There's a fire in Pudding Lane.
A fire in the poorest quarter of the city on the hottest night of the year.
Chaos.
Panic.
Confusion.
What better time to strike against the kingdom?
Well, basically Ecosse Films came to me awhile ago, a year and a half ago. Whenever it was,
it feels like 25 years ago, but awhile ago and said what do I think about the idea of
writing a drama on The Great Fire? And I said well that must have been done before, so I
went and Googled it, and it hadn't been done before. I think once we did, we worked out
why it hadn't been done before. Because you can't do fire very well on CGI, certainly
not close up. So they kind of had to build an enormous set and burn large parts. I think
it was all pretty stressful. Thankfully, I wasn't having to take responsibility for the
stressful bits, but even writing it, you write some scene and they go well that's really
great, but it's going to cost about £20 million, so can we kind of rethink that in a way that
we might actually be able to shoot it? So I just thought it was the one British kind
of event in history that everyone knows about, but no one really knows that much about. I
thought it was... The more I researched it, it was a really fascinating period in history.
It was an extraordinarily dramatic event, which obviously when you're writing dramas,
you're interested in.
I suppose in one sense, the things that surprised me a little bit were the things that clearly
had some relevance to today. So in one sense, looking at two royal brothers who had this
extraordinary bond that they'd been given by their historical circumstances really,
not just the fact that one was king and one was his brother, but the fact they'd suffered
tragedy at a young age. In their case, their father having his head chopped off. That was
interesting. The way in which you could almost substitute fear of the Catholic minority then
with you might say the same about fear of Muslim extremism now. And even actually down
to, yes, we had a kind of a more or less absolute monarchy at the time, but the levels, the
complications of decision making, temptation to sometimes make a pragmatic decision instead
of a principled decision. It was all there, so I'm a history student. So in one sense,
it didn't surprise me, but actually just going and looking at how a crisis unfolding, comparing
it with the London riots and so on, I was really interested by the various parallels
of how people behaved at a time of crisis.
I hope people will watch it because hopefully it's a good drama. It's always a good place
to start, but I think the obvious resonances I hope will make it interesting. When I watched
it back, I kind of noticed an awful lot of what I'd written had been informed by one
experience or another, even down to the Sir Humphrys at court, busy trying to tell the
king that you know, it's a time of austerity, we can't possibly afford this, your majesty.
And he says, well just do it, and they kind of have to decide whether they're actually
going to do it or whether he means it, whether he thinks he means it, or whether they'll
try to subvert him like they normally do.
The king only cares for his pleasure, and the truth is everyone else indulges me, so
I'll indulge myself.
If this fire destroys London, it'll be the end of my reign and doubtless my life!
And you think I have any less to lose than you? Than someone must pay for the pain and
injury and torment that have been caused and they shall.
It's the baker from Pudding Lane. It's the man who started it!
Well, I suppose you have to... When I did the research for this series, there were some
characters who obviously present themselves. I think King Charles II is one of our most
interesting characters. Pepys obviously we know a lot about him from his diary, and there's
a brilliant biography of him written by Claire Tomalin a while ago, so those are quite well-known
characters in English history. So you have to include them, but I wanted a sort of every
man at the heart of the story, and that had to be the baker obviously because he started
it. And then you think, in real life, I don't think he was in love with his brother's wife,
so there are bits I invented, but you know... I thought it was interesting to make him the
heart of the story. It seems in all likelihood that the fire was just a tragic accident,
and it's quite something to carry the idea that you burned your whole city to the ground
by your carelessness or whatever it was. So he just seemed to me an interesting character,
and he's brilliantly played by Andy Buchan, and I always think that doing the every man,
family man hero is actually a very difficult role to pull off. You know, it was kind of
like what Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks and people to some degree made their careers on.
There actually aren't that many actors who can pull off being decent and heroic, but
interesting and slightly complex at the same time. So I think Andy Buchan will go on to
be one of our most successful actors, and he's already done lots of great stuff. I think
this was interesting point along the way for him. I think he's particularity good in it.