Original subtitles

[music playing]

I can't speak as to why it's been

so long since we've had big Indian dramas

on British television.

They've tried.

I think you know the truth of the matter

is, "The Jewel in the Crown" was a masterpiece that

was shot 25 years ago.

And the reason we're doing this now

is because our writer, Paul Rutman,

had a particular take on that world that was very, very

different and was unique.

Just the concept is just stellar, I think.

I've done quite a few period dramas by now,

and I think this is the most intriguing concepts, the most

interesting period of time.

Fascinated by the period, by the writing, by the characters

were so interesting, all of them.

He wanted to tell the story of how a nation ultimately

got its independence from the British

as well as telling a personal story within that.

So I think it's sort of serendipity in a way.

It's everything I think really stems

from a writer's vision in television, and a writer's

passion and a writer having an original take on the world.

And that's what I think Paul Rutman has and has

created in "Indian Summers."

[music playing]

The central issue, there are two families--

one Indian and one British.

The Whelans are our core British family.

And they're represented by Alice and Ralph,

brother and sister reunited together

for the first time since childhood.

Their parents, as far as we understand it, are dead.

Ralph has a mother figure in Cynthia,

the lady who runs the club, and if you like

a father figure in the viceroy.

The Dalals on the other hand are a Parsi family,

who are just making due.

They're in India because they were born here.

Their family grew up here in Bombay.

And in a way, they're a much more domestic environment

for the show to go to.

We have the father and mother, Darius and Roshana.

And they bring with them their three kids.

And because they're close knit, Aafrin takes his family

with them and they all live together

in fairly huddled circumstances in the Indian bazaar.

They're, for me, a center for warmth in the show.

They're more human, more humorous place for us to visit.

And, in a way I think they're a counterpoint to the Whelans

who have plenty of warmth, but are also shot through

with secrets.

I am hereto work.

To work?

And why are they here?

To rule.

For me, one, one of the most interesting things

is the British out here, out of their comfort zone

and trying to create little England here.

And what was happening at that time,

politically, the whole thing I think

is the most fascinating thing.

And of course within it are the love affairs.

And they are, of course, personal relationships

are always fascinating.

But with this background, and this [inaudible]

Even, it's very, very intense.

You are on form tonight.

It's putting that very British world of the 1920s, 1930s

on screen, which we have seen in various--

but then putting it in this world,

it's like lifting them and putting them on another planet.

They're just, they're so uncomfortable here

and they desperately cling onto the things that

worked for them in England.

[music playing]

The first time I read the script,

I remember being completely blown away by the scope.

That first shot, which is the train and the way Paul writes

it and the images that he clearly had in his head

were so vivid that I saw them as well.

We all, we all had this conversation actually

when we met for the first time about how

strong the storytelling was.

And it's great when you get that kind of ambition married

with really good writing cause often you get, you get one

without the other.

And I just felt with this, it was-- I read it

and thought yes, of course, this is the time to tell this story.

Ladies and gentlemen, members and guests,

welcome to our little club and welcome to the Sipi Fair.

Wonderful thing it is to be able to take pleasure

in each other's cultures.

I think Cynthia is a character who

goes to the heart of the British experience in India.

On the one hand, she's like a figurehead

for the imperial experience.

But she's also ferocious, dark, as challenging and at times

cruel as she is charismatic.

And as for the rest of you-- cheats, adulterers,

slaves of empire here to rule this great nation

for another glorious six months--

I want no moaning about my milk punch.

We knew that we needed an actress who would not

lose the audience, who would take the audience with her

into some fairly dark places.

And we were thrilled with the idea

of trying to get Julie Walters to play that part because we

knew that she had that combination of charm,

and strength, and ferocity that Cynthia needs.

Um, and so when she read the scripts

and was willing to meet, I was absolutely beside myself

with excitement.

And the fact that she's come in and delivered in the way

that she has obviously been I think, incredible for me,

incredible for the show.

I think it's also fair to say she's been incredible

for a lot of the younger actors as an example

of the commitment, the preparation she

does, and the power of delivery from take to take.

I certainly think that Cynthia is a very powerful person.

I mean, to think she has a Machiavellian personality,

and so she's going to control whatever environment

she's in if she possibly can.

So I think she's also um, a great stickler for everything

British.

Thank god this is only once a year.

Come on, let's get on with it.

So, 150 fruit scones, 150 plain scones,

150 rounds of sandwiches, all in time for the Sipi Fair.

The challenge of recreating afternoon tea

at Claridge's, only serving it in the outliers.

The thing that attracted me very much to the script

is not just the period-- which it does.

I love that period in history-- but is her extremely complex

relationship with Ralph.

I mean, it's kind of mother, son, and it kind of isn't.

And it's very controlling, and she lives through him.

And it's just really, really interesting.

And we've had, especially towards the end of it--

all through, I mean the very, in the very first episode,

there's a scene where he throws her up against the wall

and you know, because she's trying to control him over.

But she still comes out on top as it were with that.

And that's that little scene made

me want to do the-- before I read anything else, that

made me want to do it.

