Original subtitles

(PH0NE RINGS)

(MARILYN) Hello?

Hello? Who is this?

(HEAVYBREATHING)

Hello.

(HEAVYBREATHING)

I don't know what time it is, but it's very early.

So thanks (!)

Come on! Come on!

(BLEEP)

You have reached the Bates residence, Mr Oswald Bates, that is.

Not Mr Norman Bates, for those callers familiar with the work of Mr Alfred Hitchcock.

If you would like to leave a message for Mr Bates, assuming he's still around,

please do so after the beeps and he will call you back within 24 hours, without fail.

lf, of course, he's still able to do so. Much obliged. Beep.

(BEEP)

0swald? Pick up the phone, 0swald.

0swald!

0swald?!

(D0G BARKS)

0swald!

0swald!

(KEYS RATTLE)

(FLICKS LIGHT SWITCH)

(RUNS UPSTAIRS)

0swald?

0swald.

Can you hear me? It's me! Marilyn.

...Which service? ...Ambulance, please.

...Ambulance. ...Um, I've got a man here.

...He's taken an overdose. He's taken... ...Is he still alive?

Yes, barely. I need an ambulance really quickly.

0swald?

There's an ambulance coming.

You're still there.

You're staying with me

because you phoned me Just half an hour ago.

You could dial my number

so you can't have fallen too deep.

Have you?

Why did you take all the bulbs out leaving Just one?

Typically perverse.

What are all the tapes for? What are the tapes for, 0swald?

(RUSTLING)

What's on here? Hm?

Is this something?

(SHE MUMBLES T0 HERSELF)

(PRESSES BUTT0N)

(OSWALD) This is for Marilyn first, and then for everyone else.

A full account of what I found now follows.

...Can you hear this? ...It follows right now.

(WHITE NOISE)

What's that for? 0swald!

(HISSING C0NTINUES)

(WHISPERS) 0swald.

(WHISPERS)

(BEEPING)

We can't tell if there's been significant brain damage.

We have to assume there's some damage, the interruption of blood to the brain.

We won't have any real idea until he regains consciousness.

It is possible he won't regain consciousness for some considerable time.

There's no guarantee, you understand, that he will regain consciousness.

Does he have any family that should be notified?

Does he have any family?

No. I don't believe he has any family.

I've known him all this time and I'm not really sure.

...That must sound strange. ...So there's nobody else, then?

That's right.

Should I keep talking to him?

I mean, loud, even without a response. Like you always read about people doing.

...Should I be doing that? ...Absolutely. It won't do any harm.

But I have to say it's unlikely that we'll see any immediate improvement.

(BEEPING)

I can't believe you've been this stupid.

I really can't believe you've done this, 0swald.

Why?

(MARILYN CLEARS THR0AT)

Come on!

Tell me!

I still felt last night there was a chance of me getting somewhere, saving the collection.

And now, I have to spend the time I've got left... VITAL time,

talking aloud to you.

And you left me this teasing message. What can I do?

Especially with you like this?

I've got to start thinking like you.

(LAUGHS)

God forbid!

You caught me sneaking a little nap.

What have you been up to, anyway?

Carrying on with another visiting academic?

...Carrying on? ...Yes. Carrying on. Describes it absolutely.

Not too serious, but definitely physical.

I hope this one's better than the Norwegian, the walrus expert.

...He was a lovely man. ...Mr Walrus?

(THEY LAUGH)

Do you know what I think is wonderful about our lives here? We have a chance to dream.

Dream from looking at these pictures,

and then let the mind float.

And make connections between things.

Day... dreams,

night... dreams.

Ha!

We've space, time.

And no pressure.

The most valuable things on Earth.

Thanks, 0swald.

We could still be doing that if you hadn't buggered everything up.

There's a maJor surprise.

I'm not enJoying talking like this, one... way conversation.

Anyway, the maJor surprise is

that I have got a mobile phone for the first time ever.

Going to get the kids into action, since I'm stuck here.

Mobile phones are not to be used in here! Surely you know that!

I'm sorry. No. I didn't know that.

Another example of me not surviving outside. Right?

I have to break the rules. Forgive me, everybody.

(BLEEPING)

(PH0NE RINGS)

Hello, Marilyn?

...What's happened to him? Is he all right? ...He hasn't woken up, but hopefully he will.

I'm trying to make him.

To help him wake up, go to his house with Nick.

...It's unlocked. And take anything... ...What do you mean?

Wait. Listen. Whatever you see that seems to have something to do with this week.

...This week? ...Yes.

With him searching for something. Take it to work, 0K? Understand?

OK?

It's weird.

This is definitely a weird place.

We have got to make a decision, because all of this could be to do with this week.

So, we've got to make a decision. Right or wrong.

Any news?

Could you Just leave us, please?

...Mr Anderson asked me... ...We don't care what he asked you.

Well, you need your privacy.

I can understand that.

Anyway, I have to go buy a coat.

A coat for the cold.

A good coat.

Is he better? Is 0swald better?

Has he woken up yet?

No change. No news. He's still unconscious.

...He will get better, won't he? ...Cup of tea, please, Molly.

