A dark challenge

Press, 1 August 1977, Page 15

A dark challenge

"The problem,” said the producer, Roderick Graham, “is to have reality without being revolting.” He was referring to some of the difficulties involved in the making of six 90-minute episodes of the B.B.C’s “Elizabeth R,” the series which will end on TVI tonight. “The Elizabethan age was not only a vicious and cruel one, it was also one in which fashions were bizarre by our standards,” Graham said.

copying the setting for the Earl of Leicester’s famous celebrations at Kenilworth Castle (reputed to have cost more than $178,000, even in those days), the make-up artist, Dawn Alcock, was faced with the problems of Elizabethan fashions.

Women wore heavily embossed silk and velvet gowns, yards of petticoat, jewelled head-dresses, and made themselves up with white paint and chalk and wore vibrant red wigs. The men, although a little more conservative, wore plumed hats, stockings, and doublets. Graham had to decide how he could bring the flavour of the period to television without being deliberately provocative. For the designer, Peter Seddon. the sumptuous halls of London and Kenilworth are balanced with the dark and gloomy dungeons of the Tower, in the shadowy corners of which Topcliffe the Queen’s torturer, extracted the infor-

Elizabeth was never a beauty — her portraits show that — but fashions of the day make her look even stranger to modem eyes. Towards the end of her days she used pure white face make-up, with bright red patches on her cheeks and fantastic wigs. She used to be made-up about three times a week, and slept in it. Because reddish hair and beards were fashionable (the Tudors usually had red hair) men would dye their hair. They used vitriol, which often burned or scarred their faces.

Miss Alcock praised the way Glenda Jackson who plays Elizabeth, accepted the demands of the role.

mation that was to help ”Bv the last episode, send Mary Queen of Scots Elizabeth is an old woman and many loyal Catholics to -with a travesty of a face. It their deaths. took f Our and a half hours While Seddon pondered on eac h of the two shooting these dark subjects, or the days to make up her face.” more pleasant prospect of §he wore a long, thin.

false nose under a plasticbased glue which pulled her face out into wrinkles. Over this she was painted with a brilliant white enamel; and the front of her head was shaved. This was only half the preparation for the part. The Elizabethan fashion

was the flat front. Elizabeth herself wore papier mache or wood corsets, and Miss Jackson wore tight steelboned corsets to achieve the same effect. “I learned to breath through my back,” she said. History records that Elizabeth died leaving 2000 dresses. For the production the costume designer. Miss Waller, required 380 costumes, of which 200 were made. Those for the lesser parts w’ere hired but all those for Elizabeth were specially made. One of the most sump-

tuous is of gold embroidered

black velvet”over white brocade. Each gold leaf motif ion the velvet was appliqued by hand.