It's just, it was brilliantly written,

and it's very, very interesting.

You immediately go what are these two about?

It just draws you in.

And as it goes on, and it gets more and more

intense as their paths, the two of them

slightly are going and pulling in different directions.

And so it becomes more intense and more upsetting.

And yes, we've had a couple of huge scenes,

Henry and I together and it's great

that they're at the end of it.

Because we've grown to know one another as actors

and grown to know our characters.

We're more in tune with our characters.

And they were amazing to do because they're

fabulously written and complex and there

is all sorts going on in them.

Meet fire with fire until Mr. Gandhi and the rest of Congress

are subdued.

Too strong?

Because I rely on you to reign me

in if I'm being too tiresome.

Not at all.

Fire with fire, just what they need.

With Ralph Whelan I really wanted

to write a charming, recognizable young Englishman

caught at a moment in history who was, by his own lights,

trying to do the right thing, uh,

but is on the wrong side history.

So he's a difficult character in that way

because he does and says things that we don't like to hear,

but it's important that his good intentions, however

far he strays from them are always in our minds.

And when we met Henry Lloyd-Hughes, when he read

for us, he has charm in spades.

He's a tremendously talented young actor

who can be emotional, funny, has a great internal energy to him,

and was absolutely magnetic from the moment we first

saw him read.

Well, there's an actress called Laura Carmichael,

who is in "Downton Abbey."

And I was doing a film, and she was also doing the film,

and she heard me read the lines.

And I was really busy with the film,

and she said I strongly urge you to put yourself on tape

and send this tape.

I was like, Laura I want to, I want to.

And she was like, no, you have to do it.

And she kind of sat me down and we did it right there and then.

And as I was doing it, in the process

I realized that-- there's this strange thing that

happens where you feel the words sound good

coming out of your mouth.

Does that make sense?

And obviously it's a very, very interconnected plot.

So with all these things, you're finding out a little bit more

about the character.

But right from the get go, my impulse, it felt right,

felt like a really interesting fit.

And the closer I got, the more I liked.

And it's not always that way.

It's not always that exact combination of,

as the layers reveal themselves, you

go wow, that makes it more interesting.

That makes it something, even more

of a challenge and even more of a slightly complicated

concoction.

I didn't know what to expect the first time I met Henry.

And I'm very lucky that we get on

as well as we do because we've got so much to do together.

He is so enthusiastic about everything, which is great

because it's good to have someone like that,

with that energy on set.

Well, that is good news.

Do you have a name?

Yes.

I have the details with me right here.

[Slams]

Hmm.

Hmm.

[phone ringing]

Well, yeah, I have so much to do on screen with Nikesh.

It seemed preposterous not to spend as much time with him.

He was the only actor that I actually saw extensively

before we even left.

So I've had many, many hours getting to know him

and he's such a kind of amazingly capable, hearty,

thigh slapping guy that he's exactly the kind of person

that you would want to go off and do any kind of adventure

with, regardless of acting, you know what I mean?

He's got just like bags of experience and intelligence

and application.

Aafrin is a tough character to play

because unlike a lot of the British characters,

he is less active.

He's someone who is just getting by and trying

to do right by his family.

Things happen to him which are bigger

than he can at first control And he acts in ways

that he can't always understand at the time.

Um, what Nikesh brings is a sensitivity, I think,

and a gentleness, a diffidence which

really feels right for Aafrin And he's

brought that character to life.

He gives him a warmth that really makes us, the viewer,

want to go with him, want to follow him

through a story that takes a lot of twists and turns.

No, it's a British club.

Please, I have to speak to the private secretary.

Stand down Vinod.

That'll do.

Dalal.

Letter sir, awaiting your signature.

Hmm.

You found it all right?

Yes sir.

In the end,

Alice Whelan's story is very tricky for an actress to play.

She's someone who, like a lot of her generation,

with that India experience, grew up in India,

was sent home to boarding school at a very young age-- home

being England-- had a horrible time,

and has come running back to India in her 20s.

She's a character who doesn't know where she's from.

She doesn't know what home is.

She doesn't know if she is based in England

or in London or in India.

But she has an idea that Simla is her home.

Jemima has tremendous warmth and, as an actress,

she brings a huge amount of emotion, of wit, of fluidity

to her performance.

I think she's a character with Jemima

who we can fall in love with.

I think there's something about the fact

that Jemima is an English woman who grew up

in Paris, that perhaps gives her a certain otherness,

a certain statelessness.

She doesn't know quite where she's from.

And it's possible that she carries a little bit of that

into her performance.

So more than anyone who read for us, she

seemed to just put her finger on that statelessness of Alice,

that sense of where do I come from?

But she also has that tremendous warmth,

and heart, which I think is absolutely critical

to get Alice right.

And what brings you to the summer capital?

Oh, just visiting.

It's not quite decided yet?

And will little man's papa be joining you?

Sorry?

Some dashing young [inaudible].

I can just see it with your figure.

And you'll excuse me.

[music playing]

Look.

She left her hat.

When Alice arrives-- the wonderful Jemima West-- it,

is a huge new opportunity for Sarah to make a new friend,

but also to get into the society that she really wants to be in.

