. 1984 has poet’s life and loves. Natasha Little is his half-sister, spawned such iconic phrases as “Big Brother” and Augusta, with whom he had an incestuous affair; “Room 101”, and lives on in the popular Camilla Power is Lady Caroline Lamb; Julie Cox is imagination. On the centenary of his birth, this his wife,Annabella; and Vanessa Redgrave is Lady dramatised biography brings Orwell to life. Melbourne, Byron’s confidante. In his vast body of essays, letters and journalism, To complement Byron, BBC Two will also screen a Orwell wrote about everything, from the documentary on Lord Byron. hilariously trivial How To Make The Perfect Cup Of Tea to the searingly moving How The Poor Die. And he was witness to many of the great events of the first half of the 20th century, working as a policeman in Burma, a down-and-out in Paris, a freedom fighter in the Spanish Civil War, and an official war correspondent in defeated Germany.

Samuel Pepys With Chris Langham as George Orwell, the programme vividly recreates the experiences of Steve Coogan is set to play Samuel Pepys, naval the celebrated author.Written essays become strategist and serial adulterer, in a new film by Guy authored documentary films shot in the of Jenkin in association with BabyCow. the day; and newsreel is manipulated to reveal glimpses of Orwell in the trenches of the Spanish In the first major television portrayal of Pepys’s Civil War. Every single word that Orwell utters is life, Guy Jenkin’s elegant and witty script charts the exactly as he wrote it. George Orwell – A Life In rise to power of the most charismatic and Pictures explores Orwell’s life in his own words. contradictory of civil servants. Coogan is attached but not contracted to play the title role.

Love Again 34

The Key

The Key

Introduction ...... 37 Cast and crew ...... 39 Synopses ...... 40 Cast interviews: Dawn Steele plays Mary Corrigan ...... 41 plays Maggie ...... 42 Frances Grey plays Jessie ...... 43 Ann Louise Ross plays Helen ...... 44 June Watson plays the older Mary Corrigan ...... 45 Interview with writer Donna Franceschild ...... 46

The Key 36 Introduction

The Key A major new drama from BBC

The Key is a sweeping and ambitious three-part A Little Bird production in association with Making drama which re-unites the Bafta Award-winning Waves, The Key also features Stephen McCole, team of writer Donna Franceschild and director Kevin McKidd, , Ewan Stewart and Ken David Blair, and stars Dawn Steele, Ronni Ancona, Stott.The drama draws upon many of the key Frances Grey,Ann Louise Ross and June Watson. moments of British political history during the 20th The drama recounts the story of the last century century,ranging from Bloody Friday in 1919,when through the eyes of one family, encompassing three thousands of workers gathered in to generations of a passionate Clydeside clan, headed demand a 40-hour week and were set upon by by Mary Corrigan (Dawn Steele and later June mounted police, to the brutal chaos of the miners’ Watson). strike demonstration at Orgreave in 1984.

Barbara McKissack, BBC Scotland’s Head of Drama McKissack continues:“Mary’s life mirrors the and executive producer on The Key says:“Donna century.Without making The Key sound like an Franceschild has written an immensely rich and exclusively women’s piece, which it definitely isn’t, ambitious drama which brings to life both the there are very strong female characters at the core compelling struggle of the Scottish labour of the drama.Viewed through the prism of Mary movement and an epic family tale.At its heart and her family, The Key reflects on the human The Key is a very human story. It’s about three impact of cataclysmic social and political changes.” generations of a family struggling to make the best of their lives in very difficult circumstances.That’s Franceschild, who made her name with such something we can all relate to.” acclaimed work as Donovan Quick, Eureka Street,

The Key 37 Introduction

A Mug’s Game and Takin’ Over The Asylum, outlines “It is passionate and thought-provoking, and her inspiration for the series.“I was fascinated by exemplifies single-voice drama at its very best,” the idea that on every life that has ever been lived concludes McKissack.“From Takin' Over The Asylum, is written the history of their time and their through A Mug's Game and Donovan Quick, the BBC generation’s struggle.We tend to forget that so has always been a proud champion of Donna’s much we now take for granted – votes for women, unique vision.” the abolition of child labour, health and safety legislation at work – was hard fought for and won.” The Key, a BBC Scotland production for BBC Two, from the Bafta Award-winning team of writer Producer Sue Austen, who also worked with both Donna Franceschild and David Blair, presents a Blair and Franceschild on the film Donovan Quick, century’s history from the perspective of those says:“This is a wonderfully crafted story which, who have experienced it at the sharp end. through the lives of an ordinary family, charts the rise of the trade union movement in the early part of the 20th century, the destruction of the unions in the Eighties and the birth of New Labour in the Nineties.”

