TV Geography Strikes Again

[major_clanger]

Channel-surfing the other night I caught the middle of Part 2 of 37 Days, the BBC's dramatisation of the events leading up to the outbreak of the First World War. I found it so absorbing that I actually decided to stop watching and catch up property on iPlayer, so I saw Part 1 last night. I'm very impressed; from what I've seen so far, it does a nice job of summarising the colliding interests of pre-War Europe, a world where not just leaders but the diplomats who represented them were connected by blood.

One jarring moment though, came at 49:30 in Part 1. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey - played magnificently by Ian McDiarmid, aka Chancellor Palpatine - is seeing the ambassadors of Russia, Austria and Germany at the Foreign Office. After two difficult meetings he wants some fresh air for the third, so says he will talk with Prince Karl Max Furst von Lichnowsky in the garden.



I appreciate that the BBC probably couldn't get to use the FO (or FCO as it now is) for filming, which is a pity because thanks to attimes_bracing I've seen inside and it has some fantastic locations. But you don't have to be familiar with the Foreign Office to know that it sits at the south end of Whitehall and does not back on to extensive grounds. (And no, I don't think it's meant to be St James' Park.) Rather like the Underground gag in Thor 2, it ran straight into my But-London-doesn't-work-like-that filter.

Oddly, this was our second dose of McDiarmid in only a couple of days, in that we saw him in the new production of Brecht's The Life of Galileo at the Birmingham Rep. It's an excellent staging, based on a new translation, and McDiarmid was as memorable as you expect. Mind you, the play opens with him going through his morning ablutions and dressing, so we can say that we've seen a Dark Lord of the Sith in his boxer shorts...

Comments

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I had exactly the same thought. They walk in the gardens in an earlier scene, but it's a small, generic walk by a lawn. It made me wonder if the FO would have had this much in the way of grounds in 1914.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I've found a map of the area in 1799, some 70 years before the current Foreign Office building was build. The area was already built up as terraced housing (the north side of Downing Street is pretty much all that survives) so I doubt that there was much open space other than the parade ground of Horse Guards' Parade.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I am not sure why I italicised that bit...

Thank you for checking. It's an annoying thing for them to have done, really, isn't it? They could have just filmed that bit like the earlier bit, that had no indication of the scale of the garden they were in.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

I've been enjoying this series, too, but I was out yesterday and haven't seen the final part, so no spoilers, I don't want to know how it ends.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Ironically, two of the films I've seen with the most nail-biting tension have been United 93 and Valkyrie, neither of which exactly has a surprise ending.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

United 93 was a wonderful film.

[aeglefinus.livejournal.com]

From the Telegraph's review: "One other thing: why was Grey’s Foreign Office convened in Belfast City Hall? Did Justin Hardy, the director, think that, since no one goes to Northern Ireland, we would take it for Whitehall? Architecture always takes less easily to charades than actors."

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10681832/37-Days-BBC-Two-review.html

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

I have all three parts recorded - will probably watch tonight. I also very much enjoyed Paxman's series on The Great War. It nicely skewered some of my preconceptions, and made me realise just how little I actually know about that period.

[bdikkat.livejournal.com]

Evidently mostly filmed in N Ireland- which surprised ne as I would have put money on somewhere in central Europe.