Not just because she wants to be higher than she is, but also

she wants to be at the parties.

She wants to go to the balls.

She wants to be part of it, part of the community.

I know.

I have a fancy you and I are going

to be the very best of friends, don't you think?

Sarah doesn't work out.

She doesn't really understand what's coming back at her.

So she does believe that there's a friendship there,

with herself and Alice.

And she thinks that, from the initial meeting of when she's

not quite sure who she is and she's a bit interested to see

where the babies come from, to realizing who she is

and-- and the first few conversations, I don't know,

are possibly terrifying from Alice's point of view.

From Sarah's point of view, it's actually forging a friendship

and deciding that this person is going

to be her friend is enough for Sarah

because she doesn't really have friends

and doesn't really know how to go about it.

And it changes her whole dynamic because all of a sudden,

there is a friend in this friendless world.

[music playing]

Am I?

Don't look.

Poor things come out without a pair of gloves to cool her.

You all right?

You look white as a sheet.

That woman is wearing my dress.

Excuse me.

Excuse me.

Where did you get that?

That is my dress.

Christ.

She must have given it to the dhobi for washing.

What?

Well, they have a little habit of subletting the best

outfits for the weekend.

Get your [inaudible]

Ah, dinner.

How Jolly.

Yeah, me and Olivia.

It's always a risk when you've obviously,

when you first meet other actors.

What the chemistry is going to be like,

how you're going to get on.

And thankfully me and Olivia seem

to get on like a house on fire off camera

as well she makes me laugh and I hope, I think I make her laugh.

She certainly seems to laugh at this stuff, this silly, stupid

stuff I'm saying half the time.

There is a special thing between um--

whether that's because we're playing brother and sister.

Um, yeah, there's a slight, there's

a deeper bond between us anyway.

My sister, Madeleine.

God knows we don't get to choose our families.

Where are we going?

It's the first night of the season.

The club, where else?

Alice, I'm Madeleine.

Yes, she knows.

You are even prettier than he said.

Who?

Well, your brother of course.

I think this has got to feel like one of her last chances.

And I think that's why she puts so much energy into it

and gives him so many chances, because he's you know,

he's not an easy nut to crack, essentially.

[door slams]

So I got your note.

I was beginning to think you'd never ask.

I think to give the story energy,

I think it needs to be that, you know,

she feels that this might be her last chance of you know,

avoiding singledom and spinsterhood which, you know,

had a real-- I mean, she's meant to be sort

of lying about her age already.

I mean, I think she's sort of playing on hopefully her more

youthful looks to try and snare someone before things droop.

[laughter]

[music playing]

I believe it's called the grizzly bear.

Really?

You still do that.

They do in this antique land.

Well, they're doing it all wrong.

Hey.

What?

No self pity.

Cardinal sin, remember.

I remember.

On your feet, Saul.

[inaudible]

--[inaudible] sexy dance called the grizzly bear.

So step, hop, skip, hop, then back, and go rawr.

This is all for your benefit.

You do see that, don't you?

One of the strange things about empire was actually

there were quite a lot of Scots who came out.

Quite a bit of Irish who came out,

quite a bit of Welsh who came out.

And you could almost say-- and I guess

I'm trying to say-- that one of the things that

kept the Union together, one of the things that

kept Britain together um, uh was this idea of empire.

That actually, a young Scotsman could go out and make something

of himself in India or Burma.

Armitage!

Look, that, that's me.

You're in tea?

Oh well, I am now.

That's my uncle's business.

You uncle?

Stafford Armitage?

Aye!

Do you know him?

So I guess when Ian gets there, he--

brown eyed and bushy tailed, sort of wants

to get to know the British establishment in [inaudible].

So he comes across sort of everyone really.

I mean, the first episode, basically,

he's trying to find his uncle.

He really is the most excellent fellow, mostly

in the morning between the hours of 9:00 and 11:00.

[snoring]

Oh Christ.

Ralph kind of takes him under his wing a little bit

when he finds out that he's a good rider.

Ian's a brilliant horse rider and there's a [inaudible]

Scene, which Ian actually wins.

And I think that sort of propels him

into the club more than just who's this guy sort of thing,

you know?

He becomes part of the scene and has a little drink

and they have a party in there.

And uh, also because Cynthia, Julie Walter's character

is quite fond of Stanford Armitage, Ian's uncle.

She kind of takes him under his wing

as the story goes on as well and wants

to sort of teach him the ropes of how to act in India.

But Ian kind of wasn't expecting to be told to act in a way

that he is expected to as a British, um, person.

And he starts to rub up against that.

And I think that's when. as the tipping point

for Ian as the person that he wanted

to be in India and the person that he kind of wants

to be after he realizes the reality of it.

Imperial India, British India had many aspects.

Sure, there was the political side,

but there was also the business side.

A lot of people went out there and made money on the railways

or in [inaudible] or cotton or growing tea.

And I think it's interesting to have

a story in the mix about a Scotsman

who tries to run a business and who finds himself

in conflict with a local Indian businessman.