“The Key happens to be set on Clydeside,” Austen adds,“but it could just as easily have been set in Liverpool, or any industrial city.The same stories happened to millions of people. In the end, it’s a wonderfully uplifting human saga with resonance for every family.”

“Although I lead a very different life from my mother and grandmother, there are lots of strands connecting us,” continues Franceschild.“I’m angry that current events are always interpreted as if we have no history.The past explains how we got here. We have to understand it in order to know where we’re going.”

Director David Blair says:“It’s very heartening that we can take on these huge, ambitious projects. Donna has effortlessly created a genuinely complex structure in which she manages to interweave five different periods. She shows the parallels and echoes that resonate throughout the century.

“She has a great understanding of humanity. I’ve worked with Donna since 1992, so our relationship is almost telepathic now. It’s been such a fruitful partnership because she’s always writing about subjects I’m really interested in.You know there’ll always be soul in the piece.

“I gave every period its own texture. So I filmed 1915 to 1919 in black and white, 1945 in muted colours and the Seventies with a warmer, fuller look. Every scene takes the viewer into a specific period.”

The Key 38 Cast and crew

The Key

Main cast

Mary ...... Dawn Steele Older Mary ...... June Watson Duncan ...... Kevin McKidd Danny ...... Stephen McCole Maggie ...... Ronni Ancona Helen ...... Ann Louise Ross Jessie ...... Frances Grey Joe ...... Ewan Stewart Billy ...... Ken Stott Spencer ...... John Sessions Katherine ...... Katy Murphy ...... Production...... credits ...... Writer ...... Donna Franceschild Producer ...... Sue Austen Director ...... David Blair Costume Designer ...... James Keast Make-Up Designer ...... Jane Walker Film Editor ...... Frances Parker Director of Photography ...... Nigel Willoughby Production Designer ...... Andy Harris Music Composed by ...... Executive Producers ...... Jonathan Cavendish (Little Bird) ...... Donna Franceschild (Making Waves) ...... Pippa Harris (BBC) ...... Barbara McKissack (BBC Scotland)

The Key is a Little Bird production in association with Making Waves Film & Television Limited for BBC Scotland

The Key 39 Synopses

Episode One In 1997 – 18 years after Jessie left him at the altar – Danny confronts Jessie’s mother, Helen, now a union representative, with evidence that Sogard Mary is drawn passionately into the politics of her Healthcare have broken vital agreements with the time through her love for Duncan – a doomed love union over the new old people’s home. He that becomes somehow invested in the mysterious persuades her it’s time for the union to fight back. key Mary wears around her neck. A popular campaign is launched in the Scottish Six decades later, Mary’s granddaughter, Jessie, is a press opposing Sogard’s plans and the PFI bullied and asthmatic teenager.Written off by her agreement, which Maggie pushed through.The teachers and living in the shadow of her high- battle lines in the family have been drawn. achieving sister, Maggie, she retreats into the stories she writes. Episode Three By 1997 Jessie is a single mother working at a call centre for Sogard Healthcare, a company at the centre of a bitter dispute in the community. Under Having been mercifully delivered from her loveless a Private Finance Initiative agreement with the local and violent marriage at the end of the Second council, Sogard took control of Riverview Old World War, Mary watches as Helen, her daughter, People’s Home – where Mary now lives. Jessie’s and Joe Rossi, a communist shop steward from the sister Maggie was deputy leader of the council that shipyards, settle into a life of post-war domestic pushed the initiative through. Her mother, Helen, contentment, producing two grandchildren: Maggie was regional officer of the union that opposed it. and Jessie. But their lives are irrevocably altered in 1968 when Joe is seriously injured in a shipyard “We fought the good fight,” Helen concedes.“We accident and confined to a wheelchair. lost.” But Danny, a care worker at Riverview, and the object of Jessie’s childhood affections, has To make ends meet, the family move into Mary’s refused to leave it at that. house and Mary begins the task of raising the next generation. By 1984, Maggie has become an employment lawyer and, though she has married Episode Two “outside” as far as her father is concerned (her husband’s family are Tories),she makes a good life Mary struggles through the Depression and War years. for herself. Her favourite granddaughter, Jessie, comes of age in 1979, the year comes to power. Jessie has not been so lucky. Five years after she left Danny at the altar, Jessie returns home, bruised It is 1933 when Mary loses a strike vote opposing and pregnant, and introduces the family to her wage cuts at Leckie’s Mill and is sacked. Supporting four-year-old son, Andy. She is received with tears her mother and sister in a one-room tenement flat, of joy. she realises that her only option is to marry and she takes Billy, a violent middle-aged widower, for By 1997, Jessie’s life is still a disaster and, having better or for worse. For the next 12 years, it is finally secured an interview, she hopes only for mainly worse. promotion from the call centre floor at Sogard Healthcare to a secretarial position at head office. In 1979, Jessie’s wedding to Danny, her childhood sweetheart, promises to be a much happier event. In this final episode the stories of all three However, a drunken writer, a bleeding critic, a taxi generations converge.As the crisis over the old and a stolen kiss conspire to produce a disastrous people’s home comes tragically to a head, it tests to chain of events that eventually leaves Danny the limit the loyalties of everyone in the family, and stranded at the altar, Jessie on a train to London in forces the timid Jessie to take the most courageous her wedding dress, and her unfinished novel in the decision of her life – in which she finally discovers rubbish bin. the meaning of her grandmother’s key.

