Film star was a regular visitor to Gloucester
IF you’d pottered down to Gloucester Docks this week in 1995 you might have thought you’d inadvertently passed through a fissure in the time-space continuum and popped up in 18th century Marseilles.
Tricolour flags fluttered, the babble of matelots in striped jumpers and pom-pom hats filled the air, as did a delicious whiff of garlic, herbs and enough je ne sais crois to suggest the catering arrangements were notably good.
You would, in fact, have found yourself on the set of a French film starring Fabrice Luchini, Manuel Blanc and Sandrine Kiberlain titled “Beaumarchais L’insolent”.
Gloucester Docks, suitably garbed in Francophile frippery, provided the backdrop to this romp about an adventurer and scoundrel at the time of the American Civil War who lurches from one set of scrapes and shenanigans to the next. It was released in 1996.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen the film or heard of its leading actors, so please don’t be concerned if you haven’t either.
But the biggest star of this splendid example of the French movie-makers’ art (if that’s what it is) is no stranger to Gloucester Docks, or to the many local people who go to see her elegant form whenever she’s in the city.
Weighing 450 tons and measuring 153 feet in length, Kaskelot must surely be the biggest film star ever seen in Gloucester.
The tall ship sails up the canal from Sharpness every so often for an overhaul at Tommi Nielsen’s graving yard in Gloucester docks. And what a fine sight to behold she is.
Kaskelot (which means sperm whale in Danish) is one of the largest remaining wooden ships in commission.
She was built with a double skinned hull of oak by the Danish shipbuilder Jorgen Ring Andersen in 1948 for the Royal Greenland Trading Company, then in the late 1960s worked as a fisheries support vessel in The Faroes.
In 1981 the three masted barque was bought by The Square Sail company, based in Charlestown, Cornwall who re-rigged her to replicate the Terra Nova for a film about Captain Scott’s ill fated expedition to the South Pole.
In different guises the ship has notched up an impressive list of film credits, including Shackleton, The Last Place on Earth, Cutthroat Island , Swept from the Sea, Return to Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers, Revolution, Longitude, David Copperfield, A Respectable Trade and Amy Foster.
Stars who have trodden her boards include Sir Ian Mckellen, Kiefer Sutherland, Kenneth Branagh, Geena Davis, Joss Ackland, Zoe Wanamaker, Charlie Sheen, Tim Curry, Paul Mcgann, Jeremy Irons, Frank Finlay and Warren Clarke. Quite a cast list.
More recently Kaskelot has featured in the hit TV series Poldark.
Along with her three masts and 17 sails, Kaskelot has a 475HP diesel engine and a crew of 18.
In 2013 Kaskelot made Gloucester Docks her home for eight months while undergoing substantial repairs and refurbishments at Tommi Nielsen’s yard.
By then her home port was Bristol, but in 2018 she was sold to a new owner, renamed Le Francais and now operates out of Saint Malo in Brittany.
When berthed in Gloucester Docks she looks perfectly at home, complementing and complemented by the historic warehouses, fixtures and fittings.
She’s also a visual reminder of days gone by when elegant vessels of this kind brought timber from Russia, grain from Canada, salt cod from Iceland and other commodities from all over the world to Britain’s most inland port.