Bradford & District | Archive | 2007 | June | 7

Crews revisit railway for Waugh adaptation

From the archive, first published Thursday 7th Jun 2007.

Part of a film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel, Brideshead Revisited, has been shot on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway.

A team from Ecosse Films spent much of Monday morning shooting sequences at Oakworth Station. The film will star acting heavyweights such as Michael Gambon and Emma Thompson as well as Hayley Atwell and Ben Whishaw. It is also being shot in Oxford and Venice.

Jim Shipley, the administrative assistant at the K&WVR, said: "This is a very big production. The sequence filmed on our railway might only be a couple of minutes long but we still get the full works.

"We have someone who liases with the film people and we're very used to handling production crews. We know what we're doing with the railway and we know the practicalities of steam locomotives, so our role is mainly to guide them.

"We have to quickly understand what their needs are and find practical ways in which these can be met.

"If we can manage that without any fuss then the word gets round and these people will come back to us again."

This production of Brideshead Revisited has been jointly adapted for the screen by Welsh-born screenwriter Andrew Davies and writer and director Jeremy Brock.

Mr Davies's previous adaptations include Pride and Prejudice in 1995 and Bleak House in 2005.

Mr Brock helped produce the script for last year's hit film, The Last King of Scotland, a political thriller about Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.