...Do the doctors say he'll get better? ...Nobody knows.

We've put his stuff out here.

We didn't know what you wanted to do with it.

This is our last day.

We can either spend the day on the phone,

a last, desperate ring round to try to raise anybody.

0r we can try to find out what 0swald meant. He said he was on to something.

If we can work out what it is, it might do us some good.

...What is it that 0swald has found? ...We don't know, Veronica. Clearly.

It's probably a piece of whimsy. It'll mean guesswork.

I must warn you, we grabbed everything from one side of the room.

If there was vital evidence on the other side, it ain't here.

I see.

Great (!) Well, we've got to make some ruthless choices.

0therwise we'll still be wading through his opera programmes at six o'clock tonight.

Split it up. Everything that seems to go together, put it together.

Yup. We'll do that.

And you, Nick. You listen to all these tapes.

Anything that strikes you as odd or interesting, Just call me.

0ur other American friend,

Mr Anderson, will certainly turn up to make sure we'll be gone in the morning.

...I'm not going to tell him about 0swald. ...Why?

Surely they'd feel sympathy if we tell them, maybe give us longer.

No.

As 0swald might say, if people feel guilty they don't want anything to do with you.

We'll seem even more unstable. He'll want us out more than ever.

...That's gonna happen anyway. ...While we're here we have a chance.

...Talk about clutching at straws. ...She doesn't give up.

Veronica, can you come here a minute?

...You've known 0swald as long as I have. ...I... I believe so.

Er, yes. I... I'm sure you're right.

This is what I'm thinking. This is my first guess. It'll be about the American.

0swald wanted to startle him like he did when he found the street in his home town.

...Do you think I'm right? ...0h, yes. Yes. It could well be that.

0swald thought it would impress people finding a picture of their house 50 years ago.

I'm thinking this is probably about the American's background in some way.

Yes... Yes, it could well be that.

...Is that all you're going to say? ...No.

No, I'm sure you're right.

Well, I'm not.

Now, Veronica, can you remember?

You talked to 0swald after he interrogated the Americans. You were there, weren't you?

Yes. I was there. I think.

For... For a little while.

Now, think carefully.

Can you remember what town Mr Anderson said his family were from?

It was in Ireland.

0r was it Virginia?

No, no. It was in Ireland.

It was quite a well... known town. I had heard of it.

It was, um...

Sky... er... No. No.

Er, Ski... Ski... 0h, dear. Skib...?

...Skib? ...Skib. Skib.

...Skibbereen? ...Skibbereen. That's it... I think.

...Have you finished? ...This will help.

I mean, to help you find whatever you're looking for.

...Do you need me to stay? ...No, Nick.

Because, um... It's Just that I've never seen you use this before.

I can manage. I learnt watching 0swald.

0K, so, what the hell am I looking for?

Gotta think like you, 0swald.

Huh! I can't think like you.

A connection.

Something in this town.

(WHIRRING)

Something his family did.

0h! For crying out loud! They're so dull these pictures, anyway.

Is it something anachronistic?

Something that... shouldn't be there?

Something invented long before we were told it was and kept secret?

He was always good at prophecies.

I Just saw somebody on the street with a phone!

Yeah! A portable phone!

A big heavy thing it was.

Soon, I bet ya, everyone will have them. Quicker than you think.

Builders will have them on building sites. Bin men will have them. Piano tuners.

Secretaries, the whole world! I bet ya.

What happened?

The talkies were invented here long before "The Jazz Singer"?

Something military?

Doesn't look like it.

(OSWALD) Together, they will form something that can be kept,

even used by the mass media... not "even", I shouldn't have said that.

Something domestic, then.

Something much more personal.

Something passionate.

Something sexual?

More likely.

Something sexual. Powerful.

Something really passionate.

There you are, a bit earlier than I was expecting.

...I'm not packing up till the end of the day. ...Fine. You've got till the end of today.

...It's what we agreed. ...So you're holding us to that timetable?

...Come on, Marilyn! ...I know.

Just checking.

You don't have a picture of your mother, do you?

Do you have a photo of your mother? 0r your grandmother?

Why this obsession with my mother? That's what 0swald asked me.

He did? That's great. When did he ask you?

...When? ...Yes. It's very important when he asked you.

...Mid... week? ...Yeah.

...Good. ...He insisted on seeing a picture of my mother.

Thought you wouldn't carry one of your grandmother. You're not?

...No. ...He was right. As always.

Where's the picture of your mother?

There she is.

...She died five years ago. ...I'm sorry.

...Looking for something in my background? ...You bet!

...So 0swald didn't get anywhere? ...0n the contrary.

...Why don't you ring him and ask him? ...He's ill.

...Too ill to call? ...He's not taking calls.

What are you doing here anyway?

...I came to check on your progress. ...Really?

...Well, I'm making progress right now. ...Got anybody to buy the collection?

Some promising leads, which are still warm. Could come through at any moment.

...There's nothing there, Marilyn. ...Where?

In my background. I can tell you about my grandmother. There are no surprises.

...She must be here. ...Why must she?

