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A sophisticated spy charms his way through the intrigue, lust and glamour of post-war London in BBC2’s gripping new drama Close To The Enemy
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Look out Tom Hiddleston, another hat’s about to be hurled into the ring for the role of James Bond. And the name’s Sturgess, Jim Sturgess, who plays suave secret intelligence officer Callum Ferguson in BBC2’s new seven-part drama Close To The Enemy.
Ferguson emits charm from every pore as he tries to persuade a German scientist to work for the RAF and help develop the jet engine in post-war Britain. And he’s a charmer too when it comes to the opposite sex, as both the beautiful actress Julia, played by Charity Wakefield, who like Ferguson is staying at the bombdamaged Connington Hotel in London, and the American Anglophile Rachel Lombard (Charlotte Riley) fall for him.
‘Stephen Poliakoff, the creator and director of the show, kept saying he wanted more charm from me,’ grins Jim, a 38-year- old Londoner whose acting career includes movies such as Cloud Atlas and One Day. ‘He’d say, “I want you to be more glinty”, and by the end of filming I knew exactly what he meant.’
Poliakoff, the man behind series such as Perfect Strangers, Dancing On The Edge and Shooting The Past, is one of TV’s most esteemed writers and his reputation has helped attract a strong cast including Alfred Molina, Lindsay Duncan, Phoebe Fox and American actress Angela Bassett for BBC2’s flagship autumn show. It follows Ferguson as he attempts to convince German scientist Dieter Koehler to work for the British in 1946, a war of persuasion fought many times in real life as the British, the Russians and the Americans jockeyed for supremacy at the start of the Cold War.
Close To The Enemy also touches on something else that really happened in the late 1940s, the attempt to hunt down Nazi war criminals. Phoebe Fox plays Kathy Griffiths, a determined young woman from the War Crimes Unit intent on bringing to justice Nazis who’ve been given immunity from prosecution in return for their scientific expertise.
Most of the filming took place in Liverpool, where a disused bank doubled as the Connington Hotel, where much of the action is set. ‘It’s full of war-damaged people,’ says Stephen Poliakoff. ‘Every- one’s seen something terrible or lost someone dear to them. But there’s humour too. Ferguson’s brother Victor, played by Freddie Highmore, is funny even though he has an air of tragedy, having survived the Battle of Monte Cassino.’
Ferguson encounters a number of characters at the hotel whose stories intertwine. Alfred Molina appears as Harold Lindsay-Jones, a Foreign Office official who reveals some startling truths
about the outbreak of the war, while Lindsay Duncan is the formidable Frau Bellinghausen, who’s trying to rebuild her life after the conflict.
There’s also lashings of glamour, with Angela Bassett, who won a Golden Globe for her role as Tina Turner in the biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It?, playing Eva, an American singer who performs at the Connington. Angela reckons the singing she had to do here was one of the scariest challenges she’s ever faced. ‘I didn’t know I’d be doing it,’ she laughs. ‘I said to Stephen, “I’m looking forward to the lip-synching, I’m very good at it” and he said, “It’s not lip-synching, it’s singing!” But I enjoyed the experience and it worked out rather well.’
Close To The Enemy starts on Thursday at 9pm on BBC2.
BED AND BAWDY Stephen Poliakoff has set other dramas in hotels, including Dancing On The Edge and Perfect Strangers. ‘It brings the characters together,’ he says. ‘There are bedrooms too. What more could you want?’