Devilish Dickens (From The Northern Echo)

Devilish Dickens

2:28pm Tuesday 27th December 2011 in Features By Steve Pratt

Father and daughter, Ray and Jaime Winstone, talk about being on the wrong side of the law when it comes to bringing classic fiction to TV. Steve Pratt reports.

CHRISTMAS without a BBC show or drama is not really Christmas is it?” states Ray Winstone, the East Londonborn actor noted for his tough guys roles. “You have enough to drink and eat and then you sit down by the fire and watch a good drama, and there’s nothing better than Dickens at Christmas,” he says.

And if you do watch the BBC’s Christmas Dickens offering, you’ll also see Winstone following in the footsteps of such actors as Finlay Currie and James Mason by playing fearsome convict Abel Magwitch in Great Expectations.

Dickens’ novel comes to BBC1 in a three-part adaptation by Sarah Phelps with a cast that also includes Gillian Anderson, David Suchet and Douglas Booth.

Just as Currie in David Lean’s 1946 critically-acclaimed version left his indelible mark on the impressionable young Ray, Winstone is now set to strike fear into the hearts of a new generation of youngsters when he emerges from the shadows of a foggy marshland to pounce on 11-year-old Pip (played by Oscar Kennedy). The encounter will change both lives forever.

“I remember that the film came out with Sir John Mills and Sir Alec Guinness. It kind of stuck in my mind, especially the sequence at the beginning in the graveyard – it scared me. It was the kind of image that stuck with me all of my life really,” says Winstone.

“It was the character in the film actually, the old boy who played him, the fear you have as a kid, someone coming out of the dark, the kind of thing you have nightmares about.

“As I got older, I began to realise what the film was all about, it is such great writing. The fact that it’s about where we come from, the inverted snobbery of people from other worlds, and what love is, and how love can be so cold.

“There’s a hell of a lot going on in it.

Maybe as a kid you don’t understand, but you get it when you get older.”

• Great Expectations: BBC1, Dec 27-29, 9pm

Polished Poirot

JAIME Winstone, best known for gritty films such as Kidulthood and Donkey Punch, throws aside her usual urban garb in favour of elegant Thirties attire for Agatha Christie’s The Clocks, the latest in ITV’s Poirot series.

“I’m very much into my fashion so I loved having the chance to dress up in original vintage clothes from the Thirties,” she says. “Everything was done to perfection so you instantly felt part of that era and I became very old-fashioned with my mannerisms.

“I’d find myself going home after a day of filming and my boyfriend photographer, Tom Beard, would be like, ‘You’re being very weird’ as I’d still be acting in character.”

The actress daughter of screen tough guy Ray Winstone plays secretary Sheila Webb, the prime suspect when a man is found stabbed in a room in which four clocks are frozen at the time of 4.13. As the evidence builds against Sheila, it’s left to Poirot (played by David Suchet) to uncover the truth.

“Sheila leapt out of the pages at me and not every script does that,” says Winstone. “She has this home girl essence, but at the same time you’re not too sure about her. As the story unfolds, you find out that she doesn’t really have anyone and she’s been leading a bit of a double life.”

Although she’s more of a graphic novel kind of girl as far as detectives are concerned, she’s been a lifelong Poirot fan. “My nan and grandad used to read the stories to me when I was young,” she says, adding that her father and uncle are huge Poirot obsessives.

“They’ve even got the box sets. That’s why, when I got seen for the part of Sheila Webb, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I just have to do this’. I thought my dad and uncle would be so proud.”

As a fan of the Belgian detective, Winstone embraced the fact David Suchet remained in character when the cameras stopped rolling. “He made an announcement at the read-through.

He said, ‘I put on the moustache and I become the character. Please don’t be intimidated or feel as though you can’t come and talk to me’.

So I just hung out with David most of the time, which was just so cool. I’d go and sit with Poirot for lunch and it wouldn’t even be weird.”

As is tradition, she plans to join the rest of the Winstone clan at the family home in Essex this Christmas. “It’s always massive and we have a Winstone party in the bar,” she says referring to the pub her parents built in the garden.

• Poirot: The Clocks: Boxing Day, ITV1, 9pm