Star It was hard to resist the money on offer for CBB
– on BBC1 tonight at 9pm – pays testament to. Based on Len Deighton’s book, it is a drama built on the premise that the Battle of Britain was lost.
The show, which also stars Sam Riley, has an air of chilling authenticity, with swastikas flying from public buildings and the sound of Nazi jackboots on the streets. It may be make-believe but it resonated with the actor.
He said: “There was one point that really brought it home to me. Sam and I were doing a scene in an alley in London with lots of people being rounded up and there were some people with the Star of David sewn on to their coats and I just thought, ‘ My goodness, it would have been like that.’ That was an eerie feeling.
“You really do think, ‘How would it have been? What would have happened if we had lost the Battle of Britain?’
“It’s very easy to say we would have fought the Nazis on the beaches. But if it had happened, there is no doubt we could have been like the French. I think many people would have said, ‘Listen, we just want to keep our families alive and eat.’”
The cast travelled to Berlin for a screening of the drama, where it received a warm reception, which underlined for him why the series is so pertinent to the turbulent politics rocking the world.
He said: “You think, ‘ It’s going to be in Berlin, is this a bit odd?’ But actually it’s not. It’s not as if German people have got some genetic thing that makes them want to invade everywhere.
“It was social, economic and political pressures that made the rise of national social ism possible and, given those circumstances, it could have happened in any country.
“You see things happening across Europe and in America now and you think, ‘ We’ve had the status quo for my lifetime, nearly 70 years, but that’s not to say things can’t change very much for the worse and very quickly.’ I think it is a timely warning.”
James saw first-hand the effects of war, even if he didn’t live through it. Growing up in Clydebank, the ruins left behind by Nazi bombers were his playground.
He returned last year for the 75th anniversary and delivered a rendition of poem The Holy City, a reference to an area of the town which was destroyed.
James, who has been married to wife Annie since 2000 and has two sons, Findlay and Ethan, said: “When I was a wee fella in Clydebank, we played on the bomb sites because the tenements next door to us had been flattened.
“As kids, it was terrific – all the hideyholes and all that stuff – but Clydebank was completely devastated. The Holy City disappeared overnight almost with huge loss of life. I remember very clearly the aftermath of that and my mum’s ration books.”
The actor also got a flavour of what the Battle of Britain must have been like when he featured in the f ilm alongside an all- star cast including Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. He said: “I played a Hurricane pilot and I was working with people who had been through it.
“There were quite a few advisers, Douglas Bader for instance, and I became friends with a Spitfire pilot called Ginger Lacey, who was a British air ace.
“We used to have a few drams together at night and he told me how it was and how romanticised it had become. In reality, it was ferocious. I remember him saying he stopped making friends as the pilots got younger and younger because they knew that, when they went up, there was a good chance they weren’t coming back.
“Those lads came back from dogfights, Spitfires and Hurricanes blasted to bits, and he said sometimes they were carried out of their cockpits because they were hurt or completely exhausted, given a cup of hot sweet tea and a cigarette and told to sit and wait for the alarm to go again.
“Day after day after day, young boys of 18 or 19. Churchill was absolutely right – if it hadn’t been for those boys, God knows what would have happened.”
James is weighing up his options to see what comes along next but he’ll soon be seen in the big- screen remake of Whisky Galore! and he’s looking at a one- man tour – telling anecdotes and meeting fans – to celebrate his 70th year. He is also hoping to see T2. He’s in it, reprising his role as dad of Ewan McGregor’s Renton, but he missed the premiere because he was in the Big Brother house. It seems freedom comes at a cost.