Watching Lewis in Oxford…
Watching Lewis as an inhabitant of O-town is a thoroughly – though I hate to use this word – ‘meta’ experience. There’s something really wrong about sitting in a dirty student house, drinking water from a jar ‘cos there are no cups left and procrastinating by watching Lewis and Hathaway strutting around the very library you are avoiding. At first it’s enjoyable: housemates competing to name the crime scene first and fervently hoping that this is the episode you saw being filmed. Before long, however, it all becomes a bit too stressful.
One of my housemates, a recent convert to the cult of rowing, became quite agitated when he couldn’t identify the boathouse where the body had been found. This failure irked him so much that he felt compelled to interrupt Snog, Marry, Avoid, several days later, to inform us triumphantly that it had been Univ’s. That one time they show the window of your first-year room (third floor, to the far left of the KA on Parks Road), is initially exhilarating, but you then spend the rest of the episode not concentrating on whodunnit but wondering whether the camera will ever pan back there.
It’s sort of like Freud’s The Uncanny (ooh er); all the surroundings are exactly the same but a bit fucked and infinitely more exciting. This is particularly upsetting when, on a grey and rainy day on Abingdon Road, the ‘students’ in the programme are rolling around on lawns in the sun, banging their tutors and actually seeming interested in their subject. First off, where are all the bangable tutors? Secondly, the ‘students’ all seem about thirty years old, a suspicion proved recently by the appearance of Louise from Hollyoaks.
While the Bod and the colleges are portrayed pretty well – albeit with some funny pseudonyms – our vibrant Oxford clubbing scene is grossly under-represented. All these ‘students’ seem to do is read poetry to one another, write letters and have weird sex. The one time a ‘club’ was featured it took the form of a converted church-cum-S&M factory, which funnily enough didn’t function as a sports bar and grill in the daytime. But I guess, while Lewis’s Oxford might be more exciting, if reading poetry by candlelight means putting yourself in danger of being bludgeoned to death by one of your housemates or tutors, Jägerbomb in Junction are probably a safer option.
Carmella Crinnion
Director’s Cut
Cambridge graduate Dan Reed spends most of his time making documentary films about global problems such as the Japanese Tsunami and the Mumbai terror attacks. When he’s not addressing these global issues, he can often be found back in England shooting episodes of Lewis. I had the chance to speak to him about his involvement in the series.
‘‘The filming schedule for Lewis is only four and half weeks and only one week of that is actually in Oxford,’’ he told me, ‘‘but, the Oxford trip is definitely the highlight of the shoot.’’ Despite the fact that the show revolves around the city, Reed and his team shoot most of it in London, for cost reasons, using the city mainly for its fabled college interiors. I probed him about which colleges he’d shot in; after identifying ‘the pelican symbol’ and ‘totem pole in the quad’ at one, we decided it was probably Corpus Christi.
The reason that Lewis get such great locations, Reed informs me, is largely down to producer Chris Burt, an Oxford grad who has great relationships with a number of the colleges. In fact, ‘‘All Souls are the only hold outs’’, still resisting having their college committed to the small screen.
Reed hopes that he’ll be shooting Lewis again this summer and explains that the location is a big reason for his desire to continue with the series, ‘‘shooting in Oxford is fantastic. You have a film about an Oxford detective and shooting around all of the actual colleges gives it a magical, charmed feel.’’ The location, for him, is essential to the appeal of the show, ‘‘It’s watched by people all over the world because of its amazing setting. The architecture becomes a protagonist in the show.’’
Reed neatly sums up his appreciation of the good fortune of being able to direct episodes of this series on location in Oxford by stating, ‘‘there are few more pleasant jobs in TV’’.
Nick Hilton
Spare Parts
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to sit down with professional extra Harry Rudd, who has brief appearances in Dark Shadows, Snow White and the Huntsman, and most recently, Lewis. I asked him how Lewis (and filming in Oxford in general) compared to previous work he had done.
“To tell the truth, all TV shoots adhere to the same fixed format, and Lewis wasn’t much different. Having said that, being in beautiful Oxford on a sunny day made for one of the best day’s shooting I have ever done. The other extras (or ‘supporting artistes’, I should say!) were all very much in agreement.”
I wondered if there was anything special that stood out from that day’s filming. Harry smiled, “Well, as an extra, you are given about as much freedom as a prisoner of war. There is always a crew member on your case, constantly telling you where to be and what to do. But for Lewis, we had to walk to location, which basically means a nice stroll through Oxford.
“Yes, I realise this does sound painfully mundane, but being let loose as an extra is a rarity, and it gives you that feeling of naughtiness comparable to your first time skinny dipping.” And was it integral to the production that it was set in Oxford? “I believe so. You certainly wouldn’t be able to capture all the natural charm and beauty of Oxford in a studio!”
Be sure to check out Harry in his BAFTA-worthy role as ‘Man crossing street #4’!
Nathan O’Neill
