Ian Rankin is a happy man. We are in one of his favourite pubs. From
our position in the snug of Bennets Bar in Tollcross we are watching the
filming of
It’s a hugely atmospheric boozer – all
warming log fires, giant gilded mirrors, elegant wooden tracery,
extensive single-malt whisky menus and tables inlaid with maps of
Edinburgh. We are stationed next to a bookcase, where the first novel to
catch my eye is – you’ve guessed it –
Doors Open.
Looking
dreamily into the middle distance, Rankin remembers how he found this
place. “This was the first Edinburgh pub I drank in. I was sharing a
flat with a mate from school who was studying architecture. His first
project was about this pub. So we’d move in here every night and do
research.”
As content as he is today, Rankin, 52, won’t be rushing
to spend a lot more time on film sets. He is used to the solitary, but
fairly straightforward process of writing – where it’s just one man and
his word processor. So he has been taken aback by the sheer complexity
of a big film production – which is more like a hundred people and a
million gadgets.
Rankin, best known for his
Rebus novels, says the
filming process is a mystery to him. “Writing a book, I get no sense of
just how difficult it is to organise a shoot. I did my first individual
cameo yesterday. I played a man at an auction house chatting to Stephen
Fry. I had to wear a suit. Luckily I have one that I wear to weddings
and funerals, but it was still odd.
“Initially, the filming was
quite exciting. But we ended up doing my scene about 15 times – and they
never told us why we had to redo it. It was like being Charlie Watts
who once said that being in the Rolling Stones was a case of playing for
five years and hanging around for 45 years.”
Hanging around
aside, Rankin is delighted that ITV have turned his novel into a TV
drama, which will be broadcast on Boxing Day. His
Rebus novels have
already been made into a series of memorable TV films, starring
John
Hannah and then
Ken Stott. So what is it about Rankin’s writing that
lends itself so well to the small screen? Gina Carter, the executive
producer of
Doors Open, says plot has a lot to do with it. “Ian writes
incredibly entertaining books. They’re real page-turners. You get
completely engrossed in them. Also,
Doors Open is about a victimless
crime that doesn’t require any blood or death, which is a great part of
its charm.”
Jon Finn, the producer of
Doors Open, which is
scripted by James Mavor and Sandi Toksvig, chimes in, “Ian’s work is a
gift for any screenwriter. He has that quality that all great thriller
writers have: you endlessly want to keep turning the pages. Reading his
novels is like visiting an old friend.”
Doors Open tells the story
of Mike Mackenzie (
Henshall), a self-made millionaire who is bored by
his cosseted lifestyle. When he learns that the love of his life, Laura
Stanton (Lenora Critchlow from
Being Human) – an art
expert who ditched him five years ago - has returned to Edinburgh, he hatches a plot to win her back.
After
a night drinking in their local – stand up Bennets Bar – Mike and his
close friends, disgruntled art academic Professor Gissing (Fry) and
disillusioned banker Allan Cruickshank (Kenneth Collard,
The Borgias),
plot and scheme how they will pull off an audacious crime.
They
aim to con one of the most high-value targets in the country – a
national bank’s priceless art collection which is hidden away from
public view in a high-security vault.
The idea is to replace the
invaluable works of art with undetectably exact forgeries. They intend
to execute this fiendishly clever conceit on the one day of the year
Edinburgh’s buildings of special interest are open, thanks to the “Doors
Open” scheme. What could possibly go wrong?
Finn reveals that the
production created its own counterfeit paintings for the drama. “In
making the fakes, we stole bits from all over the place – in the style
of Picasso. He had a saying that good art is a copy, great art is a
steal. So we knocked off a genius.”
The conspirators in
Doors Open
view their act as “freeing” timeless works from their private
seclusion. In the pub, Gissing rationalises their plan to his
collaborators: “We’re not stealing. We’d be liberating them.”
“You mean like a heist?” Allan ripostes. “Like The Italian
Job?”
“Yes, sort of,” Gissing rejoins. “But less Italian. And less jobby.”
Finn
explains, “Most national galleries only display three per cent of their
collection at any one time. They have so many spare Warhols lying
around. The depositories are in inconspicuous suburban areas, so no one
knows this stuff is just lying around there.”
So is there some
moral justification for the plan? Rankin adds, “Gissing is exasperated
by the way in which art is treated as a commodity by these institutions.
They do not display these great works of art, but keep them as
collateral.
“Banks own huge collections that are kept locked away
out of public view. And the National Galleries north and south of the
Border have more art than they can ever show. It’s very frustrating
because it’s ours!”
It is not an entirely black and white issue,
though. As Rankin says, “It’s quite complex. Are they freeing these
works or are they greedy sods who just want to hold onto these works for
themselves?”
Joining our table at Bennets Bar,
Henshall takes up the theme.
“There’s
not a great deal of logic to Mike’s plan. In a sober moment, you would
say that it is illogical and stupid, but at that moment in the pub, it
makes complete sense.
“It may be stupid, but there’s also a lot of
nobility in his quest. So much of the best art is hidden away in
cellars and not shown to the public. It’s not bought by people who love
art – it’s merely purchased as an investment. But great art should be
for the people and seen by the people. I hope that viewers will be
rooting for Mike. He’s a very sympathetic character.”
Henshall says the cast had a great time getting dressed up for the heist.
“We
went for retro disguises. So I looked like someone from a 1970s
Norwegian rock band, and Kenneth looked like the Portuguese rep for
Nandos.”
Of course the other major character in
Doors Open is
Edinburgh. 47-year-old Henshall, dapper with his swept-back blond hair,
white shirt and immaculately cut black overcoat, says, “The producers
were determined to shoot here – they didn’t want to film anywhere else.
