Producers on new BBC One drama SS-GB: We didn’t want it to be a big CGI show

Scenes from SS-GBBBC

SS-GB, tonight, 9pm, BBC One

A Spitfire flies low over the roofs of Whitehall, landing in The Mall outside Buckingham Palace. Its pilot is greeted by a Nazi soldier; later in the scene we see a bomb-damaged Buckingham Palace surrounded by Swastikas and German propaganda posters.

This is the frankly jaw-dropping opening scene of SS-GB, BBC One’s new blockbuster drama which begins tonight, which is based on Len Deighton’s book about what could have happened if the Nazis had won the Battle of Britain in 1940 and invaded the country.

SS-GB stars Sam Riley as Scotland Yard detective Douglas Archer, an elegant and intelligent man trapped between his police responsibilities and working alongside the Nazis, particularly the SS officers with whom he has to work on the murder case which begins the series. 

After watching the first episode, the talking point across households of the nation is bound to be “What would you have done in Archer’s situation?”, but what will also make the audience talk is the great care which has gone into making the series look like a Britain which has been invaded by the Nazis.

We see Buckingham Palace surrounded by hateful logos, London streets plastered with German wartime propaganda and, of course, full of Nazi soldiers and SS men. It’s genuinely scary to see real, and sometimes very familiar, locations peopled by a frightening enemy and their symbols which still hold their power more than 70 years later.

Riley was working on sets draped with Swastikas most days during filming and says they still shock. “Seeing them every day didn’t make them lose their power,” he says. “They were quite brilliant in their own way – so powerful, so frightening, so dominating and so shocking.”

It was the production team at Sid Gentle Films, who also make the rather more cuddly series The Durrells, who have created the febrile atmosphere which permeates every frame of SS-GB. Led by executive producers Sally Woodward Gentle and Lee Morris, they have created a series which is a frightening feast for the eyes.

“Was it astronomically expensive? No, we were just very clever!” laughs Woodward Gentle. “Television has got bigger, and caught up with feature films, and has gone up in budget too. And UK tax breaks help film-makers, too.”

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The series is based on Len Deighton’s book

Although the money spent on SS-GB shows on screen, there are hidden elements that won’t be so obvious to the viewer. “We made a decision to shoot it all in London, which is now incredibly expensive, but we knew it would give it the authenticity you wouldn’t get anywhere else, and the architecture is incredibly distinctive,” explains Woodward Gentle. 

The scene where the Spitfire lands outside Buckingham Palace perfectly illustrates the logistics of shooting a big drama about a controversial subject, in a big city.

“The Mall is closed on a Sunday anyway, so we filmed that scene there at 7am – at that time in January, you have a very small window of light, so your shooting time is short,” Woodward Gentle explains.

“And we didn’t want too many people around,” chimes in Lee Morris, who adds that a rumour went around the people who were there that the crew were filming a Wonder Woman film. How very wrong they were…

Morris points out that any unwanted people would have been removed from the scene with CGI computer technology, which was also used to create the image of a bomb-damaged Buckingham Palace. However, CGI was used very little in the series. 

Woodward Gentle says: “We didn’t want it to be a big CGI show, we wanted to make it more on an emotional level and to see the world from Douglas Archer’s point of view. CGI was used to clean up anything that felt particularly modern, people in windows, any flags.”

It was also used to superimpose Swastikas and other Nazi images on flags on to national landmarks such as Trafalgar Square and Big Ben, such is the power of those symbols, even today – you can imagine the horror people would have felt to have seen these in real life.

Such was the sensitivity of the subject matter that when filming a scene in north London’s Highgate Cemetery, local residents were sent letters warning them that they may see actors dressed in “German Army, SS and Russian military uniform”. Often when filming, actors dressed as German soldiers kept their uniforms covered so as not to shock people.

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SS-GB stars Sam Riley as Scotland Yard detective Douglas Archer

Apart from the possibility of frightening people with Nazis, there were the usual filming headaches on SS-GB. The opening episode sees Archer investigating a murder in central London’s Shepherd Market, a very recognisable maze of narrow 18th century streets, which were actually filmed around Holborn in London.

“We did think about rebuilding Shepherd’s Market as a set, which would have been expensive – but filming in London is expensive anyway,” explains Morris. “You get so much more from filming on a real property.” However, much of the series was filmed in locations Len Deighton wrote about in his novel, giving SS-GB a strong sense of place.

Fans of Deighton’s books and Second World War history will no doubt be keeping an eagle-eye out for the historical accuracy of the series, but Woodward Gentle points out that unlike on Downton Abbey (where she used to be creative director for the company that made the series), SS-GB didn’t have a historical adviser on the set at all times because of the dystopian theme of the series.

Lee Morris adds: “Some of the historical things you have to get absolutely right, like uniforms, but because Len’s book is about an alternative history, there are moments when we can say, ‘Well, that never really happened’.”

Woodward Gentle had been longing to make an adaptation of SS-GB for many years, after becoming friends with Leighton whilst making a documentary called Edward VIII – The Traitor King, and says Deighton’s historical research for his original novel was vital to the TV series. “We almost had it as a reference Bible for the series,” she says. 

“Len and I talked about the drama a lot in the early stage of making it, but once he had met Neil Purvis and Robert Wade (the screenwriting duo best known for their James Bond movies), he let them get on with it. He read all the scripts, but didn’t make any changes.”

Talking to those involved, it’s clear that a large amount of blood, toil, tears and sweat went into making SS-GB, but the impression it will make on our TV screens tonight will make it all worthwhile.

SS-GB, tonight, 9pm, BBC One. Read an exclusive interview with its star Sam Riley in next week’s S Magazine

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Post Author: martin

Martin is an enthusiastic programmer, a webdeveloper and a young entrepreneur. He is intereted into computers for a long time. In the age of 10 he has programmed his first website and since then he has been working on web technologies until now. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BriefNews.eu and PCHealthBoost.info Online Magazines. His colleagues appreciate him as a passionate workhorse, a fan of new technologies, an eternal optimist and a dreamer, but especially the soul of the team for whom he can do anything in the world.

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