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Article Source: The Northern Echo
Originally written by: Unknown Date Published: October 16th 2000 Copyright: The Northern Echo via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company. Article Provided by: Scorpio A Career Move That's Pure Poetry The Bill actor Michael Higgs has swapped the Sun Hill beat for the First World War trenches in a new short film on Tyne Tees Television. Wilfred, a 14-minute drama made by Harrogate-based Duchy Parade Films, receives its TV premiere as part of Strange Meeting, a programme about the making of the film. Higgs himself will be on stage in London's West End at the time in the production of David Hare's play The Blue Room which has transferred from Chichester Festival Theatre. He plays the Great War poet Wilfred Owen in the film, which was the first UK drama on 35mm film to use digital post-production to scan and record by laser to create release print. After being premiered at Harrogate Odeon earlier this year, the first public performance was at Thirsk's Ritz cinema in June. Higgs was cast after Wilfred's producer-director Peter M Kershaw saw him on TV playing PC Eddie Santini, a devious copper who was accused of sexual harassment by a female colleague and ended up on trial for his double dealing. "The director saw me on The Bill and thought, 'yeah, he could play Wilfred Owen' which is great because I wouldn't be the obvious choice from watching The Bill," says the actor. The transformation was complete once he'd had a haircut, grown a moustache, trimmed his sideburns and donned heavy army uniform. "It's amazing what a good haircut and some facial hair can do," he says. He spent a week filming in North Yorkshire where the trenches were recreated in a quarry near Ripon. The Royal Baths in Harrogate doubled as a field hospital. Other scenes were shot around Ripon and Fountains Abbey. Owen had close links with North Yorkshire. He wrote many of his best-known poems while based in Ripon and Scarborough before returning to action on the Western front. He was 25 when he was killed, a week before the Armistice was signed. "It's very much an evocation of the First World War with poetry spoken over the top," says Higgs. "They have done amazing things with the quality and production values using new digital technology." Wilfred mixes live action with cutting edge animation from Robert Jefferson and David Bunting. Derek Jacobi, Edward Fox, Robert Duncan and the poet Tony Harrison feature reading Owen's works. Like many schoolchildren, Higgs was exposed to Owen's war poetry as a 15-year-old. "It's the sort of poetry that makes most impact. It's not that cerebral. You don't think, 'what on earth is he talking about?'. It's very visceral and I remember thinking, 'this is amazing'. I hadn't looked at his poetry for years before getting the part and it still seemed incredible when I re-read it. Each poem seems to be based on a particular experience he had on the Front. "The film was a real pleasure to make. I'd worked in the theatre in Harrogate and at Scarborough a couple of times so I had been in the area before." Wilfred was one of Higgs' first film roles. Before his 16-month stint in The Bill he'd done mainly theatre work. "Eddie Santini was a good character to play," he says. "I was very lucky - I got fantastic storylines which were quite high profile. I thought when I joined it would be nice to do for a year, to do some work in front of a camera instead of on stage." Higgs actually entered acting "by mistake". He worked in a recording studios for 18 months after moving to London from the Midlands. "It didn't seem to quite suit me. I identified more with the bands coming in and thought I'd like to be in a band myself. I decided to take some improvisation and drama classes to go with the performing on stage and was encouraged a lot in that direction," he recalls. "After six months of resisting I realised that I loved it. People encouraged me to act and told me I was good at it. So I became an actor." Since being premiered, Wilfred has been on release in cinemas but the Tyne Tees screening will bring it a massive audience. Kershaw, who also directed Strange Meeting, says: "It's good to be involved in the television presentation of the story." Although it will reach a bigger audience on television, it will go down in cinema history as the first 35mm British film to be post- produced entirely on a fully digital process." |