Rye News is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast of Mapp and Lucia. The iconic tv interpretation of EF Benson’s work was filmed in Rye and Camber in the mid 80s.
The series is being repeated on Rewind TV, with the first series getting another showing this Sunday evening, May 11. It starred Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and Nigel Hawthorne.
Getting the period costume from the 1930s just right was a major part of the show’s success. That was the job of Frances Tempest, series costume designer for all 10 episodes, as she told Kim Rye.
Frances shared her memories of the happy time she spent on location in Rye. “We were like an army invading the town at the time. We took over. We were scattered all over the town in various bed and breakfasts, like little encampments. We had a wonderful time,” Frances told me with obvious pleasure at recalling the memory. “I was very good friends with (the late) Geraldine and later went on to work with her on Marple, so Geraldine and I had a shared history. I’ve seen Prunella a couple of times. I was also very friendly with Nigel. They were all lovely.”
When I watched the series being filmed all those years ago, I recalled having been told by one of the road crew that Prunella Scales had been padded for her part as the stout Miss Mapp. Frances confirmed this. “Prunella is very petite and proud of her figure. We had to make a body suit out of padding and create a silhouette – and after filming, there was Prunella Scales ‘body’ hanging up in the costume truck! I had to design clothes around it. It must have been very uncomfortable in the heat but she never complained. However, after filming she would make a point of wearing her tight white jeans and inform people: ‘I was wearing padding for the part’!”
According to Frances, some of the townsfolk of Rye were not so happy. “We were very unpopular with old crusty colonels. They used to deliberately disrupt us and say we were getting it wrong. The local bookshop had handwritten notices in their windows saying how dare we come along and do this! There were probably people there who remembered EF Benson. He was much loved in Rye, and even though he had strange artistic London friends, there was a lot of residual affection for him,” she said with obvious amusement.
I enquired about the process of selecting outfits for the characters. Apparently costumes are either hired, found or borrowed. Frances had to find items from suppliers such as Gallery of Antique Costumes and Textiles, in London, and Cosprop, also based in the capital. “You source things from all over the place. The Egyptian coat that Lucia wore at the beginning was pure luck. I was in Gallery of Antique Costumes and I just picked it up and thought it was perfect.”
Apparently costume designers are often reunited with items that they have previously
worked with on other shows. Costumes “do the rounds” and eventually end up back in
storage, I was disappointed to learn, as I had often thought that the actors might get to
keep some of the items. “No,” said Frances, “everything had to go back into storage, shorts would go in the shorts box, sweaters in the sweater box. Because we had the time then, the artistes would go into make-up and hair, then they would get dressed in their B&B or hotel room. We did not have Winnebagos and mobile homes in Rye. There was nowhere to park them so the hotel was your dressing room!”
“Then, on location, we would have to do a check before the cameras rolled. I remember
checking hats in particular. You do NOT pull 1930s hats down too far. I had to make sure they had the correct accessories, gloves and jewellery.”
Frances’ career started from her studies at university in Manchester where she read drama. “I realised it was good training for what I would eventually do but I didn’t realise it at the time. We all had to do a bit of everything including putting on shows we had written, devised and directed, but it was good discipline. After that I went into rep and did theatre for a few years and then gradually found myself at London Weekend Television. I had been there a few years when Mapp and Lucia came up. I got it because I knew the stories.”
Frances has worked on many TV series and films as diverse as Robin Hood, Cannon and Ball, A Room With A View, Marple, Calendar Girls, Bertie and Elizabeth and A Respectable Trade, for which she won a BAFTA.
“I loved doing Mapp and Lucia. It was great to get guests like Irene Handl and Anna Quayle. It was a great cast, although Nigel was not at that point a household name because it was pre Yes, Prime Minister. They were all good actors and nobody behaved like a diva or a film star. It was all good humoured,” she concluded with obvious affection at the memory.
You can find Rewind TV on Freeview Channel 92, Sky TV 182, and Freely 150. More details on the schedule are at https://rewindtv.uk/
Click here for our previous article celebrating forty years of Mapp and Lucia and here for some of the locations used during filming.
Image Credits: ITV/Rex Features , Frances Tempest/Kim Rye , ITV/ Rex Features .