‘Nocturne’, the second episode in the new series of ‘Endeavour’ , filmed at Bearwood College last October, will be airing on ITV on Sunday 6 April from 8pm-10pm.
Endeavour, the successful ITV crime drama series presents the intriguing investigations of Endeavour Morse as a rising young detective, years preceding the cases made famous by John Thaw’s portrayal of somewhat gruffer and greyer Chief Inspector Morse. ‘Endeavour’ is written by Russell Lewis, with Colin Dexter, who created the hugely popular ‘Morse’ in 1975, continuing his association with one of Britain’s best-loved detective series.
Shaun Evans (The Take, The Last Weekend), who plays Endeavour, 15 cast and 60 crew together with 5 security staff and chaperones spend 14 days at Bearwood College last October filming the second episode in a series of four two hour long transmissions.
The new series began last Sunday and the episode featuring Bearwood College, ‘Nocturne’, will be broadcast this week on Sunday 6th April from 8pm-10pm on ITV.
The story is set in July 1966, at the height of World Cup fever, as Argentina play England in the quarter finals. It centres around the grisly murder of an elderly gentleman with a specialism in heraldry and genealogy. Investigations lead Morse to a boarding school, Blythe Mount School for Girls, which viewers familiar with Bearwood College will have no difficulty recognising! Set in the summer holidays with only seven pupils and a skeleton staff remaining in the building, the school has an eerie and abandoned atmosphere. Co-incidentally replicating Bearwood’s own history, the girls’ school is formerly an aristocratic family home. Unlike Bearwood however, the girls’ school has a gruesome secret buried deep in its past, a series of murders once took place on the Blythe Mount grounds. As the action moves between 1966 and 1866 Morse’s investigations take a terrifyingly spooky turn towards the supernatural.
During the filming there was great excitement for pupils and staff with “dead” bodies on the Golden Staircase and pools of “blood” in the Mosaic Room. One unsuspecting College visitor pulled back the red velvet curtain to the Billiard Room and walked straight into a ghost. Or more accurately an actress in a Victorian costume, as she discovered once she’d stopped screaming!
Film Studies students from both Upper and Lower Sixth gathered in the Library at the end of the filming to enjoy a very interesting presentation by the Producer, Camille Gattin and the Location Manager, Alex Cox. Camille and Alex were kind enough to take time out of their hectic schedule to speak to our students about the work they have been doing at Bearwood during the 9 days of filming and 5 days of ‘dressing’ and ‘striking’. Camille was passionate about the importance of networking and making contacts in order to build a successful career, leaving many of our Sixth Formers inspired about a future in the film and television production industry.
As the Location Manager, Alex is responsible for finding suitable filming venues and offering them to the Director, the Designer and sometimes the Producer for the ultimate decision. He has a lot of creative input as the initial vision of the script coming to life in any particular setting is his. If Alex can’t imagine it, then it won’t even be considered by the rest of the team. He was delighted to have come across Bearwood through Location Agent, Amazing Space. “It’s just perfect for this episode,” he enthused, “It’s a mirror really with the girls’ school being a house before it was a school, and it’s got that gothic look which we can make really spooky in school where there are only seven pupils left for the Summer holidays. Sally Russell and her team have been brilliant accommodating all our requirements and we’ve used so many areas of the school that Bearwood locations will feature for at least an hour of the two hour episode.”
The College rooms featured on Sunday evening are the Art Room, the Billiard Room as a Music Room, classroom MF5 as a dormitory, classroom MF3, the Humanities corridor, a croquet scene on the Headmaster’s Lawn and the lake. The school were delighted that the new jetty built by the crew down by the lake for filming was left in place for the use of the College after “Endeavour” departed.
We hope you enjoy watching Bearwood on television on Sunday 6 April, ITV, 8pm-10pm; don’t miss it!