SHERWOOD BIG PICTURE
PRODUCTION
HOUSE PRODUCTIONS TURNED THE CLOCK BACK TO 80S ERA NOTTINGHAM FOR ITS NEW JAMES GRAHAM-PENNED CRIME THRILLER, SHERWOOD, FOR THE BBC. PIPPA CONSIDINE REPORTS
DETAILS
Broadcaster: BBC Production company: House Productions, BBC Studios Commissioners: Charlotte Moore, Piers Wenger Writer: James Graham Executive producers: Lewis Arnold, James Graham, Juliette Howell, Tessa Ross, Harriet Spencer, Ben Irving Directors: Lewis Arnold, Ben A Williams Producer: Rebecca Hodgson Cinematography: Sam Care, Simon Archer Editor: Sacha Szwarc, Sam White Casting director: Victor Jenkins Production designer: Anna Higginson Supervising location manager: Jessica Dove Lead cast: Lesley Manville, David Morrissey, Robert Glenister Colourist: Aidan Farrell
Graham. Having worked with Graham on Brexit: The Uncivil War, House Productions wanted to help him turn his rumble into a TV drama. The resulting six-part series, Sherwood, is based
I
on two unrelated murders in Nottingham in 2004, which brought back memories from the miners’ strikes of the early ‘80s. “It felt really valuable to be exploring our recent past and things that upset and provoke us,” says Graham, who immersed himself in research to create a detailed and empathetic picture. Former BBC director of drama Piers Wenger
greenlit the project in 2019, at early development stage. “I have very affectionate memories of great, state of the nation, long-running dramas with the BBC,” says Graham, citing Alan Bleasedale’s 1982 Boys from the Black Stuff. Graham thrashed out the plot with colleagues in
a way that smacks of a police incident room scene. “Juliette Howell, Harriet Spencer, Tessa Ross would be in a room, and we’d put sheets on the wall and pace around with a marker pen.” Assuming that someone would die in the first episode, the plot engine for the rest of the series was a manhunt. “We knew who the killer was - whodunnit – but not whydunnit.” The story of community and the dark mystery of spy cops were secondary elements. Director Lewis Arnold joined the brainstorm
’d had this story inspired from my local community rumbling around my head for 10 years,” says Nottingham-born writer James
McGovern, where he had been shooting inside prison cells. “I didn’t feel particularly anxious in some of the smaller terraced houses.” While some scenes were shot in and
around Nottingham, it was Manchester - with its TV infrastructure – that doubled for Nottingham for much of the filming. The six-episodes were shot in two blocks
of just over eight weeks each. Arnold directed the first block, Ben A Williams the second. Scheduling the shoot required patience and
imagination, with Covid protocols paring down the numbers on location and making the fine timing of some cast members close to unworkable. Lesley Manville was also shooting The Crown with Left Bank Pictures, in Prague. “The generosity of other productions made it happen,” says Howell. The production used Alexa cameras and
“IT FELT REALLY VALUABLE TO BE EXPLORING OUR RECENT PAST AND THINGS THAT UPSET AND PROVOKE US”
anamorphic lenses, shot 2:1, rather than full anamorphic. They filmed ‘80s period piece flashbacks using 16mm lenses and graded slightly differently. The opening sequence
of the series changed over time. “We decided that the audience needed
to have context early on,” explains Arnold. Episode one starts with haunting sound and a blend of stock footage from the ‘80s strikes. Central to the plot are two men hiding in the
sessions. “When Lewis came on board, he started to interrogate the script in a different way,” says exec Juliette Howell. She describes Arnold’s approach as “exacting” and “rigorous,” but also open. “With James, it’s very collaborative and we needed someone who could also work in this way.” Arnold brought with him a loyal team
of collaborators including editor Sacha Szwarc, casting director Victor Jenkins and production designer Anna Higginson. In the first design meetings, they established
a need to avoid cliches of grim streets in the Midlands. Instead, they wanted “scale, a sense of cinema, through the use of landscape in particular,” says Howell. True Detective and Mare of East Town were referenced. “We made a clear decision early on that we
wouldn’t set build,” says Arnold. It helped that his last project was BBC drama Time, with Jimmy
forest. Arnold talks about the forest as a character and feels that it lends a sense of history. “I tried to put in an element of the forest and woodland even in smaller locations, looking to bring in wilderness and the wild and to allow that to foreshadow.” For both Graham and Arnold, the storytelling
was an ongoing process throughout the production. “I was still writing a lot of the second block whilst filming the first block,” says Graham, “I would find myself with David Morrissey of an evening still talking about upcoming elements and particularly about his back-story, and adding more detail.” Arnold felt compelled to sneak into the second block of filming, so that he could add beats to various scenes and rebalance earlier episodes. The BBC listened to the production team
on scheduling. Releasing two episodes a week went against the trend to drop a series on iPlayer, but reflects the eighties theme. “It speaks to a time when people did gather round more collectively,” says Graham.
Summer 2022
televisual.com 79
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122
