Cranford's producer, Sue Birtwistle, tells how a tale in found in Nottingham inspired the series
ON the day I'm due to phone Sue Birtwistle, producer of the BBC's Sunday best-bonnet-wearing drama Cranford, I'm dressed all in black. "I'm in mourning for Miss Deborah," I tell her, semi-seriously. "Oh – are you really?!" she cries, apparently thrilled.
In fact, my sable attire is more connected to the fact I need to do a whites wash. But I could easily be in mourning for Miss Deborah. Played with pursed-lipped propriety by the wondrous Eileen Atkins, Miss Deborah is a character I have taken very much to my heart during Cranford's short run.
Her drop from shock a fortnight ago – a tragic reaction to the news that the railway was about to encroach on her precious 1840s world – reduced me to sobs.
"My sister phoned yesterday and was really upset about it too," Sue says. "That's one of the joys of this series. It's not like doing something like Sense and Sensibility where everyone knows the story. Nobody knows what's going to happen next."
Sue's still busy putting the finishing touches to the series.
"We delivered Part Five to the BBC today," she explains.
This frantic finish is as a result of what she refers to as an "accelerated delivery" which sounds like the very last thing they'd go for in dear, gentle Cranford where even French lace and steam trains seem alarmingly venturesome.
The BBC was originally going to screen the series in the spring but changed their minds and said they wanted it before Christmas.
With filming having only been completed in August, it's been a little bit of a scramble to finish it.
"What makes it really complex is that it's three books put together," explains Sue.
Cranford's helter-skelter finish seems at odds with its hitherto snail's-pace conception (of which, no doubt, the deliciously conservative Miss Deborah would have approved).
Sue has a track record in costume drama that goes back to the Colin Firth-Jennifer Ehle version of Pride and Prejudice. In fact, Sue was the one who insisted on Colin Firth.
"The director said, 'You can't cast him – he's not sexy enough,'" she laughs. "Even Colin thought he wasn't sexy enough. And at the time he had gingery-brown hair and a moustache. He looked disastrous – like an unmade bed. But I managed to convince everyone it would work."
Speaking on behalf of the females of Britain, I tell her we're greatly indebted.
Seven years ago, after she adapted Wives and Daughters – another work by the author of Cranford, Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, somebody suggested to Sue she ought to take a look at Cranford.
Her friends seemed to think Sue ought to have a natural affinity with Gaskell, having grown up in Cheshire, where Cranford – based on Knutsford – is set.
They were right. For Sue, the delight of a work lies in the detail. Her Pride and Prejudice was characterised by its intricately-observed minor characters who formed a bustling backdrop to Darcy and Lizzie's slow-burning romance.
In many ways, Cranford is more of the same.
Its magnificent cast (Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Julia McKenzie... in short, a veritable roll-call of British acting greats) play an entire village full of gossipy widows and spinsters who engage in histrionic handkerchief-fanning every time a cow escapes from its field or somebody eats an orange with a little too much gusto.
It even uses the same setting as the town in Pride and Prejudice – Lacock, a National Trust village in Wiltshire.
"I grew up about seven miles from where Gaskell lived in Cheshire and it did seem like familiar territory to me," admits Sue.
"But I didn't think there was enough going on in the novel of Cranford itself.
"There were wonderful bits and pieces of stories but I knew , from my experience of television, that you needed more of a plot to sustain a big drama serial."
That's where the Bromley House Library, in Angel Row, Nottingham, came in.
Having lived in Nottingham during the 1970s, Sue had plenty of friends here and she asked former Playhouse assistant director Pat Silburn to investigate some further Gaskell works.
"I noticed Gaskell used the same characters in different guises. I thought we'd be able to find other Gaskell novels based on a town like Cranford and that would give us enough material for a programme." she says.
While searching through Bromley House's yellowing collection of Victorian works, Pat came across two Gaskell novellas: My Lady Ludlow and Mr Harrison's Confessions.
Scriptwriter Heidi Thomas duly wove the works together to form the TV series.
As producer, Sue has overseen the entire production, from first idea to successful screening."It's a wonderful job. I get to work with absolutely everybody," she says"I came up through the theatre – having worked at the Playhouse in Nottingham – so my specialist areas are the scripts and the casting.".
Sue began her career as an actress in Coventry. It was after she moved to Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum that she met her husband – the director and former Nottingham Playhouse and National Theatre boss Richard Eyre.
"I understand he was very struck with your suede hot pants," I tell her.
"How did you know that?" she asks.
"Oh, it's on the internet," I reply, breezily (safely tucked away in a national newspaper's archives, it should be added).
There's a small scream from the other end of the phone. "I'm going to have to be very careful what I tell people from now on!" she laughs.
The couple moved to Nottingham in 1973, after both were offered jobs – he running the Playhouse; she the Young People's Company, a community theatre group.
"We lived on Second Avenue, Sherwood Rise," she recollects. "It was a fantastic detached house with a huge garden which we bought at auction. We had loads of bedrooms and we had all sorts of people to stay... Jonathan Pryce, Tony Sher... [That's Antony to you and me, duck].
"I loved living in Nottingham. It was a fantastic, friendly city."
The couple stayed in the city until 1978 when they moved to London and Sue made the switch into television. Productions like Marmalade Atkins and Hotel du Lac followed before Pride and Prejudice.
She believes that Cranford has "The Pride and Prejudice effect".
"I do have the same feeling I had then – that it's entering the nation's consciousness. There are huge pre-orders on the DVD.
"And, of course, it's just such a wonderful cast. Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton... it's a dream."
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