The sexiest thing on TV’s Dr Foster? A £6m PREFAB that’s built in just a week
FROM bare-chested Aidan Turner in Poldark to Rufus Sewell’s brooding Lord Melbourne in Victoria, every TV drama needs its eye candy. And last week viewers of BBC1’s hit drama Doctor Foster got their first glimpse of its sexy new star: a house. The magnificent glass palace complete with indoor swimming pool and sauna provides the backdrop for some of the most intense scenes in the gripping series. In the opening episode of series two, the doctor – played by Suranne Jones – gatecrashed her ex-husband Simon’s swanky party there. She had thought she’d seen the last of him after his betrayal, chronicled in the first series, but he has moved back to the fictional town of Parminster.
‘So this is what you get for £1 million!’ Dr Foster exclaimed on seeing the dream property.
But the true value of the house, which is actually in a Surrey backwater, would be closer to £6million, The Mail on Sunday has discovered.
It is, in fact, a superluxurious prefab. Manufacturer Huf Haus tailor-makes them at its factory in Germany, ships them to the UK in parts and puts them together in a week using 40 to 50 craftsmen.
Nick Esser, Huf Haus’s development executive in the UK, said: ‘I was watching the show with my wife and when we heard the mention of a million pounds, she burst out laughing.’ Bill TwistonDavies, the location manager for TV production company Drama Republic, travelled far and wide to find a suitably ostentatious house for Simon, played by Bertie Carvel, to flaunt at his ex-wife.
‘We wanted somewhere for a character with bags of money,’ he said. ‘He’s gone from being supposedly ruined and he comes back expensively dressed with an expensive car and expensive house. You’ll see the house throughout the series. It gets better and better.’
The owners, who did not want to be named, moved out of the four-bedroom property for several weeks during filming. They were paid about £5,000 a day.
The show could be a great advert for Huf Haus homes, although Mr Esser said: ‘It’s a shame the character living in it is a bit of a villain.’