Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
A CLASSIC REVISITED
Sumptuous Sunday night TV returns with a new four-part adaptation of Howards End, EM Forster’s tale of romance across the social divide. Nicole Lampert met the cast on set
Speaking from the set, Matthew Macfadyen and Hayley Atwell on the sumptuous new four-part BBC adaptation of Howards End
The setting is as splendid as you’d expect for the BBC’s latest costume drama. Just outside the stunning stately home in the grounds of the picturesque, 5,000-acre West Wycombe Estate in the Chiltern Hills, there’s a marquee overlooking the lake. Inside, it’s beautifully decorated with intricate winding f lowers f lowing from ornate Edwardian vases, and the table is laden with vintage crystal champagne glasses, along with decorative platters of fruit and cakes baked to the recipes of Victorian cook Mrs Beeton.
The table, and indeed the stage, is set for one of the most pivotal and dramatic scenes in the new adaptation of EM Forster’s novel Howards End – the wedding of rich businessman’s daughter Evie Wilcox to Percy Cahill at her family’s country estate, Oniton. By the end of the reception, however, the three very different families the story centres on wil l have collided to disastrous effect. And as the millions who’ve read Forster’s book or wallowed in the glorious 1992 Merchant Ivory film will know, what follows is destitution, tragedy, manslaughter and incarceration.
Despite Forster’s book being 107 years old, the themes still feel uncanni ly modern. The story revolves around three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century – the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the colonies, the half- German Schlegel siblings Margaret, Helen and younger brother Tibby, bohemian intellectuals who have much in common wit h t he rea l - l i fe Bloomsbury Group, and the Basts, an impoverished young couple from a lower- class background. Howards End, Mrs Wilcox’s beloved ancestral home – albeit a pile far less grand than Oniton – is almost a character in its own right too, becoming integral to the complex relationships between these three very different strata of society. And this new fourpart adaptation shows just how timeless, and at times brutal, the tale is.
‘Our series has been written to be deliberately not too earnest. In some ways it doesn’t feel like a period drama at al l,’ says Hayley Atwell, who plays the central character of Margaret Schlegel in the drama, which has been adapted by American Kenneth Lonergan who won a BAFTA earlier this year for his film Manchester By The Sea. ‘We were all told not to watch the Merchant Ivory film because this was going to be very different. Despite the constrictions of the costumes and the period, we did feel we wanted to make it accessible to modern audiences by not making it feel mannered.’ Even Emma Thompson, who played Margaret in the 1992 film, told Hayley ( who played Emma’s character’s daughter in the 2008 film version of Brideshead Revisited) not to refer to the Merchant Ivory version. ‘ She said, “Don’t watch the film. She is you and you are she and she is you.”’
That’s not to say this lavish drama skimps on the things period fans love. There are plenty of corsets and bonnets, beautiful houses, high teas and even a former Mr Darcy in Matthew Macfadyen playing the businessman Henry Wilcox. For a drama with lots of dialogue it’s remark- ably fast-paced and there’s plenty of humour too, as the intellectual Schlegels and their friends talk at each other without really listening. And, of course, there’s romance – but it’s complicated, grown-up romance. It melds different worlds and suggests
that people can connect even if they aren’t wholly compatible.
‘I can see why people sometimes say, “Oh, not another period drama”,’ says Matthew Macfadyen, who was
cast as Mr Darcy in the 2005 film version of Pride And Prejudice opposite Keira Knightley’s Lizzy Bennet and starred in the BBC’s adaptation of Little Dorrit with Claire Foy. ‘But that’s only because some period dramas aren’t done very well, or they’re done in a boring way. This one is eternal ly relevant. The social mores might have changed, but people’s behaviour hasn’t. It has money and class, the battle of the sexes, society and sex and family. Human behaviour is the same whether you’re wearing a frock coat or a hoodie. These issues endure.’ The issues radiate from the wonderfully vivacious Schlegel sisters Margaret and Helen. Orphaned but with enough money to keep them comfortable, they live in the heart of intellectual London with their younger brother Tibby where they spend their time discussing art and literature and how the poor should be helped. Occasionally their aunt Juley ( Tracey Ullman) comes and tuts at their very modern behaviour and reminds them they’ re only indulged because their mother left them money. ‘I’ve reached that point in my career when I play aunts,’ laughs Tracey, best known now for her hilarious sketch show and impersonations. ‘Aunt Juley is brilliant. She tries to get involved in the Schlegels’ lives and sometimes it’s not that welcome, but they do love her. Margaret and Helen are curious liberal girls. It was tough for those types then and it’s still tough for them now. That’s what fascinates me.’ Margaret is the elder and more sensible of the two. She’s clever, ahead of her time and eager to broaden her cloistered experience and learn from others. ‘ She’s quite extraordinary,’ says Hayley. ‘There’s a line from her in the novel, “Only connect”, which is one of the book’s key messages. The thing that drives her is a desire to connect people. Given the context of the time, it was quite unusual for a woman in her position to be seeking something outside of her immediate world. At the beginning of the story she’s frustrated. She’s smart enough and self-aware enough to know that she’s very privileged to be at these charity lunches with lots of other rich and wealthy people talking about social reform, but what’s the point if they don’t actually do anything?’ Helen is different; she’s much more passionate and firmly set in her opinions even if it means hurting those she loves. She’s played by Australian actress Philippa Coulthard, and rarely have two actors actually looked as much like sisters as she and Hayley. Philippa, who was cast after flying in from LA for a quick meeting with producers before flying back, is fulfilling a lifelong dream by appearing in a BBC period drama. ‘My grandmother is English so we used to watch them on repeat,’ she says. ‘I’ve always wanted to be in something like this. It’s a fascinating world where you have to skirt around social niceties. And it’s been interesting wearing a corset – and very nice to take it off.’ The Schlegels meet the Wilcox family while on holiday in Germany and strike up a friendship, even though they come from totally different worlds. Henry Wilcox is a hardnosed businessman who collects houses the way the Schlegels collect people. He’s opinionated and somewhat egotistical, but the sisters like his wife Ruth (played by Mad Men’s
‘It has family and money and the battle of the sexes’
Julia Ormond), who is unintellectual but has an innate understanding of the kind of loving, connecting philosophy the sisters like to preach.
