....The Great Fire stars Andrew Buchan as Pudding Lane baker Thomas Farriner, Jack Huston as the decadent King Charles II and veteran actor Charles Dance who delivers an air of menace as the King’s emissary, Lord Denton.
“He’s the Restoration equivalent of MI5. It was a lonely position,” explains Dance. “England had just come out of a sterile period under Cromwell and everybody had high hopes that it would be a jollier place. But what they found sitting on the throne was a lecherous party animal who didn’t really give a damn about the general populace.
“Nevertheless Denton’s job is to protect the King, so he can’t trust anybody. If anybody ever said, ‘trust me’ to Denton, his periwig would stand on end.”
Prior to the blaze, Denton finds himself besotted by Farriner’s sister-in-law Sarah, a struggling seamstress, played by Rose Leslie, while covertly monitoring her employer, the Duke of Hanford. “As far as he will allow himself he’s attracted to her so there’s this struggle in him because it goes against all his instincts,” continues Dance.
Sarah initially resists Denton’s demands to spy for him, when she realises she’s been duped. Infuriated by the single mother’s defiance, he throws her into the notorious Newgate Prison and threatens her son, to force her cooperation.
“He’s as paranoid as hell and the fact that this girl who he also has a soft spot for could also be involved… When she says, ‘you’re a good man’, he thinks, ‘don’t muddy the waters’,” says Dance as he explains the power player’s unusual display of weakness.
Rose, best known for playing warrior Ygritte in Game Of Thrones and ambitious housemaid Gwen Dawson in Downton Abbey in 2010, enjoyed their latest on-screen partnership.
“Charles is phenomenal at playing Denton,” says Rose. “So it’s to Sarah’s credit that she is not intimidated by him and fights back.
“We filmed (the prison scenes) at the House of Detention in Clerkenwell, which was dark and damp. There was something very unsettling about it and obviously the horrors that happened three centuries ago.”
Charles was fascinated by the fashion of 1666 London and clung on to his periwig after filming to play the flamboyant monarch himself in a separate Dutch production.
“They’re uncomfortable things, with bits of hair coming out,” laughs Charles. “I’m about 25 years too old (to play Charles), but it didn’t seem to bother them.
“I love the Restoration. It’s a bit like coming out of the John Major era into the optimism of Tony Blair.”
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"Still, Charles Dance at least seemed to enjoy himself in his more intimate scenes with Luke Evans in Dracula Untold. “As well as being a handsome hunk and unbelievably talented, he is also very generous, because he really allowed me to sort of crawl all over him and breathe my thousand-year-old breath in his face and he didn’t complain once,” Dance told me of his role as an elderly vampire. “I think both of us had fun with that scene. There are quite a lot of people who would like to lick Luke’s face, but I got the privilege.”
Luke Evans wasn’t quite so smitten: “It was terrifying. Charles doesn’t mind getting in your personal space. He gets right in there. But he is a legend.”
Can't wait! Hopefully we can see a release date for Despite the Falling Snow this year.
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