The Key 40 Dawn Steele

Dawn Steele plays Mary Corrigan

Maggie, standing for election to Parliament. “It’s great to see that her passion is carried on through the generations. Even in her eighties, she is out there demonstrating on behalf of the miners at Orgreave. She is not scared, she gets right in amongst them during the riots.”

Mary shows great fortitude during the course of the drama, a fact that Steele deeply admires.According to the actress,“Terrible things happen to Mary. She only smiles twice in the whole piece. She has to deal with big riots and being beaten up by a tyrannical husband [played by Ken Stott].And throughout all these difficulties, she has no support. She just has to get her head down and get on with it.”

The actress found echoes of that steeliness within her own family.“My nana is like that. She’s still going strong in her old age – she’s always off to dancing classes and things like that.There’s a real strength to these women.”

Just occasionally, however, Steele found it hard to live up to Mary’s example.“I cry quite easily, so it was difficult in many of these scenes not to let myself go,” she admits.“But director David Blair kept saying to me,‘Don’t cry, be strong.’ Mary has got to have that inner strength or she wouldn’t Dawn Steele is one of Britain’s leading young survive till the age of 99. However, when I first read actresses, with starring roles in Monarch Of The Glen, it, I cried three times!” in which she married the laird, and Tinsel Town, as sassy clubber Theresa, to her credit. In The Key, Dawn is the young Mary Corrigan, the factory worker who becomes politicised during the First World War through contact with her fiancé, Duncan (Kevin McKidd).

Steele was attracted to playing Mary (who is played as an older woman by June Watson) as it is such a complete contrast to her previous roles.“It’s fantastic that in this I’m not wearing little skirts and make-up, although by the end of the shoot I was desperate to get the make-up on again!” she laughs.

The sheer power of the role was also a lure for Steele.“Mary’s a very strong character,” the actress declares.“She’s very political. She kick-starts the family’s interest in politics, it’s amazing how it all stems from her, right down to her granddaughter,

The Key 41 Ronni Ancona

Ronni Ancona plays Maggie, Mary Corrigan’s high-achieving granddaughter

a comedy girl – who does she think she is?’ Obviously, this is not the sort of project I’m usually associated with, but I don’t approach comedy or drama any differently.As soon as you think,‘Oh I’m doing comedy now,’ you’re on to a loser.Whatever you’re doing, you have to make it live and breathe.”

The actress felt an instant bond with her character. “Maggie is full of contradictions, but that makes her very human. She’s a bright girl who is very principled. She’s caring, confident, feisty and intelligent and has a very dry wit. But there’s no denying that she’s also got a big ego.”

The actress thinks that Maggie undertakes a very convincing psychological journey during the course of the drama.“She grew up with a strongly socialist background, but as she develops you can see her being pulled away from those roots.As she moves away, inevitable tensions arise between her and her family.

