Simon’s oriental adventure

‘My whole body was stained blue from my costume – in the mirror stood a curly-haired Smurf drinking the last of his duty-free whisky’

TWENTY YEARS ago I was filming The Opium War, a Chinese propaganda production that sought to explain how they’d been outwitted by the tiny rolypoly Queen Victoria. The director, Xie Jin, liked my nose apparently, and thought it perfectly represented British imperialism, so I was given the script and told, ‘Mr Xie wants you to like it.’

I didn’t. It had been written in Chinese then translated by the man who wrote the Kung Fu movies. As Admiral Sir Charles Elliot, I had the line, ‘Scram, you guys – beat it!’ My favourite was, ‘Wholly (sic) shit!’ But nobody was bothered, the English dialogue was going to be dubbed – I might as well have been reciting Thought for the Day in Welsh.

Our translator didn’t speak English as well as they thought she did, so there were some pretty random exchanges. After my first ‘take’ I asked, ‘What about the continuity?’ She smiled, ‘Till six o’clock.’ Scenes were rehearsed with local actors and we were then instructed to watch and copy them – tail wagging the dog.

My admiral’s uniform was made of Dralon, a fabric better suited to old sofas in theatrical digs, and it was decreed that all English men had curly hair. The heat was ferocious so at the end of the day my whole body was stained with the blue dye from my costume – in the bathroom mirror stood a curly-haired Smurf drinking the last of his duty-free whisky and missing home like never before. To cheer me up my wife faxed me the Telegraph crossword and the Test match scores. Also, I had a secret stash of Hobnobs.

We had some magnificent banquets, our hosts joking that the Chinese would eat the legs off anything, including your chair – ha ha. There were no birds anywhere and the pet shop I found in the market turned out to be a butcher’s. To save refrigeration costs the dogs were only slaughtered when a customer had been found for every joint. Smoking seemed to be compulsory – a popular brand of cigarette was Double Happiness, advertised on posters with cheesy westerners in polo-neck sweaters.

Outside our hotel in Dongyan was a sign: ‘Hotel Not Open To People Be Sloppily Dressed’ – it should be the title of a Bob Dylan album. We were given a wonderful welcome there and my happiest memory is of playing with the local children. I like to think that some of them are today heading trade delegations across the world and showing their hosts what they learnt from me: Here’s the church and here’s the steeple. Open the door and see all the people. Here’s the parson going upstairs, And here he is saying his prayers. Simon plays Justin Elliott in The Archers and is in Alan Bennett’s new play , Allelujah!, at The Bridge Theatre