And in many ways, that's an omen of things to come.

That's even better than you said in your letters.

Well, I'm no one to brag.

And this land is all yours?

No, no, other fellow owns this stretch.

Was he at the club?

Good god I should hope not, no.

No, he's a local chap uh.

Local?

Native.

Really?

They can do that.

Oh, they do as they please nowadays.

The Dalal parents-- Darius and Roshana.

We've got Roshan Seth is playing Darius

and Lillete Dubey is playing Roshana.

And they're two wonderful , actors from India living in ,

Mumbai and Roshan's coming from New Delhi.

And for all of us, and for me, it

felt important that we have Indiana actors, not just

British Asians in the mix.

Not just Malaysian Indians in the mix.

To give, I think, to ground the show, to give it authenticity.

And they've certainly brought that.

I think they bring a reality and warmth of feeling

to that Indian family.

As soon as we step into their home,

this is a family and a house that we can believe in.

And I think a lot of it is because

of what they bring to that.

Anyway, there's no point unpacking everything

when we don't know what's happening, huh.

Just because a few Britishes are

afraid of the sun, why we all have

to march up to the top of the hill

like the grand old Duke of York.

It's because your brother here--

Pappy, I don't need you to defend me.

Your brother, the esteemed junior clerk

is compelled to come.

You should say no.

Then what huh?

Your mommy's too old to beg in the street.

You sister is too pretty and--

Your daddy is too blind.

So funny.

So my character is a bit of a geek.

She's always reading a book.

So she's kind of always sitting in a corner somewhere

or she kind of just gets in the way a bit of everyone.

And my brothers and sisters are always

running around everywhere.

My mum's always cooking.

So we're all just really busy doing different things.

When I set about trying to write an Indian family

at first, I thought a lot about who they should be and what,

cultural background they should come from.

And it struck me that the Parsis are

a very interesting community particularly at that point.

They were a community that did very well under the British.

They were a small community, even then.

And they had very ambivalent feelings about the British.

On the one hand, they were some, uh,

quite powerful pro-independence figures amongst them.

On the other hand, they were fearful of what

would happen to them once the British left,

and they felt that the British were a sheltering presence.

I think there's a feeling of energy about the show.

Afeeling of something dying.

And the Whelans as a family are afraid for their future.

And when I look at the Parsis, I think

I'm right in saying that they can no longer even be classed

as a community in India, because their numbers have dropped off.

They're now considered a tribe.

And in a sense, they're a community

that is if not quite dying, then endangered.

And so in a way, I think that the Dalals and the Whelans

are two families who are fighting for their future,

they're fighting for their lives.

They have more in common with each other, than they realize.

And I think they both have more complicated attitudes

to the politics of the day than might at first appear.

Also the Parsis spoke English, which is quite useful for us.

And it just seemed like an opportunity

to come shine a spotlight on this slightly under explored

part of India.

This is it.

This is it.

This is why.

This is it in action, the British sense of fair play.

[laughter]

[Shout]

Sometimes when we do our scenes,

Roshan and I always, often feel that, you know,

these lines are too clean.

Indians don't talk like that.

They tend to talk over each other, overlap more,

and you know.

So, which makes it real as well.

I know it's very difficult for the sound people,

but it's how they talk.

They don't wait, they're not polite like the English.

They won't wait for someone to complete something.

If they have something to say, they just say it over.

So I really like the representation

because I think they're very fair

and they have their foibles and Darius has his weaknesses,

you know, for the English.

And she's very naive, doesn't know much.

Because that's how she would be.

And yet, she's a very strong-minded woman,

within the confines of her home.

She's a little naive which makes her very endearing,

but she's also very much the woman of the house.

And she controls things as well as her husband.

It's a lovely mix.

It's a lovely mix of being rooted

in where we are in our culture.

And yet, you can see where these kids are going to go.

You know, we let them-- we get upset

when they're getting too independent,

but we've allowed them.

We've brought them up like that.

Which is how it should see be, I think, you know.

How it is even today, that makes it very contemporary actually.

I really, really wanted this to look period, India wise.

Which sounds ridiculous, but of course,

today, India like any other country,

there is a huge proponent towards polyester.

Anything that's easy to wash and easy to dry.

Fortunately, India still has a thing called the [inaudible],

which is government run.

Where, which are basically workshops for villagers

to sell their wares.

So we're talking about hand loomed fabrics, which has

been going on for a long time.

And they are as near to what you would

you would have gotten in 1930s as you could now get today.

So in fact we imported most of the clothes from [inaudible].

All the traditional stuff, which is Dhotis and [inaudible]

And undershirts and , and we imported those from Mumbai.

Thank God, they still do them and it looks great.

The Indian women stuff we tended to find here in Penang.

And we're fortunate enough to find a shop that had old stock.

And it had wood block prints, lot of cotton.

I've kept away from the silks unless the people were

very, very rich, which also have the added

benefit of looking broken down the minute you put them on.

Just like the men's suits, which we've

used natural-- and the European men's suits,

we've used natural fibers.

