042602 Daily Mail

April 26, 2002
Daily Mail
How this Cromwell survived the axe
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Pictures: Laurie Sparham

Not one penny of public funds has gone into the making of a major film about one of the most fascinating and bloody periods in British history - the Civil War, which divided the country and cost a king his head.

Film maker Mike Barker, who has been directing a movie called Cromwell And Fairfax, told me: 'We got nothing from the Film Council or lottery funds.' Barker seems more intrigued than angry at the snub.

The £14.5 million film, starring Tim Roth, Dougray Scott, and Olivia Williams, had financial woes and at one point had to shut down.

If it hadn't been for the cast and

crew's extraordinary dedication to Barker - they voted to work without pay until money was found - and individual acts of generosity (Scott, also an associate producer, stumped up £60,000), the film would have been, like Charles, axed.

'It's a bit of a mystery,' producer Kevin Loader said, about the Film Council's reluctance to loosen its purse strings.

Roth plays Oliver Cromwell, the black-hearted Puritan who wanted subjects to be citizens.

Scott is Thomas Fairfax, a nobleman who was Lord General of the New Model Army and Cromwell's friend - until they fell out over what to do with Charles I, played by Rupert Everett.

And Olivia Williams, one of our most in-demand actresses, is the formidable Lady Anne Fairfax, who would rather her husband be at home with her making babies than out making war.

The film has been shooting in locations at Hampton Court and Oxford - where Barker used Convocation Hall beneath the Bodleian Library as a stand-in for Westminster Hall.

Roth told me: 'I don't remember much about this from school - in fact I don't remember much about anything from school - but it has been fascinating getting into the history of all this.' The actor, who spends most of his
time these days in California, said: 'At one time, I thought I would return to live in Britain. 'But now I'm ambivalent. It's sad to see what has happened to the Labour Party. It's heartbreaking.'

Some working on the film see modern-day parallels between Cromwell and Fairfax, and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But Scott is reminded more of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

The actor, who starred recently in Enigma, has been pushing to make the film for several years.

'Fairfax was a brilliant tactician who even used his rose garden to help him win wars,' he said of his character.

'He planted roses in battle formations around his estate at Nun Appleton in North Yorkshire.

'He was a soldier who cared about his men, ensured they were properly clothed and paid - but he could be ruthless.

'If someone blasphemed in his regiment, he had no qualms about putting a red hot iron pole through their tongues,' Dougray told me as he fiddled with his hair extensions.