Precarious, glorious career

Press, 1 October 1983, Page 15

Precarious, glorious career

In the murky winter of 1914, ’■ an advertisement appeared in the London newspapers which read: “Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey” and, further on, added with something of an apologetic after-thought, “Not much chance of survival.”

The journey in question was to the frozen wastes of the Antarctic and the fact that the subsequent expedition did survive is a measure of the man who led it and who worked that eyecatching advertisement in the first place — one Ernest Henry Shackleton, explorer, adventurer, a leader of men whose dangerous love-affair with the Antarctic bewitched him to risk his life on four separate expeditions to the ice-bound continent at the bottom of the world. Now the precarious, but glorious, career of one of Britain’s greatest explorers has been brought to life in “Shackleton,” a four-part drama-documentary which will begin screening on One

tomorrow at 7 p.m. Produced by the team that made the award-win-ning series, “The Voyage of Charles Darwin,” the production was filmed in authentic polar locations and stars David Schofield — praised for his portrayal of Merrick in the National Theatre’s production of “The Elephant Man” last year — in the title role.

The story begins in 1903 when Shackleton (1874-1922) was a member of the British National Antarctic Expedition, led by Robert Falcon Scott, who was to become his great rival, and ends in 1916 after the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Making the series was something of an expedition in itself as the producer, John Harris, explains: “We wanted to find the same kind of conditions as those faced by Shackleton. Antarctica was out because it would have been too costly and dangerous, so we took the 35-strong crew to the

opposite end of the world, to a remote part of East Greenland which is cut off by ice for eight months of the year. It was a pretty exhausting and uncomfortable few weeks but in the end it was worth it.”

The crew also did some filming in and around South Georgia, just before the invasion of the Falkland Islands, with help from the naval ice-patrol vessel H.M.S. Endurance, named

after Shackleton’s most famous ship.

“Quite simply, it’s a cracking good adventure story,” says Harris. “It’s a tale of human endurance, a triumph of leadership and strength of character and one of the great survival epics of this country.” Also starring are David Rodigan as Frank Wild; Neil Stacy as Robert Scott; Geoffrey Chater as Sir Clements Markham; Robert Lang as Major Darwin; Robert James as Sir John ScottKeltie and Victoria Fairbrother as Emily Dorman.

“Shackleton” was written by Christopher Railing, and directed by Martyn Friend for the 8.8. C. The series was a coproduction between the 8.8. C., RCTV, Australia’s Channel Seven Network, and Television New Zealand. Television New Zealand contributed $lO,OOO towards production costs and also provided a crew for filming in the Antarctic.