Because I think 0swald found her. She's here. She's definitely here.

...There is nothing to discover. ...You reckon?

She was the daughter of a businessman from Skibbereen. They were quite affluent.

She went with an aunt on a trip to the US in her early 20s.

There she met my grandfather at a tea dance. She was a dutiful wife.

She had Just one child, my mother.

I believe she lived for my grandfather, as often happened in those days.

She died when I was two years old.

I have no memory of her.

I think I've found her.

Could be.

...It is. ...It could be.

It's your grandmother.

Pictured as a young woman.

0K, there is a good likeness. I'll give you that. Can I keep it?

No. Absolutely not. Certainly not yet.

Come on. It's the beginning of the trail.

So...

Is there anything here, please look, that has something to do with your family?

Anything you recognise?

I don't believe there is. No.

Any of these words make any sense to you?

No. Seems a lot of the same word.

Is it, er... gunge something? Gunge... arama!

It's not gunge something.

...Maybe it's "gadgetry". ...No. Grenadier?

0r Gadarene, maybe. Does that convey anything?

Gadarene?

No. It conveys nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Spig? Could you see if there's anything under Gadarene in the collection?

...Gada what? ...Gadarene.

Could be Gadarene. Probably one of 0swald's favourite restaurants!

Haven't you got a busy schedule? Isn't there an architect's meeting you should be at?

No. Not today.

Then you can be put to work, can't you? Help solve this.

What's to solve? You find a picture of my grandmother as a young woman...

I'll tell you what there is to solve. Somewhere in here is what happened next.

We Just have to make the connection.

Gada, Gada, Gada, Gada, Gad...

Gad, Gad...

Gad...

Jesus!

Gadarene!

Wait a minute! Gadarene!

There's something biblical, isn't there?

It's Just coming back. My Bible classes. Something about the Gadarene swine. Hogs.

They threw themselves off a cliff?

...Yes? ...It's Just a load of pigs, I'm afraid.

A lot of porkers.

I don't think my family had much to do with the Gadarene swine.

...There may be other boxes, of course. ...You're building a house of cards.

You think it's my grandmother. This word might be Gadarene.

It doesn't amount to anything, Marilyn.

(PH0NE RINGS)

Hello? Yes?

...No. ...Is it the hospital? Is it about 0swald?

Er, yes. Yes, we are still open.

We can do that.

Yes.

Yes, a full set of British prime ministers of the 20th century...

Hospital? 0swald been in an accident?

0swald tried to kill himself.

...I'm sorry. Really sorry to hear that. ...He's in a coma.

...Anything I can do? ...No. I don't think so.

That's good of you. I was expecting...

...What were you expecting? ...You to be angry in some way.

...Because of what? ...Because maybe...

feeling guilty about things?

I don't.

Do you feel guilty?

Yes, I do a bit.

Because...

0swald's not the fruit... cake you think he is.

I mean, he's not easy, I'll grant you,

but he's a... he's a very modern person.

Modern? You're kidding.

No. He is.

His mind works very fast. He knows everything that's going on.

I Just feel I should have kept up with him.

Seen his darkness.

I don't understand why, being asked to leave a week early,

he should take his life because of that.

No. I don't understand that, too. Not at the moment.

I also don't know if he left this puzzle deliberately to test me,

or if it was a mistake.

...What is it, Nick? ...Um...

I think that Veronica would like a word with you.

0h, excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

I want to check that I haven't missed any prime ministers of the 20th century.

I nearly missed out Bonar Law.

...0K. I'll look at them. ...Thank you.

Photographs are wonderful things, aren't they?

(ANDERS0N) You can still make a selection, take all the pictures you want.

The offer's open. You know that.

Save some of the collection, Marilyn.

I don't think anybody's missing.

What's the matter?

Don't think I know this guy. Is he the guy that hated Mrs Thatcher?

(MARILYN) I think...

You're not telling me I'm related to him?

Something's Just occurred to me. I've Just remembered something.

Give me a moment. I've got to make sure.

Wait here till you're called.

(F00TSTEPS)

She's ready for you.

0K. Here I am.

...What have you got for me? ...0h, one or two little things.

Just little things? 0K.

I have to warn you, Marilyn. I'm very sceptical.

You can show me absolutely anything, a guy with antlers on his head,

and say, "This Jerk is your great... uncle."

...How do I know? You have no proof. ...We'll see.

...There is no proof. ...If you say so.

Why distance yourself from it before you've heard what it is?

Because you and 0swald think you've got ammunition.

...It's too late for ammunition, isn't it? ...Much too late.

So, is it something unpleasant you've dug up?

...Depends on your point of view. ...Marilyn.

It's a great story.

I think it is.

But, of course, you may not have time to hear it.

I don't believe a word of it, whatever IT is.

But give it to me.

Aren't you worried that we're not packing up? We should be getting ready to leave.

Tell me what you've found, Marilyn.

...Are you musical? ...A little.

Nothing special. I play a bit of piano.

0K.

Just wondered.

...Great houses. ...Great houses. Yes.

You're telling me one of them belongs to me?

This is Just before the First World War.

