Film crew play it by the book

JWE’RE living in strange times all right. But the weird world of Covid isolation took on a dreamlike quality for me and Richard the week before last. That was when we filmed our week-long series about lockdown reading for Channel 4, five shows which were broadcast this week from our living room.

In the midst of a pandemic so scary it mirrors Stephen King’s nightmare novel The Stand (which tells how a deadly virus escapes from a secret US military laboratory, and kills virtually everyone in the world), making that little one-off series was beyond bizarre.

For a start, it had to be done within strict lockdown parameters. The channel, rightly, was almost paranoid in its determination to keep us safe.

Not surprising when the other week Kevin Lygo, head of ITV, suspended filming Coronation Street for the duration, saying he couldn’t guarantee the safety of elderly actors. “I don’t want Ken Barlow to get sick on my watch,” Lygo said. I thought that was a bit callous at first but then recalled that Ken (played brilliantly by Bill Roache, above, who is 88 years old) is a national treasure – Lygo’s comment was lighthearted, but he spoke the truth.

So on a much smaller scale our week in intensive house-arrest began. Only two members of the production team were allowed inside the house – cameramen, both masked, gloved and wearing plastic over-shoes. It felt like an episode of SilentWitness.

The rest were outside: the production gallery in the garage, the sound van parked in the drive.We’ve got a granny flat annexe with a separate entrance from the garden, so the crew used that as their office and bathroom.

Everyone brought their own food, a relief to me because I thought we’d be making sandwiches all week. No one came near us, the cameramen kept their distance and sterilised their equipment daily. When they left every day they set off a “disinfectant bomb” in the sitting room where we filmed.When it was all over a deep cleaning team in full hazmat gear moved in, fogging the entire house with an antiviral agent.The fumes were so powerful we weren’t allowed in for hours. Oh, and we had to take our temperatures every morning.

So thanks, Channel 4, for keeping us safe.The protocol meant it was the weirdest TV show we’ve ever made, but we loved it.When our grandchildren ask what we did in the coronavirus war, we’ll say: “We made a TV show about books.”

Not very heroic but a small attempt to be useful all the same.