Holy pilchards! I’ve only got a date with POLDARK
my knickers for a shilling, I will.’ He says: ‘We didn’t use that, did we?’ No, I say, as she’s less slutty this time out. He did not watch the original series, he says, ‘as I wanted to put my own stamp on the character’.
The first he knew of Poldark was when he received a package containing the first two Graham books, eight scripts written by Debbie Horsfield and a note to say he would be getting a call. When he was offered the lead, the first thing he did was Google the name. ‘Then I was like, bloody hell, this is quite a big deal.’
I later speak to Debbie Horsfield, who says the part had Aidan written all over it. ‘I’d seen him in Desperate Romantics and Being Human, which I’d loved. I was very clear about the qualities Ross had to have. He is a very complex and complicated character. He is charismatic but also has vulnerability, and is quick-tempered, and also a rebel, an outsider, and I thought, who fits that bill? And I thought back to Being Human and Desperate Romantics and thought both of those characters are very different but have elements of what we are looking for in Ross.’
And when you wrote that topless scything scene, did you think it would drive the audience wild? ‘I was very taken aback, to be honest. That scene is in the script. It’s a crucial moment in the story because Demelza and Ross have just had sex the night before and he’s working the field to try to forget about it. From a storytelling point of view, we needed to be aware of his physicality, to remind us of that night before. We thought that was as far as it would go, and then to see the photograph in every newspaper for the next six months – nobody envisaged that would happen.’
Annoying? ‘It’s great to have the publicity but I suppose it’s slightly frustrating when it’s the only thing mentioned about the show.’ I wonder how it has changed Turner’s life. He says: ‘Nothing’s changed an awful lot.’ Really? ‘You get recognised the odd time, and you get fan mail from time to time, and everyone is very sweet and supportive, which is flattering, but it doesn’t affect my daily grind.’
I tell him I’m worried about typecasting – will I always be selling hares from now on? – and ask if he is too. ‘I don’t worry about that. Actors have a lot of choice. It’s one of the few powers we have. You can choose what you want to do and in what direction you want to take your career.’
And then it’s time to go. Alas, all that practising of ‘THE PILCHARDS ARE COMING!’ had been in vain, it transpires. ‘There are no pilchards in series two,’ says Debbie. And topless scything? ‘No topless scything either.’*
I wasn’t asking about that for myself, I’m quick to tell her. Just asking for a friend.
*I’ve just seen an extended trailer and think I saw… topless mining!
‘Poldark’ begins on Sunday, September 4 at 9pm on BBC1
‘All that practising of “THE PILCHARDS ARE COMING!” was in vain. There are no pilchards in series two’
ending, as you will no doubt recall, with the Warleggans’s ship smashing into rocks, Ross encouraging the starving miners to plunder the spoils that washed up on the beach – and then the cliffhanger on the actual cliff where he was arrested for ‘wrecking, incitement to riot, murder’.
My day of filming took place in September of last year, and it’s a day that is cold and wet and blustery; a day, alas, that would be entirely unsuitable for gratuitous skinny-dipping of the kind that is worth the licence fee alone, or topless agricultural work, although I cannot think what implement might best be employed. (A scythe, perhaps?) We’re wrapped in blankets between takes, while Ms Tomlinson hugs a hot water bottle under her cape. There must be 15 takes of the same scene, all in all. Over and over, we have to do it. Indeed, one Rich Passerby – What? How does that work? – fondles my hares so many times that in the end I am forced to tell him: ‘Enough with the browsing, already. Buy or move on, my friend.’ I’m then asked if I’d like to meet Mr Turner. I say I’m indifferent, don’t care much either way… YES, YES, YES!
He is in his civvies, while I am still greasy-haired and dirty-faced. We don’t have long. I tell him I have my pants on (he looks relieved), then lie and say it took hours and hours to de-glamourise me. ‘I bet!’ he says and, get this – he’s Irish! Poldark is Irish! I knew Turner was from Dublin but it’s still kind of a shock. He is 33, and certainly adorable, with his dark eyes and dark curls that now have their own Twitter account (@Poldarkshair). Is he, though, fed up of all the phwoaring? ‘Ah, yes,’ he says, simply. And what about when the topless scything went viral, was voted TV moment of the year, appeared on the front of every newspaper? ‘I don’t read the press, I don’t follow it. I don’t find it that interesting, to be honest.’ Me neither, I further lie. What a fuss about nothing, I think I even add.