Society wedding parties.

New Year's Eve parties.

(LAUGHTER, FIREWORKS)

(MUSIC)

Is she dancing somewhere there?

In a terrific ball gown being swept off her feet.

My grandmother.

(CONVERSATION)

(SEAGULLS)

Like now, there were musicians who specialised in playing at society occasions.

There was one group of musicians, these...

...called the Minotaur 0rchestra.

There's something charismatic about them.

The Minotaur 0rchestra. More animals.

Your grandmother, Hettie,

must have met them when they played at a ball she attended in Cork.

How did you know she was called Hettie? I never told you that.

Because this Hettie, this innocent Hettie from Skibbereen,

is about to Join up with another sort of Hettie.

The Hettie we already knew about, 0swald and I.

So, she ran off with someone from this orchestra?

No.

She Joined the orchestra as a full member.

That's good.

I like the idea. It's romantic.

She plays at these great dances, mixing with aristocracy.

A woman musician. That's great.

Hold on.

These are the pictures I was able to put together because I'd got the connection

that 0swald made.

We had this story,

but we hadn't made the connection with Ireland.

We never traced it back until 0swald started delving into your background.

(WOMAN'S LAUGHTER)

So, you found my grandmother playing in an orchestra.

Your grandmother's going to surprise you.

I really believe she is.

She already has surprised me.

lf, of course, this woman is anything to do with me.

(F00TSTEPS APPR0ACH)

Hettie, your grandmother,

travelled from great house to great house with the Minotaur 0rchestra.

But there was something about this band.

Behind closed doors, they hold their own... wilder parties.

...That's amazing. ...Yes. It's good, isn't it?

This is a set... up, isn't it, Marilyn?

This funny word scrawled on bits of paper by 0swald, like a serial killer?

Gadarene! And now here it is. How convenient (!)

You're giving me this tale, and maybe I'm getting hooked, but I'm very suspicious.

It's too easy. "Let's find something in his background!"

"Wow! There's an interesting story."

And, lo and behold, all these photos to go with it.

Well, wow! There is a story, yes.

And, wow! You haven't heard the half of it yet.

0K. Let's get to the real Hettie.

...You want it short and brutal, then? ...Not brutal.

The Gadarene Club is more than Just dancing after hours.

(LAUGHTER)

(DRINKS POUR)

(GLASSES CLINK)

They're quite adventurous, these young people.

What we would call surrealistic pictures.

(WATER RUNS)

(DOVES COO)

Yeah, they're weird.

Sensual.

(LAUGHTER)

...She's having an affair with one of the guys? ...No. She's not.

With both of these guys.

...Both? ...Yes.

The short one is called Robert.

The really short one is Neville.

How do you know she was involved with both?

I could say "Look at the picture".

But also I know because soon after they played at Hilton Castle in Derbyshire.

...What happened there? ...At Hilton Castle, both men vanished.

...Vanished? Both of them? ...Both of them.

Neville Dawson and Robert St Bury have disappeared.

Hettie is questioned by the police. Search parties are sent out.

There are newspaper articles.

Two men vanish off the face of the Earth.

Hettie is reported as having been "close friends" to both men.

Nothing's found.

Not a trace of them turns up,

even on the moors.

An English mystery.

For the moment, yes.

(SIGHS)

It was assumed the two men must have run off, because they were involved in crime.

...Sounds plausible to me. ...That wasn't what happened, though.

Hettie disappears from view.

Nobody in this country ever photographs her again,

but she was still somewhere in this collection.

And 0swald found her.

There, in Paris, after the First World War.

The new Hettie. Yes!

Here she is, a member of your family.

Your flesh and blood.

I only have your word for that.

She's living in a strange world, some of it semi... conventional.

She works as an artist's model

but, again, behind closed doors, other things happen.

A weird, claustrophobic world.

A very intense world.

0f sex...

and, er, pictures, it appears.

Lots of sex, clearly.

And drugs. Seances maybe.

See who's next to her?

There he is.

(FAINT VOICES)

...No Robert? ...No Robert.

Definitely no Robert.

What do you mean? "Definitely no Robert"?

You have no right to say that. Casts suspicion! He could be anywhere.

He was.

You're not implying Hettie was involved with murder? That this woman was murderous?

There's no way this woman was murderous. Who says he wasn't there anyway?

Could've been. Nobody took a photograph.

...He could have taken all these himself. ...He was there once.

When the house was demolished, the house where Hettie had her apartment,

human remains were found under the floorboards.

...You're making this up. ...Under the floorboards of that apartment.

Some of this may be true, but that is obviously made up.

You don't believe me.

0K.

Spig!

...Do you read French? ...I read French.

0swald found all these himself.

He made the connections.

He found her again and again in the music parties before the First World War,

in Paris after the war.

He found the apartment. He sent for the cuttings.

He followed the trail.

...This could all be bullshit. ...0h, yes?

Want to know if there's another picture?

Want to?

What is that?

What have you got there, Marilyn?

Jesus!

Your meeting with Hettie.

(MARILYN) Is that better?

0r do we need to get you something stronger?