“It all leads to a big showdown with her mother. Maggie says that ‘without power, you can’t change anything’. But we can see that’s a slippery slope. Whether she’s Spice, or Judy Where does the compromise end? Maggie feels it Finnegan, comedy actress Ronni Ancona has made a will stop once she gets elected as an MP,but she’s Big Impression on audiences with her award-winning merely being naïve.” impersonations. In The Key, she makes her BBC drama debut as Maggie, the ambitious older The character’s idealism is gradually eroded as the granddaughter of Mary Corrigan.As Maggie ascends drama unfolds.“She has a great conscience and has higher and higher up the political ladder, she finds worked tirelessly as an employment lawyer,” herself increasingly having to compromise the continues Ancona.“Her decline is an insidious beliefs her family inculcated in her. process – it’s all too easy to be dragged into this world of spin. She knows in her heart of hearts It is evident from Ronni’s performance in The Key that it’s not right, but the New Labour spin-doctors that she is equally at home in straight drama as she convince her it’s OK. It’s very tempting for Maggie, is in comedy.“Right from the start, director David but it slowly dawns on her that she is betraying Blair said I was not gimmicky casting,” she says.“He everything her family stands for. doesn’t give a damn about what I’ve done in the past, he’s only interested in whether I’m right for “Whether you’re playing Posh Spice or Maggie,” this part or not. Nor was it a conscious decision she continues,“The key thing is to create on my part to make a change. I didn’t say,‘Oh, I something believable.You have to find the reality want to do drama now.’ I was just really eager to and truly inhabit the character. If viewers can’t do such an excellent script.” identify with what you’re doing, it’s never going to work.” All the same,Ancona is expecting some to carp about her choosing to appear in a straight drama. The actress will next be seen as a South London “I’m apprehensive that certain people will say,‘She’s “masseuse” in the forthcoming movie,The Calcium Kid.

The Key 42 Frances Grey

Frances Grey plays Jessie, Mary Corrigan’s favourite granddaughter

spacemen, but how often does that actually happen? We all feel unfulfilled in some way. Jessie’s been victimised and lacks confidence. She would have liked to become a writer, but life has got in the way.

“Her spirit has to be rediscovered and she needs the love of a good man to achieve that.The relationship between Jessie and Danny reflects her grandmother’s romance with Duncan.There is an intriguing ‘will they, won’t they?’ quality about it. I’m drawn to romances that aren’t obvious. I find them fascinating.”

Frances Grey, who has had high-profile parts in such varied work as Vanity Fair, Messiah and Murder In Mind, felt a real affinity with Jessie.“I like her gentleness and her spirit,” Grey confirms.

“When she’s a teenager, she’s put upon and bullied, but she still has this fighting attitude. She desperately wants to write and is bursting with feistiness and joy. However, all that has left her by the time she’s 36. She’s working in a call centre and manifests all the sadness of a life that hasn’t fulfilled its potential.”

The actress, who hails from , adored dressing up for the period sequences in The Key. “The costumes are hilarious,” she laughs.“In the scenes set in 1984, I look like Shakin’ Stevens’s sister – it’s hard to feel cool in a Flock Of Seagulls hairdo! And in the 1979 sequences, I look like the front cover of a Jackie annual!”

Grey believes that audiences can relate to Jessie’s life.“Small children always say they want to be

The Key 43 Ann Louise Ross

Ann Louise Ross plays Helen, Mary Corrigan’s daughter

“Voting figures are very depressing now.We’ve become disenchanted with politics because we’ve had it too easy and don’t think politicians make any difference.There is complacency about the electorate, an apathy, a feeling of ‘I’m all right Jack’. People think,‘why should I bother about people who aren’t having such a good time?’

“We have become more insular, and the idea of the extended family has gone.The old days of hanging out of the window and having a chat about life with the neighbour have passed because now we’ve got Trisha and Kilroy instead. So it would be lovely if this drama helped people become re-engaged with politics. I think that would be quite a contribution.”

One of the key elements of the story in this very politicised family is a breakdown between Helen and her eldest child, Maggie. Despite the personal battles she has fought, Helen still has time to wage her political wars.

Ross continues:“A Private Finance Initiative threatens the closure of local old people’s homes, where her mother Mary lives, and Helen is concerned that the cutbacks mean fewer staff and Ann Louise Ross, who has appeared in dramas such poor food. Maggie, who is on the verge of being as Split Second (directed by David Blair), elected as one of Blair’s Babes in 1997, is not Trainspotting, Looking After Jo Jo, Hamish , Life prepared to compromise her chances of becoming Support and The Acid House, feels a real empathy an MP,not prepared to go through the same with her character Helen, Mary’s daughter. struggles as her mother.That’s a real blow to Helen. She is genuinely disappointed by Maggie’s “What a tower of strength she is!” Ross exclaims. New Labour politics. Maggie hopes to change “I really admire her passion. Helen has been things from the inside, but her mother knows it brought up in a very political household and a lot will never happen.” of her mother’s strong beliefs have rubbed off on her.As a result of her husband Joe’s industrial accident, she has had to take work as a cleaner. She eventually becomes a full-time regional organiser for a public services union and she also has lots of relatives living in the house – all in all, she’s absolutely exhausted.”