So it's cottons and linens, again,

to give you that crumpled look because you,

we know what it's like being in this humidity and this heat.

Your clothes look fabulous for five minutes

after you step out of your front door.

And then for the rest of the day, you're hanging in rags.

And I really wanted to get that across on this film,

and I think and hope we've done it.

[music playing]

--[inaudible] Is that her do you think?

The club, certainly, this is the one place

where we see Cynthia's rule of iron

as far as dress code and general appearance.

So having established the early '30s look, ,

the next thing was to make it look as though it was real.

And slightly more difficult was trying

to make it look a little bit like most of it

was made in India, which of course it would've been.

Very few people had the money to import their clothing

from Europe.

So, that was a challenge, , and in fact,

worked brilliantly well simply because we managed to find

the people here who could copy but of course, the copying,

you always get a slight sort of variation on a theme

by copying, which is exactly what I wanted.

And so therefore, I think it looks very real.

So the thing about the club is that we have,

sundowners if you like.

So during the day, anybody went to the club,

and they wore normal day clothes.

And then in the evening, dress code

was, if you had it-- because this is what everybody did

at home-- you wore white tie.

And we were on a cusp here , because in fact, by 1936,

dinnerjackets were much more common.

And black tie, as opposed to white tie,

brought in by the Prince of Wales, particularly.

And he was one of the first people

to wear black tie when white tie de rigueur

and caused a scandal.

But of course, as these things always do,

it filtered down through the market very quickly

and everybody took it up because it was more comfortable.

Soft collars, still bloody bow ties, but soft collars.

And , just easier, easier clothing.

We talked about various ways of,

of making this level of smartness and uprightness

not looking starchy and not looking staid.

And it just sort of helps that, obviously

makes a great designer, but also the '30s

has such a kind of flamboyance in a way, in a way.

You know it's, a lot of, you know, all of the clothes

are making statements.

That's what great, it's what's so great for costumes.

It's that you, even in quite a stuff landscape,

there's something debonair about all of the characters.

But particularly.

And it was actually Anand who then took us

into a further place which was this concept

of the black and white and two worlds.

And undulating between the two.

I haven't done my scenes in Indian costumes yet.

So I can't wait.

Hungry?

Yeah.

Keep it to myself.

I don't think much of the food of the club.

Yeah.

Except the Yorkshire pud.

Naturally.

Nick's amazing, and he had a very strong idea

that he was going to make everything out in Malaysia.

And so there was very much a sense from the costume

that you see of the other characters

that it's copied from "Vogue."

And so it doesn't have-- and I think that's, that's

how it would have looked at the time.

People would've taken ripped out pages

from sort of American and British publications

and been like, please can you make this.

And Madeline very much wasn't one of those characters.

And, you know, basically there's-- we've sort of moved

together kind of two images.

Because I think there's been a sort of image of Madeline

which-- basically I wanted her to be sort of-- I

wanted her sort of sexuality to be sort of expressed

in the clothes.

But I think in my mind, I had her as slightly overly sexual

perhaps.

And what I love about what he's done

is he's created her as incredibly elegant and quite

strikingly American I think, in quite a sort of modern way,

hopefully.

Um I think in my first email to him,

I was like, I just see her in sort of pinks and beiges

and her clothes all sort of kind of falling off.

Which isn't actually what he's done,

but I love what he's done.

He's done kind of, it's more monochrome,

it's more long lines.

Which also sort of shows sort of to a certain extent

how powerful she is.

Memsahib, everything is prepared.

So we had this difficult scenario

where Cynthia is setting up the opening

of the club for the season.

And Paul had written into the script

that she is wearing a boiler suit, which

is absolutely fine for period.

Not normally worn by women of her background,

but there we are.

But a sensible thing to wear if you're cleaning up

after a winter of mess of the club where it hasn't been used.

But then at the end of the scene,

she has to open it up and step out of it

and underneath is an evening dress.

Well, that's not an easy thing to do.

Um, but I did find an extraordinary, completely

contemporary fabric here in Penang

which looks like beading.

It was a deco pattern, and it was made

of a [inaudible] synthetic.

And I designed the dress so that it was almost Grecian.

So therefore, it was just a lot of again,

dropped waist, but a lot of folded fabrics.

And because this fabric is plastic,

it, it just falls into shape.

And bless her heart, Julie got it absolutely right.

She practiced unzipping, stepping out

of it, whipping it off, and there she

was in full evening dress.

And it looks wonderful.

[music playing]

Let's get on with it then.

I think the challenge of the picture

was not being unreliant on hired goods.

It was knowing we had to produce every single garment

on the series.

We only imported stiff collars, braces, men's suspenders,

the things you can't get here.

So the challenge for me really was getting stuff done in time.

Because we pretty soon after We started the first block,

we were up here at the Crag doing

eveningwear-- we were doing-- and having big crowds.

It was actually a matter of producing

the sheer quantity of costumes.

And I haven't worked it out yet, but I

know we've made over 500 costumes for this show, which

is pretty amazing.

And most of those were made in the first three months.

And all made by little workshops and individual people,

not mass made in factories.

[music playing]

Sumitra! [inaudible].

