Poignant tale of the unexpected in the life of Roald Dahl
He may be famous for the riotously anarchic books that entranced generations of children. But the private life of Roald Dahl was one punctuated by tragedy as he raised his family amid the rolling fields of Great missenden in the Chilterns.
Now, that fascinating life — and especially his marriage to the Hollywood star Patricia Neal — is the subject of what will surely be a compelling picture starring Hugh Bonneville and Keeley Hawes.
Its title, To Olivia, captures the aching sadness that engulfed the couple in 1962 when their daughter, then just seven, died after contracting measles-induced encephalitis. Those two simple words were the dedication by Dahl in his novel Fantastic mr Fox, published six years after Olivia (played by Darcey ewart) died.
The film’s director, John Hay, described it to me as a story which ‘tracks the tears of a family’. Dahl and his wife had moved to the relative peace of their Buckinghamshire retreat from New york, after a horrific accident in which their four-month-old son Theo was struck by a taxi in the city, while in his pram, sustaining life-changing injuries.
To capture the look of the author — who was of Norwegian descent — Downton star Bonneville’s face was transformed. ‘People would walk past Hugh on set and not recognise him,’ said Hay. But for all the enduring fascination with the man who wrote James and The Giant Peach, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, matilda and The BFG, the director explained that his film puts a spotlight on Patricia Neal.
The american actress won an academy award, but ‘nobody really knows what she won the Oscar for’, he said. In fact, Neal took the best actress statuette for her performance in Hud, playing a shopworn housekeeper who swats away the attentions of Paul Newman, in the title role, as a hustler.
To Olivia features scenes of Neal making the picture with Newman (played by Sam Heughan, best known for his role as Jamie Fraser in TV’s Outlander).
Her Oscar win came two years after Olivia’s death. But a year after that, when pregnant with the couple’s fifth child, Lucy, she suffered a brain aneurysm. It caused a stroke which left her partially paralysed and unable to speak. Dahl helped his wife with the gruelling therapy needed if she was ever to walk, or talk, again.
Director Hay described Hawes, lauded for her superb work in Line Of Duty, The Bodyguard
and The Durrells, as a ‘revelation’ in the film. a dialect coach helped her perfect Neal’s smoky Kentucky drawl, reduced to a tortured rasp after her stroke. americans who have seen footage of Hawes ‘believe she’s american’, Hay said.
as with movies such as Shadowlands, which told the haunting story of C. S. Lewis and the death of his wife, this film promises to bring a new emotional depth to the public image of a beloved children’s author.
Principal photography was completed after Christmas, but the challenges of postproduction in the age of the coronavirus have been numerous, not least in finessing the score.
From January to early march, Hay and producer Donall mcCusker visited composer Debbie Wiseman at her home to hear her play early versions of the composition she’d created for To Olivia. But then suddenly, like other TV and film productions, activity ground to a halt because of the pandemic.
So they worked on the score remotely, using Skype and Zoom. ‘The footage played on a big screen in my room,’ Wiseman told me. ‘and they commented on the score. It was as if they were in the room with me.’
Clearly though, the next step — recording the score with a full orchestra, in a recording studio — was a bigger problem. Doing it on Zoom was ruled out. ‘you can’t have everybody in their bedrooms playing,’ Wiseman said. ‘They all need to be in the same room, with the same acoustics.’ She now hopes a ‘physically distant’ orchestra will be allowed into a recording studio next month.
Subject to stringent health and safety protocols, the recording studio has figured out a way to fit in 50 to 60 musicians — all seated two metres apart. ‘They’re making diagrams of how to set up the studio,’ Wiseman told me, adding with a sigh: ‘It will look incredibly odd to anyone watching.’
Few will be watching the process unfold, though, because only the musicians, technicians and director will be permitted in the studio, according to producer mcCusker. ‘all non-essential people — which includes myself, unfortunately — are not allowed in.’
But it does mean the movie can be completed in time for the autumn film festivals — assuming they’re still able to go ahead.