The actress, who has recently been on a Rep tour of Tehran with a production of The Winter’s Tale, hopes that the sheer political passion of The Key might help re-energise disillusioned voters.

The Key 44 June Watson

June Watson plays the older Mary Corrigan

Later in life, Mary is equally redoubtable.Watson, who has starred in dozens of TV dramas over the years, including A Mug’s Game, In A Land of Plenty,The Inspector Lynley Mysteries,Angels, Z Cars and Prime Suspect, comments that:“When Mary is 86, she still feels so strongly that she goes to Orgreave to support the striking miners. She’s still got such passion for life.And she clings on to her humanity even as she is dying.All in all, she has a huge influence on the family.”

Watson enjoyed witnessing the magic of the make- up department as she had to age from 59 to 98. “The make-up is fantastic,” the actress observes. “They don't use prosthetic masks to age me – they do it all with latex wrinkles or ‘green marble’, which is a sort of plastic make-up.When I have to go down to the age of 59, they give me a ‘face-lift’ with bits of invisible tape. It’s all very subtle and a real work of art.”

And extremely convincing.“When I was playing Mary at 86,” Watson recalls,“I was crossing the road with a walking-stick and looking very doddery. Later the same day, still in costume, I was dancing around like a spring chicken.You could see the June Watson portrays Mary when she is older (she extras thinking,‘She’s not a real old lady’!” is played as a younger woman by Dawn Steele).The actress, who currently has a leading role in the Martin Clunes vehicle William And Mary (“I play a housekeeper who does a lot of Hoovering and looking disapproving”), reckons that ultimately The Key is a very positive, life-enhancing drama.

June relished tackling Mary Corrigan.“She's a really strong, feisty woman with a fantastic set of principles. She cares deeply about both life and the fate of the workers. Her sheer strength attracted me.

“When Mary is young, her mother says to her 'oh well, this is our lot, this is what we were born with. When her beloved is killed in the First World War, her determination to struggle on behalf of her fellow workers is redoubled. Her strength is also very much in evidence when she is forced into a violent, loveless marriage and she copes with everything with a tremendous sense of fortitude.”

The Key 45 Donna Franceschild

Donna Franceschild – Writer

Donna Franceschild’s television and film credits daughter and her grandchildren, it shows that you range from Takin’ Over The Asylum and A Mug’s Game can always find parallels between the ages.” to Donovan Quick and Eureka Street.The trademark of this American-born writer is her enthusiastic Franceschild fervently hopes that her drama will championing of the underdog. prompt viewers to reassess their own sense of commitment.“When there’s a feeling that things Donna’s spirited desire to fight for the rights of have to change, where does it come from? Not those less fortunate clearly runs in her family. from politicians. It comes from people thinking that “When my mum was still a young woman, she things are bad and should not be this way.” found herself having to bring up four kids with no husband,” the writer says.“But she never stopped She concludes with her philosophy as a writer and battling on behalf of others.” the importance of passion in her work.“A writing tutor once told me ‘write what you’re angry about’. Her inspiration for The Key is clearly seen in the When I stop being angry, I’ll stop writing. Every story of the struggle for workers’ rights over the single thing I’ve written has been guided by the last century, through the vehicle of one fascinating belief that we can choose to be better than we are. family. It all springs from the central character Maybe I’m hopelessly optimistic, but I’m pushing 50 of Mary Corrigan, an extraordinarily strong now and it’s too late to change!” woman, whose commitment is handed down through the generations.

“In the Fifties, mum had to go out to work and she discovered that the starting wage for men was the top wage for women doing the same job. She never lost the ethos that it’s just not right for people to be treated in that way.You can judge any society by the way it treats its most vulnerable.

“I chose to write about people from the deprived end of the spectrum because their history is in danger of dying out.There are no big political leaders in The Key.This is a story of people like us who happen to get caught up in the wider power struggle.”

Franceschild has created a carefully crafted structure, which interweaves stories from five different time periods. She observes:“By writing the characters’ stories, I’m inevitably recounting the history of their time. I don’t have to hit all the political bases because they have to spring naturally from the characters. In the end, I’m not interested in telling people what to think; I’m interested in making them think.

“By intercutting the past experiences of the grandmother with the present experiences of her

The Key 46