BONNIE ROLE FOR A RISING STAR
Meet the Londoner about to play The Young Pretender
IT is a tale of grand ambition and hopes dashed that has been celebrated and lamented in prose and song for centuries.
And now the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s ill-fated Jacobite rebellion is set to appear on the big screen, with an English actor playing the lead role.
Rising star Jamie Bacon will take on the role in a new film being shot around Scotland in the coming weeks, titled The Great Getaway.
Scenes will be shot in Galloway before moving to Skye and South Uist – the route taken by the fleeing prince – as well as the remote Knoydart peninsula, where Rome-born Charles Edward Stuart is supposed to have taken refuge after Culloden in 1746. Lewis will also be one of the locations.
The film is the first to be made about the prince for 60 years, following the 1948 production, Bonnie Prince Charlie, starring David Niven and Margaret Leighton. Legendary for its catastrophic box-office takings, the film also starred an English actor. Although Niven claimed to have been born in Kirriemuir, he was later revealed to have been born in London.
Bacon, 23, who is also from London, said that the first time he will set foot on Scottish soil will be just before filming starts on August 17. The eight-week shoot will culminate in the biggest battle scene ever staged in Scotland with 500 extras at Castle Kennedy, near Stranraer.
The actor said: “I have travelled widely all over the world, but I’ve never been to Scotland before. But then again neither had Bonnie Prince Charlie before he landed to reclaim the throne – so it will really be like I’m retracing history and playing the part. I was really surprised, but delighted, to win the role. I have absorbed myself in studying the prince.
“I am reading the script – which is brilliant – over and over. This is my biggest role to date – and my first lead – so I’m really excited. I will also not be using a Scottish accent, after all Charles was not Scottish either. I see him as a very complex and passionate character.
“I think he was a peacock on a white horse who only really became a man when he went on the run.”
Jamie, who went to a state school in Dorset and drama college in London, has already appeared in the films The Hoarder and Olive Green, as well as playing a gang leader in Holby City.
“I hope this film will be my big breakthrough,” he said. “Without giving too much away, Charles had a lot of flings and in the film there are one or two intense moments, but people will have to wait and see if Flora McDonald is one of them. They certainly had a chemistry.”
Director Robbie Moffat said casting the prince had proved difficult but he was confident he had found the right actor. He said: “We looked at a number of people – and talked to several about the role – over a long time, but finding somebody who was right for the part was a major concern. It held up filming. But in Jamie we have found the perfect choice.
“He is the right age with the right look and he can act brilliantly. I am convinced we have got a real star of the future. Bonnie Prince Charlie was born in Rome to a Polish mother and an English father. He did not have a Scottish accent. One of the things this film is trying to do is rid the story of its myths. It is trying to be as authentic as possible.”
The part of Flora MacDonald is being played by Glasgow-born Mhairi Calvey, who made her big screen debut in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, aged just five, 20 years ago.
WITH its various strands of romance, intrigue and epic failure, the story of Charles Edward Stuart has always been ripe for the big screen.
David Niven starred as The Young Pretender in 1948, and to say this was not the definitive version of the Jacobite Rebellion is something of an understatement.
There are high hopes that the latest movie about the ’45, starring Jamie Bacon as Bonnie Prince Charlie and about to start filming in Scotland, will bring the story to life for a whole new generation. Niven claimed to be born in Kirriemuir, but it was later revealed that he was actually from London. At least there is no such debate over the origins of Bacon: the 23-year-old Londoner admits he has never been to Scotland.
Not that this should stand in his way of playing the most famous nearly man in monarchy. Stuart himself had never set foot in Scotland until he landed on Eriskay in 1745. Brought up in Italy, his first language was French and he would not have heard a Scottish accent until his “homecoming”.
Perhaps more importantly, Flora MacDonald will be played by a Scot. Whether Glaswegian Mhairi Calvey is able to master the Hebridean lilt remains to be seen.