I then tell him, truthfully, that Robin Ellis’s Poldark, from the BBC’s 1975 adaptation, which I had thought could not be bettered, idiot that I am, was my first crush. I add that I was in love with this Poldark at the same time my sister was in love with David Cassidy and we’d furiously argue their merits until I won by asking how many Cornish mines Cassidy had ever saved from closure.
I also say I remember Demelza’s first words in that series, which were: ‘Drop
Our brilliant writer Deborah Ross loved Poldark so much that she begged for a cameo in the show’s new series. The story of her day on set with its Dublin star Aidan Turner (opposite, with Ross) is suitably surreal – and utterly hilarious ‘I’m asked if I’d like to meet Mr Turner. I say I’m indifferent, don’t care much either way… YES, YES, YES!’
So, I am to be an extra in the second series of the BBC TV phenomenon that is Poldark, starring Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark and other actors and actresses playing other people and stuff.
I am nervous and fearful. What if my potential isn’t spotted and I’m not promoted to a speaking line, even though I have been practising ‘THE PILCHARDS ARE COMING! THE PILCHARDS ARE COMING!’ for some weeks now? (To Ali, in the corner shop: ‘Ten pounds on my Oyster card and also… THE PILCHARDS ARE COMING! THE PILCHARDS ARE COMING!’). Worse, what if I were to accidentally tumble and fall on, say, Mr Turner’s face and in trying to restore my balance I make a grab for his shirt and it’s ripped from his torso as I pull him to the floor? I’d say it doesn’t bear thinking about, except that I do, in fact, think about it quite often, and all day on Tuesdays.
I have only myself to blame. I am to be an extra because I begged that this was so; begged my editors, who in turn begged the production company. I had a strong case. Didn’t I deserve to be in it, considering I was the show’s biggest fan, had watched the first series every Sunday without fail, had written glowingly about it every week, and was still grieving for Baby Julia? They buckled, and now here we are, but not in Cornwall, disappointingly.
The series, which returns on September 4, is, of course, set in Cornwall, with its brooding cliffs and brooding skies and brooding sea to match our brooding hero, and much is filmed there. But my instructions are to head to Cirencester in Gloucestershire, and the Royal Agricultural University, which is doubling as the Cornish town of Bodmin. I had been for my costume fitting a week earlier, when I had practised on the wardrobe people – ‘THE PILCHARDS ARE COMING! THE PILCHARDS ARE COMING’. They were optimistic about my chances of promotion. (‘Very convincing,’ they said. ‘If we weren’t sitting in a caravan in a car park we’d be up on the cliffs watching for their arrival.’)
In the meantime, I have been cast as a Poor Passer-by, and while I would like to say that it took several hours to transform me into a Poor Passer-by, as it proved an extraordinarily uphill task, it seemed to take no time at all.
The wardrobe people (and also the makeup people) are obviously fantastically good. My hair is made greasy and dirt is smeared on my face, while my clothes are an old straw hat, woollen socks and several rough skirts – layered. I am told that back in the 18th Century, I wouldn’t have worn pants as they were a luxury, but they say I can keep my own on.
I am glad to hear this because if, for instance, I were to accidentally tumble onto Mr Turner and rip his shirt off and I had no pants on… that truly doesn’t bear thinking about, even though that’s all I now think about on Fridays. And most of Saturday. We gather. That is, myself and the other extras. The university’s courtyard has become Bodmin’s market square, where I am made a stallholder, which has to be a promotion of sorts. My stall sells hares, walnuts, eggs, crab apples and wool. I believe I would have been better off specialising in the one thing, like walnuts, thereby becoming the go-to place for walnuts, but nobody is at all interested in my business plan. I am sad to see that I am not selling pilchards, which is a pity, because if they were selling well I could have at least shouted: ‘THE PILCHARDS ARE GOING! THE PILCHARDS ARE GOING!’ and I would not have felt as if all my practice had gone to waste.
The scene involves Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) crossing the square to a building on the other side and remonstrating with someone on behalf of Ross, who is on trial.
The first series covered the first two books of Winston Graham’s saga,