No, er, tea... to, er...

calm me down.

That's fine.

I don't think he needs your first aid, Spig.

I don't think it is working somehow.

The tea.

I mean, I come to these buildings, this weird library that oughtn't to be here,

and suddenly, bang, I have a new history.

...And do you like your new history? ...Yeah. I think so.

But I'm beginning to wonder. There's this dark, romantic story, maybe murderous.

And, on the surface, you know, I've always been quite straight.

...0n the surface. ...0n the surface, yeah.

But underneath, I've always felt, I've always known there was another side.

That's why I came to a foreign city, get away from one's immediate culture, be freer.

...For your spontaneous business school. ...Don't mock!

It is, as the kids would say, an awesome feeling, awesome,

to know this is part of my blood.

Everything I thought about that side of my family, it's totally different.

Massively so! All sorts of things will change.

Ha! I'll probably dream differently at night.

All these new dangerous images coming at me.

...And that's exciting, isn't it? ...You bet!

You wanted a story in my background and there was one.

Probably something dangerous in all our pasts.

What was great about your grandmother, she loved being photographed.

0swald! It's astonishing what he did! I mean, Just from my mother's picture.

He must have stored Hettie's face in his memory and somehow...

...Yes. He made the connection. ...I wonder how quickly that happened.

He must have sneaked back here after he started that little fire.

He was in here in his hard hat doing his detective work.

No. He gave me the hat back, so it wasn't quite like that.

It was a feat of detective and memory work. It's uncanny.

No. He has his own way of keeping records. It's not all memory.

He has his own filing system.

It's Just a bit different from most people's.

I'm going to phone the hospital. I've got to see if there's been any change.

(DIALS)

Buy the collection.

...What? ...Buy the collection.

You know if it had been split up you'd never have got the story about your family.

Buy it.

Hello? Can I have B... wing, please?

The Aston ward.

Hello? I'm looking for information about Mr 0swald Bates.

What was that name again?

...Mr 0swald Bates. ...Please just hold on for a moment.

0h, shit.

0h, Christ!

I Just heard her say something,

something to another nurse about the gentleman who Just died.

I heard her say it.

I can't bear it if that's true.

Just wait. 0verhearing like that. Could be anybody.

I heard it.

Has something happened? Just tell me.

I'm just putting you through to the doctor. He won't be a moment.

Yes. Could you Just...

She's gone.

I don't think I can hold like this.

Why don't they Just tell you? Get it done with.

I'll hold.

0h... please!

Please!

Why am I not there?

You're great.

I'm great, am I?

Yes, Marilyn.

A great, passionate person.

Passionate.

I am. Yes.

And a wonderful story teller.

(LAUGHS)

Well... 0swald's made me a great story teller this week!

He found it.

I put it into words.

Hello?

Yeah.

No, I'm a friend of Miss Truman's. We're working together.

Right.

There's been a little improvement.

(S0BS UNC0NTR0LLABLY)

Well, I think...

...No. I won't say it. ...What?

You were going to say it's the first time you've seen him not talking.

I want you to know, we followed Hettie's trail and we found everything.

At least, I think we found everything.

And it was a deliberate test, wasn't it?

0f me! Something I could bloody well have done without.

(MARILYN) Did I win? Well, a little bit.

Mr Anderson,

for some reason I hardly ever called him Christopher.

Christopher Anderson got an American collection to buy the whole library.

They got it cheap and they didn't want it all, but we persuaded them.

We both managed it. It's still all together.

It's saved... but not in this country, of course.

And I'm bumbling along,

working for another picture library.

Soon, I will try to get my own collection again.

And 0swald is very gradually coming back to us.

He'll never be the same. He has slowed right down, of course.

I see a lot of him.

Often, we go for walks and have slightly laboured conversation.

How much is genuine and how much he uses his new slowness for his own ends

I'm still finding out.

0swald...

...is this nearly right?

You did what you did, your suicide attempt...

...because you saw all this change coming?

Everybody's working lives are changing so completely.

And your mind works very fast,

and you calculated,

"That's it for me.

"Probably won't get used again ever. My career's over."

And you thought, "Better Just check out now"?

"Why waste time?"

We

are all hit by...

...changing things.

Can't.

Can't.

Not

able to stop it.

It's like waiting for the 0racle to speak.

I have to listen to you even more now because it takes you so bloody long!

He changed my life.

I'm a lot more confident dealing with the outside world now.

And he changed Mr Anderson's.

In doing so, he harmed himself.

I tell him many times that, without the Oswalds of this world,

we have no future, none of us.

He likes hearing that.

Naturally.

So, these are the pictures I have chosen.

I think some of you may think it is rather a strange choice.

If you have millions of pictures, and we do have very beautiful ones,

then why have I chosen pictures of meat?

It's certainly not because I'm a great meat eater.

Although, like everyone else, I do enJoy a good roast. No.

It's because if you look at these pictures carefully,

and if you know,

these pictures tell another story.

It is wartime

and food is scarce.

But something else is going on here,

something that I Just love to think about.

And I swear to you,

I promise,

it is absolutely,

totally true.

The ice is the clue.