You know, I mean, that is England if ever there

was England, the Wisteria sort of climbing down

the balcony into the veranda and all that sort of says

all part of that sort of [inaudible] nostalgia.

I needed to find those quirky, quirky buildings you know,

designed in the sort of, designed

in the British style which really, really characterized

the hill stations in India.

Malaysia shares very much the same colonial history

as Britain through very much the same period.

So the buildings and the life and the atmosphere

are incredibly similar.

You know, one of the great discoveries of Penang Hill

where we're filming a lot of this was that,

up here we've got a string of buildings which were built

by the British during their imperial days here and which

have been largely untouched.

We had some great finds both in the club at Crag Hotel

and also in Chotipool which when we found

it was fairly run down.

But the designer has restored it to real glory.

And I think there is an uncanny resemblance between

the architectural style of , the locations that we're using

of Chotipool And the kind of things that were being built

in similar of the time.

There was a lot of muck to the building

which [inaudible] was very sniffy about in similar

at the time.

But it has been caught in aspect here.

So I think it's possible to say that there is nowhere else that

quite delivers the atmosphere of the hill station in quite

the way that we found here in Penang.

I was a little dubious about duplicating Shimla here

in Penang Hill.

But when I drove around, I said this could be a lane in Shimla.

Stop here please.

The, the key locations that were always in my head when I

was scouting around that I knew, I had to find and I

wasn't going to be able to build because they required real

scale I suppose were firstly the British club,

which is run by Julie Walters and in many ways is the sort

of social centre of our show.

So that was always a really important location to me.

And when I came here, it was really

sort of the most exciting day of the whole adventure in a way.

It was covered in jungle, but it was clear that it was

a spectacular , location.

--[inaudible] Penang in October 2013, looking for location,

because Charlie had previously seen, ,with Dan and Paul,

the writer.

And discovered this fantastic sort

of ex-hotel which we turned into the club

on the hill, the Crag Hotel which was really the turning

point on the location [inaudible] really

which we then we could actually do it in Penang.

Um, and then other pieces, other colonial houses on Penang Hill

fell into place.

The first day I arrived here and saw this location up

on the hill, up on Penang Hill, I suppose,

I kind of imagined it when I was, you know, got the script

and was working on it before it came out and everything.

But it's far more beautiful and it's stunning

and you, it just so helps.

It's very, very real, it's the real deal.

And we haven't had anything like this for I don't how long,

30 years.

And then it was a bit of location in India.

And then the rest was done in the studio.

Here, we have this amazing location on Penang Hill.

People are going to want to go and stay in that club

when they see this.

It's so divine, you can see right through it

out into the jungle and it's just beautiful.

It feels, it's so important that it feels so real.

Half your job's done.

I walk through there and I feel like, here I am, you

know, in the Simla, the Royal Simla Club.

The second location where I knew we would require scale

and that I couldn't build was the Viceregal Lodge.

That building is very, very particular

in Simla and unreproducible, but what I needed

was a building of grandeur and scale.

And so the old governor's mansion in Georgetown

had exactly that.

And was built for exactly the same purpose as the Viceregal

Lodge in Simla.

So although we've got lots of , English colonial buildings,

what we haven't got really was an Indian quarter in,

in Georgetown, in Penang.

It was not a concern, but you do find yourself wondering OK,

how's that going to work.

And that was completely dispelled the first time

I walked on set.

Because the first set that we were filming on was the bazaar,

was the most Indian of our locations.

So we took a car park which was in back

of the, of the museum which has some buildings on it

and created the Indian quarter-- the Dalal house,

and the bazaar, and the markets, and some streets

and temples in that car park.

[music playing]

I remember going on the set with Roshan

and there's a particular bird-- I

think it's called the coyle-- there's a particular bird that

starts singing.

And he went oh, that's good, that's,

that's the bird that wakes me up at home.

And then he looked at the sound department and said,

you should get that.

And that's when I thought, OK, this is, things

like that, I mean, the art department can't

plant the birds in the trees.

We're onto something here.

The bazaar is so, like I said, so controlling.

So you have to think of it as a production [inaudible].

So it's so controllable, and it's got the flavour,

it's got all the noise and the hustle

and the bustle and the chaos of an Indian bazaar.

There's always things going on.

Like, there's chickens running around,

and everyone's running all over the place.

And it's just really like chaotic, but like,

controlled chaotic.

I don't know, I kind of like it.

You almost wish that you could take every single person that's

going to watch it on telly and take them and go,

this is, just walk through the Indian quarter.

It's not CGI.

There's a-- I'm staring at a goat's balls here.

I mean, we've, we've got just a real sensory overload.

I feel very much like my house is

on a very busy street with a lot of pokey, nosy neighbors.

Like this is [inaudible].

BYE bye.

Not yet.

Don't go yet.

Come here [inaudible].

The family home was just breathtaking.

I walked in and I kind of had a moment

where I though I think I'm about to cry at how beautiful

this is.

[crowd noise]

So there's a lot of kind of bustle of informality,

of people crashing in and out, which

I think the directors have realized beautiful.