“Edinburgh
is so specific looking, and it’s such a photogenic place. 2000 years of
history have gone into this city. If you’re a director of photography,
Edinburgh is a dream because the light is amazing and everywhere you
look, there is a great shot. I’m not nationalistic in any way, shape or
form, but I’m absolutely delighted it’s being filmed here. I can’t
imagine it being shot anywhere else.”
The actor, well-known for
his roles in
Primeval,
Collision,
The Silence and
The Secret of Crickley
Hall, adds that Bennets Bar is the ideal location for the drama’s
crucial planning scene. “There are so few bars like this nowadays.
Everything is an O’B*llocks fake Irish pub. It’s nice to find somewhere
like this with genuine character.”
Finn agrees, “Edinburgh is the most distinctive city in the UK.
“You
can’t fling a camera at it without it looking fantastic. It’s a city
built around monuments. The buildings are spectacular, and the hills
give it layers. In places, it’s like an Escher drawing – one road going
this way and one road going that way.”
Carter adds, “Edinburgh is
so filmic. It’s a very rare combination of elements. You have both a
massive castle and rolling hills in the city centre. You don’t get that
in Oxford Street in London. Also, Ian writes about Edinburgh so
beautifully.”
In his novels, Rankin has certainly always been
fascinated by the duality of Edinburgh, and
Doors Open gives him another
chance to explore that. “In the crime novels, I’m always talking about
the underbelly of Edinburgh,” he says. “This book allowed me to talk
about the other Edinburgh, the Edinburgh in which self-made millionaires
go to auction houses for something to do. There are not many self-made
millionaires in my crime novels.”
Expanding on the concept of the
city’s ambiguity, he says, “Structurally, Edinburgh is Jekyll and Hyde.
It’s a city of haves and have-nots. Are the tourists seeing the real
Edinburgh or what the city fathers want them to see?”
He believes
that Edinburgh is a constant source of inspiration to writers, “The city
continues to surprise. So many authors are writing about it because it
shows so many different facets to us all. If I’d made sense of
Edinburgh, I’d have stopped writing about it by now.
“But I’m
always finding new things to talk about. Every time you think you’ve
done it, something else comes along like the Parliament, the financial
crisis or
the trams. I have a love-hate thing with Edinburgh. But I
have no interest in writing about London. I’ve never found a place I
want to write about more than Edinburgh.”
Another element that
makes
Doors Open so watchable is that it pivots on a heist. Carter says,
“There is a certain caper-ish element to a heist that we all enjoy.
Look at films like
The Italian Job,
Ocean’s Eleven or
The Ladykillers.
“Also, you can’t do a heist on your own because that’s just robbery.
So
a heist will inevitably involve lots of different people. That makes it
engaging because you’re following all these different characters. It’s a
terrific ensemble vehicle. Heist dramas are thrillers, chases, ‘will
they, won’t they?’s and big set pieces all rolled into one. They tick
all the boxes for great entertainment.”
Finn says that the
characters have gelled so well in
Doors Open that he could envisage a
further life for them. “I’d love to do another drama with these
characters. It would be great fun. What could they do next? How about
breaking into Fort Knox like Goldfinger?”
Henshall lives in London
these days, but he has relished working in Scotland on
Doors Open. It
has also given him the chance to catch up with his beloved St Mirren.
“We’re
the only team that have ever sacked Sir Alex Ferguson,” he says. “That
sums up our history in one easy sentence. Our victories are always hard
won, and therefore much more enjoyed. It’s usually us and someone else
very bad fighting relegation – which adds a certain drama to the season.
That’s better than mid-table mediocrity. Who wants that?”
Doors
Open used a real-life Glasgow repository to film the key heist sequence,
a factor that invests the production with extra verisimilitude. Carter
recalls, “We shot in the Museums Resource Centre, where three national
collections are stored. Everything is there, from 19th century
masterpieces to modern sculptures and African art. There are also racks
and racks of great Scottish paintings. It’s stunning. But as you can
imagine, there were a lot of security guards keeping their eyes on us
all the time when we were filming there.”
Henshall says with
genuine awe, “I didn’t know places like that existed. But great
collections can’t show all their work all the time, and it has to be
kept somewhere. These wonderful paintings just appeared from drawers.
There was a wee Renoir in there that I was particularly fond of.”
A pause and a wry grin. “But I think they might have missed it.”
Doors Open is on STV on Boxing Day at 9pm.
Source (including photo):
Scotsman
Douglas Henshall to judge The Frank Deasy Award to develop Scottish drama-writing talent
Acclaimed Scottish actor Douglas Henshall will join
the judging panel on this year’s Frank Deasy Award 2012-13, an
initiative to develop television writing talent in Scotland in
conjunction with BBC Scotland, BBC Writersroom and Creative Scotland.
Henshall,
who will star in BBC Scotland’s new two-part crime drama
Shetland later
this year, will be joined on the judging panel by Edinburgh playwright
and director Zinnie Harris alongside Christopher Aird, Head of Drama,
BBC Scotland; Kate Rowland, BBC Creative Director, New Writing; and
Laura Mackenzie Stuart, Portfolio Manager, Creative Scotland.
Designed
to inspire, develop and celebrate writing talent in Scotland, the Frank
Deasy Award was named in honour of the Emmy-award winning writer whose
credits include
Prime Suspect – The Final Act,
Looking After Jo-Jo,
Real
Men and
The Passion. Deasy died in 2009.
Douglas Henshall
(
Shetland,
The Secret of Crickley Hall,
The Kidnap Diaries) says:
“Writers are so crucial to drama – without them people like me are out
of work – so to be involved in this award is an honour. After all,
writers are the past, present and future for drama.”
Read more at
BBC Media Centre 
