Into the Storm BBC Last Night

CD…surprised at Gleeson playing Churchill? you should hear him with his Dublin accent…

Exactly! First saw Gleeson in ‘I went Down’ and most recently in the excellent ‘In Bruges’. Gleeson gets a lot of screen-time in both and while I couldn’t say if he had a Dublin accent in these roles it certainly wouldn’t be suitable for playing Churchill!

Let’s hope Mr Homewood has checked up on ” the new GUY” Brendan Gleeson of whom he has never heard of. As PaulR mentions he is highly regarded in the States as well as Ireland, have you never heard of the film In Bruges?

CD…surprised at Gleeson playing Churchill? you should hear him with his Dublin accent, it’s nearly as good as mine!
Regards
Tony K

Gleeson isn’t exactly unknown – he’s appeared in Braveheart and Harry Potter, to name a few…

It was Brendan Gleeson, who I have a lot of respect for as an actor (as opposed to many today who are celebrities first and actors second). I must admit I was surprised at the choice of Gleeson to play Churchill, especially as he is from Dublin.

I’ve yet to watch ‘Into the Storm’.

Let’s hope Mr Homewood has checked up on ” the new GUY” Brendan Gleeson of whom he has never heard of. As PaulR mentions he is highly regarded in the States as well as Ireland, have you never heard of the film In Bruges?

CD…surprised at Gleeson playing Churchill? you should hear him with his Dublin accent, it’s nearly as good as mine!
Regards
Tony K

I must read the question in future! I think you’ll find that regards the wings he was given special consideration by the Air Board to wear the wings on account of learning to fly while with the Admiralty in 1911. He was Churchill after all.

Really? I didn’t know that he was entitled to wear a pilots brevet unless he was a pilot? I know he was an Honorary Air Commodore. You live and learn.

As for the programme, I thought it was a wonderful piece of television. Thoroughly enjoyable and, as Stuart Gowans said, at times very moving.

Regards,

kev35

Yes. he was Honorary Air Commodore of No. 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron in the Auxiliary Air Force from April 1939

I didn’t see the programme but saw the trailer in which I noticed that Winston was wearing RAF wings. Without wishing to belittle the man was he entitled to them?

The new shots for the fighter squadron visit were filmed at Halton, the production company were adamant that they should have a Spit and Hurri even though they were strongly advised against it…

Tom

At least it kept both sides happy.

I must respectfully disagree Mr.Homewood, I thought Brendan Gleeson gave a great performance as Winston and captured well the pathos and despair the early war situation must have had on the man. He also , I felt, got the innate grumpiness of the PM in private spot on, as I got feelings of familiarity having read about his same moods in a couple of biographies. To my mind Gleeson’s portrayal was always going to suffer in comparison to Finney’s (as you say) masterful portrayal and I myself was prepared to be disappointed, but I feel he pulled it off well.

Regarding Gleeson, here in Ireland as well as in the States, he’s a highly respected and lauded theatrical actor with many awards to his name. Check out his IMDB entry. And this is not some sort of Irish patriotism thing, it’s simply that I’m an Englander resident over here and thus am more familiar with his work.

I am a huge fan of The Gathering Storm, it was a masterpiece. I was excited when this sequel was announced, but later dismayed when I found that Albert Finney was not reprising the role of Churchill. he was masterfull, he genuinely seemed to become Winston. I hoped the new guy, whom I’d never heard of, might have been as good but then I saw a clip on their website and he looked dreadful by comparison to Finney in the clip.

How did this low budget sequel fair if compared with the original film?

I think there is a comparison between Churchill and Dr Who, inasmuch as each successive actor to play the role is initially seen as a poor substitute for the previous creation, but after a while it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the role.

I thought it was a good attempt at capturing 5 years of war in 1 1/2 hours, I liked the bit where Churchill meets the burned pilot with the VC , and says something like “you are probably in awe of meeting me aren’t you?…………………so you can imagine how I feel meeting you”.

…the new guy, whom I’d never heard of…

It was Brendan Gleeson, who I have a lot of respect for as an actor (as opposed to many today who are celebrities first and actors second). I must admit I was surprised at the choice of Gleeson to play Churchill, especially as he is from Dublin.

I’ve yet to watch ‘Into the Storm’.

I am a huge fan of The Gathering Storm, it was a masterpiece. I was excited when this sequel was announced, but later dismayed when I found that Albert Finney was not reprising the role of Churchill. he was masterfull, he genuinely seemed to become Winston. I hoped the new guy, whom I’d never heard of, might have been as good but then I saw a clip on their website and he looked dreadful by comparison to Finney in the clip.

How did this low budget sequel fair if compared with the original film?

The new shots for the fighter squadron visit were filmed at Halton, the production company were adamant that they should have a Spit and Hurri even though they were strongly advised against it…

Overlooking all that it was a great day and the weather couldn’t have been better after a very gloomy start, I certainly enjoyed jumping in to BM597 in Charlie’s place for the ‘scramble’ scene 😉

The C-47 interior scenes were filmed at Baginton while N1944A was having her engine replaced and there were some parts where a mock-up was used.

Shame they didn’t have the budget to use the CAF LB-30 but there we go, keeps us employed.

Really enjoyed the programme, a great follow-up to ‘The Gathering Storm’ with some great performances, hence why it’s been Emmy nominated, hope the Beeb show them both back-to-back soon!

Tom

Thanks for the identities of the aircraft but where were the “scramble” sequences filmed? It was too much to expect a Liberator, York or DC-4 for the scenes of Churchill going to Tehran and Yalta but was it the B of B DC-3/C-47 they used? I’ve just finished reading Max Hastings book on that phase of Churchill’s life and it runs to over 600 pages so the TV programme did pretty well to get it into 90 minutes.

Thanks Guys!!!

I have to concede that just recently there has been an pleasing increase in programmes that are actually interesting to those of us looking beyond ‘Strictly X-factor Dancing’.

TV in recent times has become so hopeless, I stopped reading the listings about 2 years ago.

Spitfire was HAC’s MKVB BM597

Hurricane was R4118