Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
BRINGING ANCIENT TROY BACK TO LIFE – AMID BABOONS
Forty-five minutes inland from Cape Town, through the glorious mountainous wine region where there are signs warning people to be careful of baboons, you can climb a dirt path and find yourself in the ancient city of Troy.
This seems like a strange place to find the set of a major TV drama but the former farm buildings the Troy set has been built upon have been used in productions ranging from Homeland to Outcasts. Just before this 13th century BC structure was built, it was a Soho street. This is one of three sets for the series and depicts the wealthy ‘upper city’ of Troy just outside the palace, where the richer inhabitants scheme.
Built over three months, it feels like a solid and real world but also an alien one. ‘One afternoon I was by myself sitting in this huge outdoors set thinking how unreal it was,’ says Jonas Armstrong, who is cast as Menelaus. ‘I felt really fortunate my job’s enabled me to visit this place.’
Producers looked all over for their Troy – from Turkey and the site of the original city (which is now miles away from the sea due to changes in the Earth’s landscape) to Spain, Croatia and Malta but nowhere could compete with the beauty of South Africa. The mountains, stunning beaches and incredible sunsets give the show a mythical, magical feel.
More than 200 people helped create the sets. The world of Troy is set in the Bronze Age, an earlier time than the more recognisable Ancient Greece of the Parthenon. Troy is a wealthy city – taxing every boat coming through the Dardanelles, the important sliver of sea it sits on – and its prosperity needs to be seen on screen, but instead of the marblecolumned buildings that typify our idea of Ancient Greece, these are much more simple structures which have been built on wooden frames.
‘We did a lot of research at the British Museum and the Ashmolean [in Oxford] and we have tried to base it a bit on the Hittites who were in that area at that time, but because it was such a long time ago we don’t know everything,’ says production designer Rob Harris. ‘When it comes to the archaeology we are making
informed guesses. In the poorer ‘lower city’ we’ve taken elements of Greek vases and pottery and painted those drawings of people and animals on the outside of houses; there’s no evidence that it happened but no evidence that it didn’t. Our buildings also have a Moroccan feel.
‘There was no steel so the doors are on pivots rather than hinges. When you take strong metal away there are all sorts of things you can’t do. We’ve had to make all of the swords from bronze – they were moulded rather than forged.’
The palace of Troy was built on a stage in Cape Town while a third set, in Durbanville, north of the city, depicted the ‘lower city’. The Greeks spent most of their time on the beach; mainly on a private beach in Springfontein, a few miles south of Cape Town. The set’s baboon wrangler was kept particularly busy there. ‘All the baboons want is food so everyone was told not to get food out on set,’ says producer Barney Reisz. ‘They’re cheeky and strong; so it’s best to keep them away.’
Building Troy was a challenge but it wasn’t the hardest one – a ship large enough to carry 50 men had to be made. The 25ft-long ship doubled as the boat which took Paris to Sparta and one which brought Greeks to Troy. Several other parts of ships – bows and sterns – were made and filmed alongside the whole ship to make up the Greek fleet. ‘In the 2004 film you could see 1,000 ships but it was clear it wasn’t real and you could argue the story-telling in the film suffered because they were so obsessed with the spectacle.
We’ve tried to do the opposite,’ says Barney Reisz.