Amelia Warner
Dorset Echo - December 2000

Doone town

DIARMUID MacDONAGH finds the Brecon Beacons transformed into Exmoor for the BBC's new adaptation of Lorna Doone

THERE'S nothing like a costume drama to get the pulses racing, the swashes buckling and the ratings soaring.

Take an old-fashioned love story, throw in a few villainous caricatures, some sumptuous scenery and a bit of questionable historical provenance and you have a sure-fire hit.

Or so the thinking seems to go in the ivory towers where elephantine committees of bright young things deem to set the agenda for the great viewing public.

Ergo Lorna Doone.

Set against the backdrop of the protestant Duke of Monmouth's rebellion against the Catholic king, James II, in the 1680s, Lorna Doone is a tale of young lovers, brutal outlaws and warring families.

The novel, written by R D Blackmore in 1865, is one of the best-known historical romances in English literature. The story follows the fortunes of young John Ridd, a working farmer living with his mother and sisters on Exmoor, and his sworn enemies, the Doones, a family of aristocratic outlaws who inspire terror and wreak havoc among their neighbours.

John Ridd falls in love with our exquisitely beautiful eponymous heroine, only to discover that she is a member of the hated Doone clan who killed his father.

Even worse, Lorna is betrothed to her cousin, the evil Carter Doone, heir to the Doone estate. Carver is determined to make Lorna his, but his motives are more sinister than obsessive love - the rest is the stuff of legend.

Back in the (debatably) real world of the BBC, the decision to revive the classic bought myriad problems, not least finding an authentic setting.

As is the way of TV and film executives, an authentic setting seems to be somewhere far removed from the original location. Just as Thomas Hardy adaptations are now shot far from their Dorset roots, so the Doone saga was transplanted from Exmoor to Wales.

Blackmore's description of Doone Valley was as follows: `A deep valley, carved from out of the mountains, with a fence of sheer rock standing around it, eighty feet or a hundred high; from whose brink black wooded hills swept up to the sky-line...'

And, in the cause of further fairness of goodwill to all Tristams and Penelopes, given the time of year, they decided that Exmoor was simply too overrun with the great unwashed British public to contemplate a summer shoot.

Enter, stage left, the Brecon Beacons. Craig Cwm Du (Crag of the Black Valley) is, in fairness, remote and dramatically wind-swept, and besides having a more than acceptably romantic name, there isn't a Welsh accent to be heard for miles around.

In this valley, the design team built the Doone village, including four full-size communal houses, a watchtower and Sir Ensor Doone's meeting hall, which also included interior sets.

And into all this flouncing finery cocooned in the valley of death steps the girl herself, Amelia Warner, as Lorna.

"Let's face it," says 18-year-old Amelia, "if Lorna Doone was alive today, she would be a suitable case for treatment.

"Can you imagine it? Broken home, father dead, constantly fending off her sleazy cousin...

she'd have to be in counselling."

Amelia herself did not take her mother, actress Annette Ekblom's counsel seriously. She never wanted her daughter to go into acting but she's had a rethink since her daughter won the title role in this lavish production.

"It was my mother's favourite book and she gave me a children's version when I was very young. I don't think I read it, but I do remember seeing the picture of Lorna, this amazing, cool woman, on the front cover.

"She was wearing a scarlet dress, her hair blowing in the wind."

While paying tribute to the original, Amelia says she is glad that adaptor, Adrian Hodges, has put a bit more psychological grit and realism into the character that generations of school-children have been brought up to admire.

"In the book she is on a pedestal, this divine creature who does no wrong. When I read the book, I was a bit wary at having to play this rather serious, straight character.

"But the scripts bring out the feisty in her. She's now a really modern character. Some of that feistiness comes from her having to fight for things herself. She doesn't do all she's supp-osed to do. She's not a rebel or difficult, but she has a strong sense of right or wrong. She won't sacrifice her morals, but she's also got a vulnerable side."

It is, one presumes, that vulnerable side that attracts her to our hero, John Ridd, played by Richard Coyle, but the Yorkshire actor, born of Irish parents, doesn't believe he is typical all-action material.

"Heroes are different today; they are not the same as the 40s and 50s with the Errol Flynn stuff," he says.

"You don't just ride in, kick ass and ride home. Heroes today, like John Ridd in this adaptation, can be insecure. They can worry too, and that's where I can see parts of John Ridd in me. I worry a lot, and once John's met Lorna he's wracked by self-doubt."

Richard, whose film credits include Human Traffic and Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy, sees the story of Lorna Doone as a rite-of-passage for John as he tries to lay the ghost of his father's death to rest.

His own father, a builder, died just as Richard's acting career was taking off.

"He died just when I started filming Coupling, and I really wished he'd been able to see Dalziel and Pascoe, which I told him I was going to be doing.

"That was the moment when he thought his son was going to be all right. That series was something to be recognised."

Richard's own rite-of-passage acting career started at university where he studied politics and getting interested in amateur dramatics. Later, when he was struggling to raise money for a place at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he got an extra's job on Franco Zefferelli's film on Jane Eyre.

He mentioned to the great director that he was about to enrol at drama school ,and he was given a line - and, subsequently, Richard's professional debut was marked by the words: "Mr Rochester, your house is on fire."

Amid the Welsh valleys, masquerading as Exmoor, there are a few characters, real and historical, with Dorset connections.

Martin Clunes, who lives in West Dorset, plays Captain Jeremy Stickles, the King's man sent to the lawless Westcountry to investigate the Doones and other potential rebels.

Martin loved the swash and buckle but admits to being a bit shaky when it comes to galloping at full tilt into action.

"Horses are such beautiful creatures," he says, "why sit on them? It seems so unfair, especially when I've got a car."

But the truth is that he had a riding accident while filming and admits to losing some of his nerve. However, it's more a case of home is the hero for Martin these days. Life centres around his wife, film producer Philippa Braithwaite, and their child, Emily, who, says Martin, has arrived at the "pointing stage."

And just as she is getting fond of pointing out her dad on television, Martin is finding it harder to watch himself.

"As you increase the library of your own work, it's hard to surprise yourself any more," he adds.

"I do like acting, but it becomes more difficult to watch yourself. Sometimes it's excruciating. Normal people watching themselves on a wedding video cringe and scream. It doesn't get any better, especially with your bare bum wobbling up the stairs."

On the subject of bottoms, he is aware of the rock variety and has a natural anxiety about work drying up. " The minute you get successful, it's only then that you can go out of fashion and hit rock bottom. It's a pretty transient industry."

An entirely different part of the anatomy was the concern of one of Dorset's most colourful historical characters, who is bought vividly to life in Lorna Doone. Judge Jeffreys, who presided over the Bloody Assizes in Dorchester following the Monmouth Rebellion, is played by Michael Kitchen.

There are also appearances by Martin Jarvis as Baron de Whichehalse and Jesse Spencer (Billy from Neighbours).

So, plenty of promise for one of the BBC's festive highlights. After all, they've had enough turkeys already this year.

* Lorna Doone is on BBC1 on Christmas Eve at 6.05pm and concludes at 7pm on Boxing Day.