‘Indian Summers’ – Raj, warts and all, high TV drama…

February 14 2015

New blockbuster Channel 4 period drama aims to become long running series and emulate success of ‘Downton Abbey’ with echoes also of a seminal 1980s TV series…

BY Suman Bhuchar

DESCRIBED as a 21st century “The Jewel in the Crown”, Channel 4’s “Indian Summers” is a 10-part series that opens tomorrow (February 15) with a feature length episode before settling down to one-hour weekly episodes.

Estimated to have cost £14 million, the channel has invested heavily also in marketing, plastering tube stations in and around London with the countdown to its opening.

As you would expect of such an ambitious project, there is also considerable experience and proven talent behind “Indian Summers” and new stars are expected to emerge too…Look out too for Sanjeev Bhaskar who plays a leader of the Untouchables in later episodes.

www.asianculturevulture.com has seen the first episode – you could say this is the Raj warts and all – with British snobbery at the fore, and where the upper classes meets both working class Indians and Brits. Those behind it, say it is also told with sympathy for the Indian anti-colonial position at the time.

Set in 1932 the summer capital of the Raj, Simla (Shimla), it is the story of a few British characters and their interaction and relationships with Indians. The idea is that after the first series it will be followed up by several more until Partition and the creation of two new nations in 1947.

Leading the cast is Julie Walters, one of the country’s best-known TV and film stars (you can see her in current hit, “Paddington”).

Julie Walters, one of Britain's best known TV and film stars plays 'Cynthia Coffin'

The drama is the brainchild of experienced TV writer Paul Rutman, best known for work on “Vera” and “Lewis” and is made by the production company, New Pictures, which made the recent haunting hit, “The Missing” for the BBC.

Anand Tucker has directed the first four and a half episodes, is a well-established director with an Indian-German background and a back catalogue which include films “Leap Year” and the Steve Martin-Clare Danes two-hander, “Shop Girl”.

One of the two historical series advisors is Alastair Bruce, who works on “Downton Abbey”, the other is Shimla-based historian Raaja Bhasin. Bruce is a descendant of James and Victor Bruce (both Earls of Elgin) who each held the Viceroyalty long before “Indian Summers” is set, but both kept diaries of their time in Simla, which proved useful for this series.

Rutman is married to an Indian woman – his wife is called Natasha and she’s from Bangalore – and has been travelling and working in India regularly over the last 25 years.

www.asianculturevulture.com met them at the launch of the series, where Rutman explained, how he pitched the idea to producer, Charlie Pattinson.

“I wrote the pitch idea, the characters and world for which I had some help from wonderful friend of mine, Simon Curtis; he’s a director who did “My Week With Marilyn”.

“It is an original piece, and everything is completely invented,” he said. “I love those Americans shows like ‘Six Feet Under‘ and ‘Mad Men‘ and that sort of sense of a big novel experience which run for a number of seasons and it’s our dream that we can try and do something of that with this. So, each series represents one watershed summer on the road to Partition.

“For example, Series 1 is set in 1932 and for the second series we move forward a few years, that’s the dream but we need to get an audience who can stay with us.”

The series is shot entirely in Penang, Malaysia.

Rutman explained that Penang had a moratorium on building in 1950s as the British left, so the company was able to use actual buildings. There are almost no sets.

“The Royal Simla Club and Chotipool, the Whelan’s summer residence, are actual buildings that we have renovated. They were almost as the British left them and it makes all the difference to be there and not build sets because they (cast and crew) can move in and out.

“We can travel inside and outside onto the verandah into the garden and experience verandah life.”

As director, Tucker, explained Shimla has become a vibrant modern Indian tourist city, and all the English buildings are now government buildings. There is also another practical problem.

“Getting permissions for five years is very difficult, and is very tricky, and in this show you need all the locations over and over again.”

The crew spent 70 days shooting in Penang and the rest of the time in post-production so the entire ten part series has been completed within a year.

Nikesh Patel plays Indian civil servant 'Aafrin Dalal'

Tucker said there is a lot of the Indian perspective in the story. He urges audiences to stay with the series as it develops and deepens and you get to understand the characters and their lives.

The key characters are an upper class brother, Ralph Whelan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) and his sister, Alice (Jemima West) where’s he’s a private secretary to the Viceroy and she is a mum with a baby.

In the day time he’s a conniving stuffed shirt, while at night he likes to wear a kurta and eat with his fingers – exposing the dichotomy of many Raj children who were brought up with their ayahs and then sent to board in Britain from the age of seven onwards.

Then, there is the zealous missionary, Douglas Raworth (Craig Parkinson) who’s set up a school for abandoned mix-race children and has an Anglo-Indian assistant, Leena Prasad (Amber Rose Revah) and a stuffy wife, Sarah (Fiona Glascott).

Walters plays Cynthia Coffin, who runs the club and is a self-appointed – Queen of Simla Society; she’s a bit of Barbara Windsor in the Queen Vic, with her long cigar holder and wife of Bath attitude.

All human life, passion, sex and inter-racial relationships are there, and it will have you reaching for the smelling salts before you even reach the first ad break.

There is one key Indian family – The Dalals who are Parsi and live in the Indian bazaar. Father Darius, who fought in the First World War, is played by Roshan Seth. Mum is Roshana,essayed by Lilette Dubey and they have three children. One of them is Aafrin, reprised by Nikesh Patel.

Tucker predicts that the series will turn Patel into a star and the young actor is well aware of how a popular TV drama series can transform a career.

Patel, told www.asianculturevulture.com when the ITV series, “The Jewel in the Crown” came out in 1984, he wasn’t even born, and as an Asian actor, he would not have had many opportunities to be in a television period drama.

“The Jewel in the Crown” was one of the biggest hit TV series of 1980s and made Art Malik into a heartthrob and a star.

Patel added: “’Indian Summers’ is telling a story that my generation hasn’t really seen.”

Aafrin is a clerk in the Indian Civil service and the main breadwinner, while sister, Sooni (Aysha Kala) is a firebrand nationalist – putting them at odds with each other. And there is the youngest girl, Shamshad Dalal, (Ashna Rabheru), who’s a boffin type school girl.

Patel said: “Aafrin goes on this great journey, and the position he occupies allows me to be in most places where the story happens. It was a no-brainer, really.”

Patel has been in “Drawing the Line at Hampstead Theatre (December 2013-Jan14), dealing with the Partition of Indian and where he played an upper class Indian Civil servant, Rao VD Ayer.

“That character, is an upper class version of this one,” said Patel. “He went to Cambridge and there is a lot more mingling in “Drawing The Line”.

For his role, Patel spent time along with fellow actor, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, at the British Library archives looking at black and white photos of the period.

“There was a lot of pomp and entertainment, all at odds with the job at hand, which was to run the country.

“They’re more concerned about which party they’re going to rather than what the growing call for Indian independence might signify,” said Patel.

Walters, speaking at the press launch last month, found the whole experience, “fascinating and brilliant. It wasn’t romanticised or nostalgic; it has a real gritty feel. I was surprised as well, as the character I was asked to play was an East End girl.”

Bhasin points out that most Raj dramas are adaptations of existing work, “The Jewel in the Crown”, “Staying On”, “Heat and Dust”.

“’Indian Summers’ is the first to have been written for the screen and not adapted for it. Also, the story is told substantially from an Indian viewpoint.”

*‘Indian Summers’ starts Channel 4, Sunday, February 15 at 9pm.