Back in England, Helen goes to Howards End, Ruth Wilcox’s ancestral home, to stay with the family, and despite being firmly opposed to almost everything they stand for she’s beguiled by both the house and the family. Howards End is Ruth’s most prized possession as she feels a strong connection to its history, yet her husband and children do not feel the same way. When the younger Wilcox son Paul arrives, he and Helen fall for each other, but by the time Aunt Juley shows up to break up the affair after being alerted to it by a letter, the romance is already over and the two families part amid embarrassment and acrimony.
Shortly afterwards, the Schlegels have a brush with another world when they meet Leonard Bast (played by Dickensian’s Joseph Quinn), a poor insurance clerk, at a Beethoven concert. He desperately craves to be part of the romantic intellectualism of their world but he simply can’t afford it. When Helen mistakenly walks off with his umbrella, he’s invited to the Schlegels’ home to retrieve it and reveals his desire to bring intellectualism and books into his life.
For all their interest in charity and social reform, he’s the closest they’ve come to meeting someone on the poverty line. He supports his girlfriend and later wife Jacky, who he saved from destitution after she was cast out by another man. He doesn’t love her but he sticks by her because he knows that without him she will have nothing. He’s the tragic hero of the piece. ‘ The Basts are the representation of the lower middle classes staring at the abyss, wondering if they’re ever going to be able to find their footing and survive,’ says Hayley. ‘I think Margaret feels a social responsibility to connect with them. She’s very empathetic and emotionally intelligent, and quite a free thinker.’ ‘Leonard is ballast to the Schlegels’ romanticism,’ adds
‘Henry’s a man’s man, supremely confident’
Joseph Quinn. ‘He’s not a typical romantic lead. At one point he gets so bored of the routine of his life that he decides to walk through the countryside all night. When he tells Helen
about this, she expects him to say it was a wonderful experience, but he says it wasn’t; it was cold and he was tired. There’s a pragmatism to him.’
In time the Schlegels and Wilcox-
es are reacquainted when the family takes a London home across the road from where the sisters live. It’s here that Ruth and Margaret bond – though Ruth is gravely ill. This will lead to a development that provokes resentment and disgust in Helen and the Wilcox children.
Playing Henry, Matthew Macfadyen has perhaps the hardest job Aunt Juley meets Henry Wilcox, with (l-r) Tibby, Margaret and Helen of all in the lavish drama; making the unlikely Henry a romantic hero. He is a far more flawed character than Mr Darcy ever was – something which becomes particularly clear in the wedding scene being filmed today. ‘He’s really interesting to play,’ says Matthew, who in real life is married to The Durrells star Keeley Hawes. ‘He’s supremely confident. He’s not given to introspection or deep thought, or exploring his feelings. But he’s not unsympathetic. He is a man’s man and that’s very attractive, especially to those whose world is that of thoughts, ideas and feelings.
‘You can see his bluster and pigheadedness and stupidity, but it’s also possible to forgive him. He goes on an extraordinary journey and it’s brilliant to play that. He’s not a baddie. You’re sympathetic to his point of view. That’s really the beauty of the central plot; it’s nuanced.’
And so to Evie’s wedding at Oniton. Henry is there of course, and so is Margaret, while Helen brings the Basts to Oniton because Leonard has lost his job and feels Henry could help him find work. But by the end of the day the lives of all the main protagonists have been changed. The destiny of Howards End, and the romances of those it has a hold on, hinge on the repercussions. And if you haven’t read the book or seen the film, you’ll certainly be surprised to find out what they are.
Howards End begins on Sunday 12 November at 9pm on BBC1.