These people...

in fact, all of these people...

are working for Winston Churchill

on one of the most secret missions of the war.

Winston Churchill had the idea, because we were short of aircraft carriers,

of building ships out of ice,

and then floating the ice ships into the Atlantic.

And then landing our aircraft on them.

0h, they would have gritted the surfaces, I'm sure.

The surfaces of the ships, that is.

(TRAFFIC)

Behind these windows, and using the ice from the market,

they're building a prototype...

a full... scale model

of an ice aircraft carrier.

And I swear this is true.

And these pictures,

all these pictures full of happy meat porters and butchers,

are in fact crawling

with boffins, scientists, agents,

government officials...

(WHISPERS)... and even a German spy.

And if we go closer...

...even closer to the window...

...you can Just see the outline...

...of the beautiful ice ship.

And that is the closest you'll get to seeing it.

You have to have worked with pictures a long time to know their secrets.

There are a lot of stories in them.

So,

out of ten million photos we have here,

which one have I chosen?

It wasn't difficult. I didn't have to think very long.

I picked the best picture I've ever seen on fame.

This picture was taken by the Danish photographer, Holger Larsen,

and he called it "A Figure Apart".

A real "so what?" title, I know.

So what's the big deal?

Holger Larsen produced this picture from his collection Just before he died

at the age of 91 in 1988.

He refused to say when he'd taken it or where.

But he did say one very interesting thing about it.

He claimed that since he'd taken the picture,

the person in it, this character here,

had become one of the most famous people in the 20th century.

So the great question is, who is he?

Who is this guy?

0r is it Just a hoax? A real tease by an old man on his audience?

Are the clothes the right period? Are the shoes real?

0r is the subJect and the photographer deliberately misleading us?

It looks old, but maybe it's not THAT old.

And is it really a man?

He's quite short. Could be a woman.

Just.

I don't think it is a hoax.

I think it's somebody who was sure of his destiny,

who collaborated with the photographer to catch the very moment

Just before he, or she,

was about to become world famous.

We have a whole load of pictures here of people you would know,

people that became household names.

We have them before they became famous.

I love these pictures.

Did they all know that they were destined for something big?

Did they feel that they were on a path that could only lead to one place?

Some did, I'm sure.

I'm convinced of it.

They didn't know how. They didn't know when.

But they knew something big was coming.

Always felt it would happen.

But it's great, isn't it? Seeing them down here among the rest of us.

And they really hate these pictures.

They'd like to keep them away from the public for ever.

They want us to think that they plopped fully formed in front of us,

having already worked it all out.

I wonder if they know that I know where there are pictures of them

that they'd really kill to stop being seen?

Come to the collection and for a big enough fee I'll show them to you.

So,

the question you're wondering is do I know who this mystery character is?

"She'd better bloody tell us," you're thinking!

Ever since I've been working here I've been figuring it out.

Sometimes I make him turn round for me. I imagine it moves.

And I see the face and there is...

Maybe on another day, the figure turns

and it's Prince Charles.

Wouldn't that be amazing?! Show a very different side to him, wouldn't it?

0r Saddam Hussein.

0r, of course, Elvis Presley.

Most people guess it's him,

but I can tell you it's not Presley.

And, of course, sometimes when I'm alone...

...I see the picture

and the figure turns,

and it's me in the picture.

And why not? I'm seeing the future.

Maybe.

I can be happy working here, but I can also dream of being world famous.

Nothing wrong in wanting both.

You will have guessed by now that I don't know who the person is, but...

but I do know something.

We've worked out that it isn't old.

The feel of the picture is modern. Something about the lighting.

This picture was taken in the '60s or '70s.

So, maybe,

Just maybe,

the person who it really is will see this,

will see themselves,

and tell us.

Perhaps they need to hurry up because it could be their fame is already going.

You don't want to wait too long.

It would be terrible, wouldn't it,

if they stepped forward and said, "It's me.

"It's me in the picture."

And we said,

"And who are you?"

"Shooting the Past",

there was a lot of reference to the past, hence the title,

but um... it was set now about people

who... he was suggesting lived in a kind of backwater

of a nostalgic England.

It's in a sense, as you say, about this photographic exhibition

these weird people looked after,

that apparently nobody cared about or knew apart from specialists.

And, so, you had a gallery of eccentrics,

although two of them were young and contemporary.

This character I played was an eccentric.

Tim Spall, whose extraordinary performance as 0swald,

is all those characters who have an enormous amount of knowledge,

never written a book, carrying it in their head, should really pass it on.

That sort of level of master and apprentice is gone out of professional life now.

So he is a living computer. It's all in his head.

He makes all the connections with the lifelong knowledge he's got.

He's threatened with change and becomes impossible to deal with.

I think in the case of 0swald, the character I play,

he keeps telling Lindsay's character,

"I know I'm a shaggy, overweight buffoon, but I know the world, I know how it works."

You keep thinking, "No. He doesn't. How can he?"

He's been locked away in this bizarre museum nearly all his life.

He says if he loses his Job he's not going to be able to work anywhere else.

You find that he does know how the world works.