And that's a big contrast with what

you find at Chotipool, the Whelans

home which is much more formal.

There are servants, and everyone is a little bit more

on their guard, a little bit more self aware.

So I think, yes, again, I think the houses and the atmosphere

of the houses reflect on just the way there is two different

families , functioning.

I think the critical thing about shooting in real

locations is that , one, we can get a movement in and out

of buildings.

It's a very natural space for the actors to inhabit

and really become , these people.

And what I think it does is it gives the sense of real people

living real lives in real places.

And the hope is that will give the whole show the authenticity

that we've been striving for.

I mean it's a full on visceral experience.

I feel like I'm really glad that we're somewhere

that is this foreign to me.

Because that helps.

It helps because it feels other.

It doesn't feel like a studio on the edge of London.

A cordon sanitaire around the Indian quarter,

and everyone is to remain indoors while officers

conduct a search.

30, any paperwork for signing?

N0w's your chance.

I remember doing that speech when I've

set up the cholera [inaudible].

And all these faces looking up at me

and trying to make these clerks wake up

in the, dozing in the heat.

It brought so much to that scene.

It's not the same doing it with two guys in front of you.

There was a huge hall, and, and loads of people.

And I suppose that's one of the fantastic things that,

production have done is just brought this scale,

so all of all of our imaginations--

certainly in my case-- have been expanded.

You know, , it's richer, bigger than I could have thought

of when you're sitting at home in London reading a script.

Locations I shoot at, I'm in the middle

of the jungle in a big, beautiful, stately house

or a big-- it would be exactly the same there if we'd

found locations in India, they would

look no different to this.

In fact, probably not as good.

And this is more authentic.

I wondered why we were shooting in Malaysia and not in India.

But I can see that this is absolutely perfect

because it's kind of untouched.

And it's the real thing.

And it must be hard to find that anywhere else.

And also it's great being in Penang.

It's fabulous.

I was a little concerned because

of spending many, many summer holidays there.

I'm basically from Delhi, so it's [inaudible].

And , it's very historical.

The capital was there, it's the summer capital

for so many years.

So I was a little concerned, but once I came here and I saw--

that's the beauty of all these , colonial outposts, the towns.

A lot of them, especially like Penang, which is a little away.

A lot of this architecture is preserved.

So , and of course I think the production has done a lot

to restore and preserve a lot of the things.

In fact, to make it look good.

I think some of the buildings are nice,

but I think that a lot of money was

spent in destroying them as well, which is

great for the country itself.

We've been filming in Suffolk House which

is the location for Viceregal Lodge.

Already it's very different to the bazaar because physically,

the bazaar set occupied a much smaller space.

Again, that's a testament to the art department

and what they managed to do with it.

You turn a corner and it's so tight,

but it's teeming with life.

But then here, it opens out a lot more.

And I think that's reflective, again,

of what it was like to go up to the-- what it would have been

like to go up to the Viceregal Lodge and just some easy space.

And before this set I've also been the location where

we were shooting Gorton Castle which is kind of more of the,

I guess the nuts and bolts of the civil service.

Slightly less polish and slightly more packed.

So in a way, my journey here has been from home

to my workplace at the start of the show

before the events of episode one really kick off.

And then suddenly I'm a complete fish

out of water in this place.

And I think it's really nice to open up that space.

And I think that will carry on when

we get to other locations like Chotipool

and the Crag where Cynthia's clubhouse is.

Chotipool was, in a way, the most difficult location

to find.

Chotipool is Ralph and Alice's house.

It provides the sort of emotional center of the house.

It's a sort of Eden, a fantasy, ,

and was the lost location that we found.

We'd almost landed on buildings that, you know,

on reflection weren't quite right.

They either had the scale, but they didn't have the romance.

Or they have extraordinary interiors,

but were unshootable in.

And right at the last moment, I was taken to a house that we

had to fight through jungle to get to, ,

that had been uninhabited I think probably for about 2O

or 3O years.

It was completely overgrown, pretty inaccessible.

And I was shown it by the designer Rob Harris

with a pretty heavy heart.

It seemed to be fairly clear he didn't want me to choose it.

So , however, you know, after about two or three hours

thought, we sort of went back and both of us looked at it

and looked at each other.

And you were with me Dan as well.

And it became apparent that with a lot of work

and a lot of clearing and renovation, that actually,

it was the perfect location.

It was isolated, it was romantic,

it was on the top of the hill.

And that , we should be ambitious ,

and choose it despite all the logistical difficulties

and design difficulties that it was going to throw at us.

And I think it was the right decision.

Going up to Chotipool and granted,

we were still at the stage where the flower beds were being

dug for the first time to, to create something that

had never been made before.

And it took my breath away, just the enormity

of what was going on.

I mean, the same with the club as well.

I mean, it's a whole complex of beautiful old buildings

that are being taken and elevated

to a level which is like almost beyond what they were when they

were first built. I mean, it's extraordinary,

absolutely extraordinary undertaking.

And to think, at any stage when we're down here, attempting

something, somewhere up there, they're erecting a chandelier

or doing some huge undertaking.

