Patrick Malahide interview for Indian Summers

19 February 2015

Available for reproduction in full or in part

Patrick Malahide plays Lord Willingdon, Viceroy of India, who appears in Indian Summers from episode 4.

What was it that attracted you to take part in Indian Summers?

Obviously, looking at this, it looked like a great project, but then you have to start thinking “Is it a good role?” And it was. It’s a really interesting, complex thing to take on. I just thought, when I read the script, “This is a really classy piece of work.” It was clear that the writer, Paul Rutman, clearly knew what he was talking about. He knew his history. He knew India. He was writing from a position of real knowledge, and it showed. It was a real quality piece of work. I was just very chuffed to be asked to do it, and I took it on with some enthusiasm, which is pretty unusual these days. I think it’s a really, really good bit of writing. And I’ve only seen a trailer for the first episode, but my goodness, it made me want to be a part of that world. It seemed so colourful and complex and fascinating.

 

How much did you know about this period of history in India before you took on the role?

Well, I’m no expert. But being older than some people, I suppose it’s easier for me to think back to when parts of the world were coloured red than people who are younger. I’ve always been interested in history, so I did know a bit about it, but I have to confess, I didn’t know as much as I needed to know. That’s been part of the fun of it, playing catch-up on the technicalities of the Government of India Act and things like that. Really specific stuff. For example, we know about Gandhi, we know about the tragedy of Partition, etcetera, but what’s interesting is this is going back into the early 30s, and it’s the long, slow build up to the Second World War and the crisis of the Bengal Famine and the struggle for independence itself. What the script does very cleverly is get into that in some detail, but tells it through the story of people’s lives, rather than as a history lesson. That’s what’s clever about it.

 

So did you go into some fairly detailed research for the role?

To be honest, I trusted the writing. I’ll be perfectly honest, I was cast very late, and so I didn’t have a huge amount of time, but what I did was I concentrated on the character, and finding out what I could about him. He’s the only historical character in the drama.

 

Do you feel a sense of responsibility because of that?

Absolutely. And in particular in this case. Willingdon was Viceroy from 1932-37, and yet I’d never heard of him. I knew what a Viceroy was, I’d heard of Curzon, and I’d heard of Mountbatten. I knew the tall poppies, if you like. But I hadn’t heard of Willingdon, and he’s not a particularly prominent figure in British history. But he was clearly significant at that time in India. He was a man who was squeezed between the tectonic plates of history. He was a lifelong public servant. He’d been Governor of Madras many years before, then he became Governor of Bombay. So decades previously, he’d served his time in India. He then went on to be Governor General of Canada, and then he was called upon to be Viceroy of India. He spent almost his entire life outside of the UK on behalf of His Majesty. Literally on behalf of His Majesty, because he is standing in for the king. And then I discovered that his relationship with the king was quite personal. He was George V’s tennis partner. He’s a classic of the mold – he went to Eton, he played sport at Eton, he was an excellent cricketer, an excellent golfer, went to Oxford, got a Blue, that sort of thing. And then he spent his life in Imperial service.

 

It all sounds very traditionalist.

Well, yes, and at first sight you think “Oh well, he’s an old fashioned authoritarian whose against independence and against Gandhi,” and that’s one view of him. But then you dig a little deeper and you find out that this man, when he was Viceroy, went to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club with a group of Indian friends – that in itself made me sit up and take note – and was refused entry, because he was accompanied by Indian friends. What did he do? He founded his own sports and social club, which was open to all races, and still exists to this day. It’s called the Willingdon Sports and Social Club. Now that’s a hook upon which I’ve hung his character, because whatever else he was, he must have had a streak of decency about him. And the more I read, the more I realised that actually he’s a man who wanted to do the best in difficult circumstances. Of course he felt the Indian’s weren’t ready for independence, so in that sense he patronised them. But he still loved them, and he still enjoyed their company and their culture. He was fascinated by it. So he was caught between the traditionalist view of empire and the modern world. He was a man towards the end of his life, trying desperately to keep up, and always being slightly behind the curve. I think he was a decent man trying to do an impossible job. So you can shift him away from stereotype and cardboard villain into something much more human.

 

Over the years, there have been loads of dramas/films/novels etc about the latter days of the Raj – why do you think we’re so fascinated by it?

Well, it’s interesting – you say we’re fascinated by it, but there hasn’t been anything that I can think of since The Jewel in the Crown, A Passage to India and so on. That was 30 years ago. I suspect The Jewel in the Crown was so successful that people probably thought “That’s done. We don’t need to touch that anymore.” What’s interesting is that this doesn’t feel remotely like The Jewel in the Crown, and I don’t think it will be compared with it. I won’t hear a word said against The Jewel in the Crown, but it’s of its time. And Indian Summers is of this time, even though it’s about the 30s. It’s very much a modern programme, while being faithful to the period.

 

It’s visually sumptuous, isn’t it? Were you struck by the scale and quality of the sets and the setting?

Well, what’s lovely is that you’re on location. Everything we shot was on location – okay, it’s Malaysia, not India, but it was bloody hot! No acting necessary in that department. And the locations chosen were terrific. Obviously I spent quite a lot of time in the Viceregal lodge. They found this early 19th Century Palladian villa in Penang, which was one of the palatial establishments of the Penang aristocracy at a time when it was a British trading post. It had collonaded verandas and manicured lawns, it just felt terrific. The Royal Simla Club itself is set right on top of Penang Hill, and it was a converted school. It had been left lying, rotting for years, until the producers took it over and redesigned it. It looked completely like going into a hill cantonment. It wasn’t hard to imagine yourself there. It’s wonderful when you don’t have to act hot, and sometimes it was extraordinarily hot. And I’m there dressed up like the Emperor Hirohito, with a coat and chalk-striped trousers and a sola topi and wing collar, standing outside in a rose garden, trying to remember my lines in 35°C. Just getting through it is an achievement.

 

How did you find filming in Malaysia?

Well, it sounds very odd that we were filming in Malaysia, but they found this area of Penang that was completely unspoiled, whereas Simla itself, in the foothills of the Himalayas, is actually quite developed now, as a backpacker/tourist destination. So we were very lucky in that respect. Ralph Whelan’s house is an old rubber plantation. When you wandered through the gardens and up the steps and somebody handed you a whisky on a silver salver, it just felt very easy and very right. And also it was fascinating, Penang is such a vibrant, mixed community. It was a trading station set up in the 18th Century by the British East India Company. It was originally a British trading settlement rather than a Malay settlement. The British brought in Chinese tin miners and Tamils from South India, so you’ve got this hugely mixed population. In George Town itself, which is a World Heritage Site, you walk up a street in Little India, and people are mending pots and bicycles, and selling saris and making curries on the street, and you think “I’m in India.” And then you round a corner, and there’s a Chinese Buddhist temple. And then just round the corner is a mosque. It feels like all the cultures of Asia are concentrated in this one little town, it’s extraordinary. So a lot of out supporting artists were right there on tap.