He is an eccentric. He is his own man. He is, as he says, a shaggy buffoon.

But he is incredibly intelligent and he sets this trail eventually,

having attempted suicide, which saves this museum.

That's the great thing about Stephen's characters.

He introduces them. You think you know where they're going.

But he invariably surprises you with them.

He's both deeply sympathetic and deeply irritating. I wanted to dramatise that.

I think that's very true of a lot of people that are used to working in their own ways

and are threatened by a new process of working,

or people that are younger than them who are more senior to them.

That situation is played out all over this country and all over Western society

in the last 15 years, often to both parties being the losers.

Both the institution and the individual lose out very badly

because it usually results in the brutal exit

of the person who refuses to respond to change.

And that institution or organisation is without that wealth of knowledge,

which is unreclaimable if, as in 0swald's case, it's all in his head.

It's lost for ever, that expertise. It takes five people to fill his Job.

Then they do it much slower.

"Shooting the Past" isn't about the history of photography.

It's about... people and the world we live in.

But, without photography...

those stories wouldn't exist.

And you get a kind of adrenaline rush

as Stephen delivers this...

...this powerful piece of information to you,

which is about the connections that tie people together.

That's why I think his stories are so compelling,

and why they're, um...

...they're inevitably irresistible for... for actors.

We're approaching the wonderfully named Middleton Gate,

which leads to the written archive of the British Broadcasting Corporation,

housed in what looks like two meek little bungalows

approached across the gravel path with a nice, neat privet hedge.

Little bay windows you expect Miss Marple to be staring out of.

And it looks like this is all there is, which is why I'm rather obsessed with this place.

You approach this wonderful door

and you really do expect various Agatha Christie characters to pop up.

And, instead, you're greeted by a whole Tardis,

a world which opens and opens and opens.

Hi. Welcome back to the BBC's written archive centre. Do come in.

...Me again. Right... ...Do come to the reading room.

And this bungalow opens out into this enormous Tardis,

this warren of rooms and...

...Come on over and look at the cases here. ...Yeah. I remember this case.

...It's fantastic. ...You've looked at these before?

This orange paper, this wonderful PVC orange paper of 1938.

Anthony Blunt and... Guy Burgess recommending Anthony Blunt to be hired.

"Mr Blunt is a reputable art critic and should be paid the maximum for this period."

...Fantastic. ...Burgess was a BBC producer at that stage.

Two spies already helping each other out for a series, "At Home Today". Wonderful.

We're still one of the most secretive societies on Earth.

North Korea possibly beats us but we are so secret.

There are all these tunnels in London full of archives.

People have stored things and merrily said that people can't see.

They've forgotten where a lot of the secrets are.

Hence, government secrets are found blowing along towpaths.

They've escaped through some orifice. That's a very English set... up.

...Then we go through... ...Past the old registry indexes.

We had a lot of these in "Shooting the Past".

...These wonderful index boxes. ...I'm glad you still use them.

And... Ah!

Thousands and thousands of "Radio Times"es.

...Complete sets. ...All the "Radio Times"es there've ever been.

We've marked out the one that relates to your earliest work for the BBC.

All right. That's good. Music to my ears. I always like peering at "Radio Times"es.

...There. ...Is that the one? Right.

Yes, it went out too long ago to be accurate! 1977. I was extremely young, I have to say.

...Perhaps you might like to have a look. ...Right. Ah!

Ah! I'd completely forgotten about that. They had an article... This is wonderful.

They had an article. This is my first film for the BBC I wrote.

Here's a lovely big picture of the director, Michael Apted.

0nce I'd got out of my head that it had been somehow written with me in mind...

When you say that to an actor, it's immediately flattering

then you read it and think, "0h, what do you think I am?"

I thought it was a fantastic part but I had no idea how I was going to do it.

The character was completely original to me.

"Play for Today"! I grew up on the Wednesday play.

There it is. "Play for Today". Fantastic.

Yeah, I think it's probably... This might well have been one, um...

Not long for this world, "Play for Today", when I started writing for the BBC.

But, anyway, there we are. A huge contemporary film. Huge in length, anyway!

0n BBC1, prime time.

...An era as distant as the Edwardian era. ...Would you like to come further down?

(POLIAKOFF) "Shooting the Past" was written as a sort of experiment.

I became interested in how short scenes had become on television.

I thought, "Rightl I will slow television down to the point that it stops,

"make scenes so long that they seem ridiculous,

"and try to compel people in that way. "

(DUNCAN) Stephen never had any doubt about whether these long scenes

would sustain in front of an audience.

They're... quite terrifying to shoot.

I mean, I would happily shoot scenes like that for the rest of my career

because they're really, really well written and it's like walking on a tightrope.

He creates these intricate, emotional characters

that are from the world of unglamorous Jobs

or are from ordinary worlds,

who are both ordinary but, within their interior life, extraordinary.

And, you...

He's one of the great dramatists,

I think, of the old saying of "we've all got a story to tell".

(MARILYN) But then something happens in the park.

(WHISPERING IN GERMAN)

We don't know what happened,

but the mother decides they must leave immediately.

