Nanny – Michael Custance, Part 3

It was the last episode of the first series.  At dinner with actor Guy Slater and the writer Cary Harrison, (son of Rex Harrison – star of ‘My Fair Lady’), Guy announced that the BBC had just called and asked him to make a second series. Cheers all around till Guy said he wanted to start the series with doing the unforgivable, and kill the baby. Would Cary write it and would I direct the three episodes. Darned right I will.

Sadly during those years babies often died. We discussed how the baby should die.  All sorts of diseases were discussed getting more and more unusual.  I said why not just ordinary gastroenteritis. They had not invented penicillin then or at least they had but did not know how to use it. I know because my bother James had died of gastroenteritis aged five in 1947.

They gave him penicillin but in one large dose. It did not work. As we now know it has to be a course of treatment and not just one dose. I described how it effected my mother, my father and myself.  The matter was left at that.

I had just got into bed when the phone rang. It was Carey, “Would you and your family mind if I based the three episodes on your brother’s death?”  I said I would talk to my mother who was living in Gozo, even though she would probably never see it as she had no TV.  She said, yes, if I was directing it.  So that is what we did.  I spent a weekend with Carey discussing the real events and the casting of my mother, father and self.

While shooting there were two moments that caused problems.  My mother was not allowed to go near or even touch James as he was in isolation. She just had to watch him as he slowly died. She left the hospital and alone walked home, 13kms. To show this half conscious women treading slowly step by step over that distance I created a very long tracking shot with Anna Cropper playing mother staring at nothing, moving mechanically and way beyond tears.  The head of BBC drama told me the shot was far too long and that nobody would do that. “My mother did !”  “OK then”.

Another moment was when mother still dumb with shock was burning all James’s toys, books and teddy bear, everything of his was on a bonfire in the garden and myself standing aside watching.  When we came to shoot this I got a deputation from the make-up and costume departments saying this was going too far. I had to explain that in the 1940’s it had to be done to sterilize every thing in the house.  One of the teddies she burned was mine, but I never told her.

When the scenes crew were digging his grave the police suddenly arrived wanting to know what on earth they were doing digging a grave. A local woman putting flowers on her family grave had seen this strange gang of men digging away and reported them.

In the story the family Nanny was with were wonderfully mad. He was local Norfolk with a strong accent and an inventor. Everything in the house was automatic and didn’t work.  There was a scene of wonderful spontaneous singing of old Norfolk songs with the family in the local pub which when shooting became a real ad lib event, not an acted one.  The whole studio burst into applause at the end.  I shot it in one take.

Michael Custance

Nanny – Michael Custance (part 1)

In the days when I was a cameraman at Thames TV I met an actor called Guy Slater. We became and still are friends.  Guy also created and ran the Horseshoe Theatre in Basingstoke. He then became a TV producer.   So when the BBC asked him to produce a new series called ‘Nanny’ he asked me to direct 9 episodes of the first series and more in the second series.  (years later Guy joined me to create the series ‘Small Stages’.)

“Created by the actress Wendy Craig ‘Nanny’ was a BBC television series that ran between 1981 and 1983. In this historical drama, Wendy Craig stared as nanny Barbara Gray, caring for children in 1930s England. When Barbara Gray leaves the divorce court she has no money, no job just an iron will and a love for children. “

Wendy was first noticed for her role in the film ‘The Servant’ playing beside Dirk Bogarde in 1963 where she won the most promising newcomer award. She was awarded a best actress award in 1969 and was awarded a CBE.  Her TV fame came when starring in the very long and successful series ‘Butterflies’. 

Years later I bought the rights to a novel by Dirk Bogarde, Voices in the Garden, and produced a film of it for the BBC.

When Wendy Craig submitted her proposal for the series to the BBC she used the pseudonym Jonathan Marr because she was afraid that if her true identity was known she would be dismissed as merely “an actress who thinks she can write.

The structure of the series was that Nanny went to work in a family with children for three episodes and then moved on to another family.  Thus each director made a story of three episodes. I made three stories, nine episodes, in the first series and one story in the second series making twelve episodes in all. Guy asked me direct more but I feared being a ‘Nanny’ director for too long.

Nanny – script front page, ep 3

Nanny front page RG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission. Thanks to Roger Guest for sharing the script front page.

This is the first page of the script for the episode of the drama series: Nanny, The Magic Island. Nanny was a London series, hosted by Pebble Mill. Wendy Craig was cast in the title role.

Notice that this episode was recorded third, but is actually the fourth episode to be transmitted, on 31st January 1981.

Here is the entry from the BBC Genome project for this episode of Nanny, http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/47192fea43904e21a5b7ceea47f1ed1c:

A series in ten parts 4: The Magic Island by TERENCE BRADY and CHARLOTTE BINGHAM with Rain … all day, every day. The children trapped indoors become quarrelsome. Barbara’s solution is simple, if eccentric. But dealing with Miss Sullivan, the old-fashioned governess, is not so easy.
Senior cameraman KEITH SALMON Make-up artist VIVIEN OLDHAM Designer MYLES LANG
Associate producer CHRISTOPHER BARRY Producer GUY SLATER
Director MICHAEL CUSTANCE.

Contributors

Script: Terence Brady
Script: Charlotte Bingham
Senior cameraman: Keith Salmon
Make up Artist: Vivien Oldham
Designer: Myles Lang
Producer: Christopher Barry
Producer: Guy Slater
Director: Michael Custance.
Nanny Barbara Gray: Starring Wendy Craig
Mrs Sackville: Patience Collier
Donald Gray: Colin Douglas
Dorinda Sackville: Patricia Hodge
Frederick Sackville: And Benjamin Whitrow
Alice: Gabrielle Lloyd
Miss Sullivan: Sonia Graham
Dr Lindsay: Philip Dunbar
Sackville children:Artemis: Annabelle Lanyon
Sackville children:Dorothy: Veronique Gunner
Sackville children:Emerald: Anna Campbell
Sackville children:Nancy: Sally-Ann Messervy
Sackville children:Caro: Katherine Burman

Nanny – script front page

Nanny front page OW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

This is the rehearsal script front page for series 2, episode 4 of the 1981 drama series: Nanny. The series starred Wendy Craig as the nanny. The producer of the drama was Guy Slater and the director, David Tucker.

You’ll notice that the crew would be filming the winter sequences of this script on New Year’s Eve 1981 – that’s dedication!

Thanks to film editor, Oliver White, for keeping the script safe all these years.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook Page:

Helen Wheatley: ‘I loved this programme with all my heart and told my parents I wanted to change my name to Artemis as a result of watching…’

Lynne Cullimore: ‘Loved it. I remember talking to Wendy Craig in the canteen and she was worried about which salads contained onion, as she was recording in the afternoon and did not want to breath onion over her fellow actors. I thought that was so nice of her. Loved Butterflies too but we did not do that one.’

Belinda Essex: ‘I remember temping while I was still at college for the Beeb early 80s and Wendy Craig was the first celeb I ever saw there, in the lift up to the canteen – I was very impressed.’

Roy Thompson: ‘Remember showing Wendy how to operate the tea machine, wonderful times.’