PRODUCTION NOTES “This town – it’s all secrets. Everyone knows something you don’t” 1 The Town is a three-part contemporary drama from Big Talk Productions starring BAFTA winner Andrew Scott alongside an outstanding ensemble cast including Julia McKenzie, Charlotte Riley, Gerard Kearns, Kelly Adams and Martin Clunes. The first television series by Laurence Olivier award-winning playwright Mike Bartlett, The Town follows a shocking incident within an otherwise normal family. Mark Nicholas (Scott) returns to the town where he grew up to find his grandmother Betty (McKenzie) is now living in his childhood bedroom and he barely knows his teenage sister Jodie (Avigail Tlalim). Mark is drawn back into the life he left behind. Hardest of all is meeting his first love Alice (Riley), now married with a child. Thrust into the complicated lives of his former neighbours, it’s not surprising there are awkward moments as Mark becomes reacquainted with his past, including his old friends ‘down the pub’ Lucy (Kelly Adams), Carly (Aisling Bea) and Jeff (Sam Troughton). Running parallel with Mark’s story, we get to know the town Mayor, alcohol-soaked Len (Clunes). With his world falling in around him, Len is stumbling from one PR disaster to another. As we get to know the community, we’re also introduced to the enigmatic Inspector Franks (Douglas Hodge) from the local police force whose links to the family are stronger than it first appears... Mark struggles to decide whether he should stay permanently to be with his family. But a new life is difficult to build in the place you used to call home and now feels like you barely know it. The Town is produced by Big Talk’s Luke Alkin (Dirty War, Grow Your Own), and executive produced by Kenton Allen (Rev, Him & Her), Matthew Justice (Attack the Block) and Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn, Cranford). Colin Teague (Doctor Who, Shirley) directs. 2 Andrew Scott plays Mark “I was looking to do something a little bit more human. Something closer to myself as a character,” explains Andrew Scott. His BAFTA award-winning role as Moriarty in Sherlock introduced the Dublin-born actor to a wider audience around the globe. “Playing an arch villain like Moriarty and such a famous literary one was very high stakes, theatrical with some elements of the baroque about it. “I was anxious to find a project where I could show a little more light and shade. I wouldn’t describe Mark as an everyman but he’s certainly somebody people will recognise. “Mark ticked those boxes post-Sherlock as a character and was a really exciting prospect for me.” Explains Andrew: “The writer Mike Bartlett and I have worked together in the theatre before and we had a great time. “I knew that he had been writing his first television project and was very keen to read it. And I was very happy to be asked to be involved. “Mike has got an absolutely brilliant way with dialogue. It’s something any actor would want when you’re looking for a TV role - something that’s smartly written. “He has that gift of knowing how human beings really speak and express themselves. It’s rare to find that on television. And he has also put a lot of wit into the script.” Mark left the small town of Renton as a young man to draw up a new life as an architect in London. But a shocking incident forces him to return to the place he once called home, re-visiting his past life among family and friends. “He finds himself having to re-establish himself back there 10 years on, having lived a very different life in London. 3 “I think everybody understands that feeling of going back home and people treating you exactly the same way. You go into your old local pub and it feels exactly the same as it was before. “When you move away from home you re-invent yourself somewhat. The difficulty for Mark is trying to re-establish forgotten relationships with his family and others in the town, including his ex-girlfriend Alice. “There are ghosts of the past that are very difficult to confront, particularly in the circumstances he finds himself in when he returns. “A major family incident forces him to come back and he suddenly has to make very quick adult decisions. “He feels enormously trapped at the beginning. There are also a lot of unanswered questions that he becomes more and more obsessed by as the series goes on. “Things become clearer through the three episodes as you delve further into the lives of the characters in the town and how they’re linked.” Andrew adds: “Mark may be the ‘hero’ of the show but he’s not reliable. You definitely can begin to doubt him and wonder whether he’s doing the right thing for himself and his family. “In Mark’s case, you can build up these perceived ideas of how provincial your home town was. And when you’re in the small town you think London or the big city is the most exciting place where everybody is going out having cocktails and visiting photography exhibitions. “Actually the truth is that you can have a very dynamic life in a small town and you can have a very lonely, dull life in a big city. It’s what you make of it. What your attitude is towards where you live.” Andrew has lived in London for the last decade but still feels an affinity for his Dublin roots. “The one thing that I certainly thought about a lot is that feeling of longing for your home town, even when you’re there. “You think, ‘I belong here.’ But at the same time you can’t really own that feeling of comfort and belonging that you once had because you’ve experienced too much.” One of the issues Mark has to deal with on his return is his relationship with his 15-year-old sister Jodie, played by Avigail Tlalim. “The relationship is initially very frosty. When Mark left 10 years ago he would have been about 20 when Jodie was five or six. So they don’t really know each other particularly well. “That relationship, to me, was really interesting. There’s a huge well of love between them but it’s very difficult to express at the start. “I’ve got a little sister who I adore, so it was easy for me to have those strong feelings. She’s not a teenager but I remember when she was,” he laughs. Andrew was impressed with newcomer Avigail. 4 “She’s a great actress and a very articulate girl. This is her first job. So it was a real baptism of fire for her but she certainly learned really quickly. She’s got a wonderful soul in her eyes. I think she’s got a great future ahead of her.” Julia McKenzie plays Mark’s grandmother Betty. “I had such a laugh with Julia. Of course she’s hugely loved as a television actress but also she’s got great stories about Stephen Sondheim and all her theatre career. So we had a terrific time. “The extraordinary thing about Julia is she’s able to show a huge amount without really doing very much at all. She’s just one of the best actresses in this country. It was wonderful to work with her.” Charlotte Riley plays Mark’s old flame Alice, who is now married with a child. “It was first love for Mark and Alice. Now it’s that situation where you still have a huge amount of feeling but both people have moved on and have different lives. “Charlotte is a stunning actress and I think we had great chemistry together. I was really proud that she agreed to play the role.” Andrew also has scenes with Martin Clunes who plays Len, the alcoholic Mayor of Renton. “Martin is a really gifted actor. He’s able to do comedy and drama. The Town was a wonderful opportunity for him to show great sadness and pain as well.” Mayor Len leads the historic bun-throwing ceremony from the Town Hall - an event that really happens in Mike’s home town of Abington. “I knew nothing about it and thought it can’t be true. But it’s an old tradition. We had a great Sunday filming it in High Wycombe. But it can be dangerous. Buns can be pretty sore on the face, particularly when they’ve been sat out for five hours. But they didn’t offer me a stunt double!” How has Andrew coped with the public attention that followed his Sherlock role? “It certainly takes a little bit of getting used to. It’s something that’s very hard to predict actually because some days you don’t get recognised at all and then other days you’re recognised every 10 minutes. “Also there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme nor reason to it. Around the time of broadcast you’re obviously a little bit more recognisable. But sometimes that’s not true either. You just never know when you’re going to be recognised. “I feel very proud of Sherlock. Moriarty was a very potent character and one the audience really responded to. But it’s important to me that he doesn’t take over. “As an actor you want to remain fluid and play as many different things as possible. So you have to be very careful in the choices that you make.