It's extraordinary, just the scale and detail

of all of this.

And the challenges to make the level of commitment,

the performances match that.

I loved Paul's writing when I first read it.

I loved the-- I had the first three episodes I think came.

And, I just found it-- it's fascinating,

and it's the kind of writing that comes in and goes out

rather than how do I make this work?

You know, it's very real, and easy

to make conversational, which is really important.

Paul's writing was vivid and funny, and dark.

And all of the characters had something to say.

And none of them shied away from being interesting.

It's difficult. It's difficult with so many characters

to make them all rounded, to have them well

edged, to have their own graphs, their own stories,

uh, which of course are all interconnected.

But to do that is not easy.

Everything is in Paul Rutman's head

is why I realized when we, I remember, Aysha and I asking

him a question about a plot thread

that we'd only read up to a certain point

and there was a plot thread dangling there.

So I don't want to give it away.

But I said, we asked him, what happens with this thing.

And he just kind of looked and went, what do you

think happens with this thing?

And then he told us, and it was completely brilliant

and nothing like what I would have expected.

I suppose one of the hard things for me feeling

my way into the show was to ask the question, you

know, what were we doing there?

What did we think we were doing there?

It strikes me as interesting that so many younger people

have no notion of what the empire was.

We've done a very good job of sweeping the entire empire

experience under the carpet.

I think for my grandparents' generation, ,

it was for many people, it was a huge part of their lives.

For thousands of people, it was an extraordinary, formative

experience that touched them and changed them, and changed

the sense of how they felt about themselves

and how they felt about their country.

But we have done an extraordinary job

of excising that from history.

[music playing]

To the King-Emperor!

When you say uh, when they call out King Emperor.

I mean, they didn't make Victoria emperor of uh,

made her specifically the empress of India.

,And it's well you know, the jewel in the crown.

India was very much the possession

that Britain was most proud of.

I supposed it's like the 0thers--

Canada, Australia-- they sort of didn't feel like possessions.

They were part of us because of the, the racial makeup

of Australia and Canada was very much

of the old white, British stock.

And India was this amazing clash of cultures,

and a synthesis of cultures it has to be said.

It wasn't, it wasn't always harmonious,

and often it was very, very violent.

But it is, at the very least, an extraordinary synthesis,

which is, we have made our mark on India for a good while.

On the left, , people feel it's a shameful episode,

that we have to castigate ourselves over.

On the right, people feel, I think,

a sneaking pride for the work that we did there.

For the fact that this tiny island

was capable of ruling half the world.

I think there's a middle point which

we've tried to course, which is simply to ask,

on a very human level, what did we think we were doing there?

What did we think we were doing in India?

What did our grandparents imagine we were getting up to?

Hello love.

So many people of that generation,

when I talk to them about what I'm doing,

the first thing they say is, we did a lot of good.

We did a lot of good out there.

And I think there is a rather kind of defensive,

rather vulnerable story about good intentions, ,

about disastrous blunders, and about an improvised constantly

changing effort to stay on, to stop this dream from ending.

Even after people back home in Britain

had got rather tired of, of the empire project,

there was a cadre of people in India

and other countries who were determined to hang onto a life

that they loved, to a home that they loved and couldn't imagine

any other way of living.

And in a way, "lndian Summers" is the story

of a group of people trying not to let go of a home uh,

that they'd grown up in.

[music playing]

As you may have heard, this year's summer administration

got off to a bumpy start.

The man who tried to shoot you, do they know his name?

As I said, the man won't speak.

Lucky for you, in bumping into that bullet--

Yes.

Not so lucky for him.

A man tried to kill you [inaudible].

And now Mr Dalal and I are required

to help you cover something up.

So, this summer we have to show the world

we're committed to reform.

One day, who knows, Indians might be raised up

to run their own affairs.

King-Emperor.

ALL: King Emperor.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to the Sipi Fair.

No entry into the interior.

I'll double lock the doors from inside.

I find myself this morning wondering

if you'd ever had any interest in joining the higher

ranks of the civil service?

Head clerk?

There was an incident yesterday.

We demand full independence.

My sister Sooni, she was arrested.

[inaudible] you can't do this.

This is how it is.

One thing is given to you.

Another one is taken away.

Wake up Aafrin!

Look at the role you've been cast in.

Marvelous Mr Dalal who threw himself

into the path of a bullet.

Esteemed servant of the empire, loyal Indian of the hill.

Soon“.

Wake up Aafrin!

I will get you out, I promise.

[music playing]

I won't be taken for a fool, If that's what you think

is happening, which I have no doubt you do,

then you're very much mistaken.

What if I want you to myself?

He's in love.

So are you.

I though you'd be pleased.

I thought you'd be pleased to see me.

I have heard of British men who take Indian wives, but never

the other way around.

What are your intentions, because Madeline

is a high prize.

All these people.

What about them?

Do you even know them?

[gunshofl

[scream]

You came!

That's my house.

All I ask is that our son should

live the life that is for him.

[crying]

You're all I've got.

Yes.

Harry, I, I--

Shall we?