She goes first.

We're all capable of making huge assumptions

about what people are like because of their appearance, their age,

because of, you know, where they're from.

I think he Just has a magnificent, subtle way

of introducing the complexities of the human condition,

without it ever being self... congratulatory or in any way self... conscious.

I'm always interested in characters which are trying to be individual

and trying not to be dragged into

Just being little cogs in a world of mass culture.

That's a consistent theme for a lot of my work. I believe that's what people are like.

As somebody who works in a mass medium like television a lot,

people often patronise the audience, think they're not capable of being stretched,

and do in their lives stretch themselves imaginatively.

That's what I often write about.

Although he has a very political mind, a very astute political mind,

you never get a sense of it being rammed down your face.

Dramatically, you're always hit with it emotionally,

the effects of what politics does to people,

the cruelty of technology, redundancy and so forth.

(BREATHES DEEPLY)

Well, I think the world of archives, whether they're film archives like in "Hidden City",

or photos like in "Shooting the Past", or a written archive like we're in now,

they're all very fascinating places.

Physically, they're quite severe, like this place.

The material is boxed in compact ways because it has to be.

Then you literally open boxes and most extraordinary things appear,

a fascinating route into the past.

Where we are, for instance, where we're standing,

within three feet of us there are six or seven hair... raising things.

Like here.

You know the contents of every box without reading the label.

Not every one. No.

So, in here, there are the three fat brothers that committed a very bizarre murder

with three apples and a crossbow.

Because life moves so fast now and we're told people can concentrate for less...

I'm not sure if that's true, but it's accepted wisdom... for less long periods,

because they've been bombarded by so much information.

Do we remember less? I don't know. I think that's disputable.

Nevertheless, I think we want to record the past as much as possible

because life's changing so much more quickly than it used to.

Technology's changing so quickly.

We want to keep our children's developments and film our parents.

There's a strong urge amongst people, as their parents get old,

"I must get them on video, talking, because they might go."

People couldn't do that 20 years ago.

He's... attracted by odd things, like a photographic library.

About a whole group of people living out their lives almost, in this place

which is...

both physically and culturally separate from the modern world that we live in

but, of course, is profoundly connected to the world we live in.

...You don't want more time? ...No. I don't.

That is a surprise. What do you want, then?

...I want you to buy the collection. ...Me?

Yes.

If you can enter other people's worlds, that's a prerequisite of being a writer.

I have always done that from a very early age.

"Shooting the Past",

I didn't know anything about those libraries of photos until I started researching it.

So I was entering a world that I didn't know but that I felt some affinity with.

These things I'm constantly exploring. I've written about science.

I had to understand it because I'm very unscientific.

It's always an exploration,

but using things that are more immediate or buried inside one,

trying to colour a world or make a world vivid

using both research and also things that come more instinctively from inside.

I thought "Shooting the Past" was brilliant.

I thought it was a fantastic premise and idea and examination of...

modern values, in a way.

All those people protecting those photographs and a sense of history.

Everything is so disposable these days. It's expedience everywhere.

People are only interested in what they can grab very quickly.

Experience them.

(POLIAKOFF) Another reason I wanted to make "Shooting the Past"

was the fact that when a film camera looks at a photo

for a split second, it's always interesting.

It's almost impossible not to be drawn to the image.

I was really interested in using that drama.

In documentaries, photos are used and you think, "I wished that one had stayed. "

It's rare to have a lot of photos in a drama.

They're usually used when police are watching and you go "click".

The freeze frame is normally how you see a photo.

0r a brief flurry of childhood photos and that's it.

In drama, the picture has to move, has to move.

I... Part of this experiment of slowing down television was to use photos...

the mute image of a photo as a powerful, visual tool,

but also something that has an insistent pace of its own.

I saw the first one and I was really excited and rang him.

I was excited for him because it was special.

I Just did my work on it, learned the lines, obviously,

thought a lot about the character, started speaking him.

Because Stephen didn't obJect to what I was doing, I presumed I was getting it right!

At the end of the day, it turned out to be...

People seemed to accept it as being, you know, what I saw in the script, so...

...completely unique.

I thought I'd Just watch the first 20 minutes,

and it was about 10.30 in the evening.

And then I sort of finished it at 2.30, completely gripped. I turned the phone off.

We're all channel flickers,

and so often you see telly which is very fast, twisty, sexy telly.

Cut! Cut! Cut! There's a dead body. There's a car crash.

And it was sort of... long enough to draw you in.

There were these big, long scenes, like a play.

Um... And, er... Which I think is terrific.

It's no bad thing if people can't... You either switch it off or watch the whole thing entirely.

I think why we're all haunted by pictures is because they capture memories,

which is always deeply appealing to us, a memory caught.

Also, a photo can be returned to and take on different shades, you notice things in it.

Depending on your mood, they change.

You can't respond to a moving picture in the same way. You can handle it.

It's an obJect that you can handle.

So all those things make them very important obJects.

It can be depressing because you look so young or so happy when you're miserable.

A loved one who's not with you any more.

They can be devastating obJects as well as poignant or happy obJects.