Joe's Palace – Sunday 4 November at 9pm on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One
Introduction
The latest ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One film from acclaimed writer-director, Stephen Poliakoff, Joe's Palace, is a characteristically engrossing work.
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It features a stellar cast, led by Michael Gambon (Perfect Strangers, Gosford Park), Rupert Penry-Jones (Spooks), Kelly Reilly (Mrs Henderson Presents), Rebecca Hall (Starter For Ten) and newcomer Danny Lee Wynter, who takes the title role in his first professional engagement since graduating from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
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Danny Lee Wynter also plays the same role of caretaker Joe in Capturing Mary, a brand new film that follows on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Two and boasts a cast led by Maggie Smith (Ladies In Lavender), David Walliams (Little Britain) and Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre).
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Capturing Mary is preceded by a Culture Show special examining Stephen Poliakoff's unique work and featuring
A Real Summer, which stars Ruth Wilson and has been made by Poliakoff exclusively for The Culture Show.
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These three unique films possess a haunting, mesmeric quality, the magic of which promises to stay in the viewer's mind after the final credits have rolled.
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Lorraine Heggessey, the executive producer and CEO of talkbackTHAMES, the company making these dramas, concurs.
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She observes that: "Stephen attracts the very best talent in the business; both in front of and behind the camera, and these films are no exception. They are beautiful, compelling stories which have been impeccably cast and are directed in Stephen's inimitable way which makes these pieces so exceptional."
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Deborah Jones, the producer of Joe's Palace and Capturing Mary, says: "The scripts have this wonderfully universal quality that makes them very special indeed. They offer vividly told stories, rich characterisation, an exquisite sense of story-telling and beautiful settings. They're quintessential Stephen Poliakoff, but at the same time feel so fresh. They are like a new chapter in his oeuvre."
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Joe's Palace charts the relationship between Elliot (Michael Gambon), a reclusive billionaire, and Joe (Danny Lee Wynter), the naive teenage son of a cleaner, who looks after a grand, but empty central London house that Elliot owns.
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Elliot cannot bring himself to live in the house he has inherited. For him, it is haunted by too many memories of the past, and particularly those of his mysterious dead father.
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As the stories of visitors to the house reverberate around its empty corridors, the unworldly Joe, who is part messenger, part protégé, provides a link between Elliot and the outside world.
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However, Joe's innocent world-view begins to shift after he welcomes Richard (Rupert Penry-Jones), a charming, high-flying politician, and his beautiful mistress Charlotte (Kelly Reilly), into the mansion which they then use as a refuge in which to conduct their passionate affair.
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Elliot is determined to discover how his father made his fortune; so Joe enlists the help of Tina (Rebecca Hall), a girl who works in the local deli and has a keen interest in history. Her painstaking research unearths the dark secret at the heart of Elliot's past. This cathartic revelation releases Elliot to move on with his life in a spirit of optimism and hope.
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Stephen Poliakoff is delighted with the calibre of the cast for the new films: "I am thrilled to be reunited with Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith and Rupert Penry-Jones, whom I have been fortunate enough to work with before, and also to have the opportunity to work with some of the very best emerging talent in Britain today. It's very exciting to have such an exceptional cast."
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Jones adds that the director has elicited outstanding performances from his cast.
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"Stephen always gets the best out of his performers. He loves actors and gives them lots of time and support and attention. He devotes a great deal of time to rehearsing, which is very unusual in this day and age. But that helps him to bring out great performances from them. The actors feel really looked after."
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Poliakoff outlines the ideas that inspired Joe's Palace: "After Friends And Crocodiles and Gideon's Daughter, I wanted to make films that were more intimate. I had this idea of seeing the world through the eyes of Joe, the innocent son of a cleaner.
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"Friends And Crocodiles and Gideon's Daughter were about sophisticated, powerful people and the world of celebrity, so this time I wanted to write about people who are dislocated. I was eager to explore the sense of unease and apartness that people feel in this troubled decade. Another theme is how we deal with loneliness, a difficult emotion to dramatise but such a common experience."
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Jones underlines the significance of the pivotal figure of Joe: "His relationship with Elliot lies at the heart of the film, and it's crucial that Joe is a very pure character who has a simple, unquestioning view of the world. Elliot trusts him because he knows he doesn't want anything from him. That makes Joe the ideal concierge. He's also happy to invite Richard and Charlotte into the house, that's a very innocent trusting response."
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Poliakoff continues: "It's interesting to create a character like Joe, who offers an outsider's eye on events. That is a familiar theme in my work, think of The Lost Prince, which gave us an unusual perspective on the Royal Family. Joe is an intriguing character because he poses no threat to adults. He's not of their world, they open up to him."
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Joe's Palace also explores a concept that has run right through Poliakoff's work, the profound effect of the past on the present.
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According to Jones, "the film shows how the past influences the present in a powerful and moving way. It demonstrates how understanding where you come from can be both helpful and destructive."
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Poliakoff continues: "I wanted to write about the dislocation that's part of all our lives now, and that often stems from the past. I didn't want to write about what's happening in Iraq, it's too soon for that. There is always a time lapse in our ability to comprehend events from the past.
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"Films about the Vietnam War, for instance, only started coming out in the late Seventies and Eighties, many years after the conflict had ended.
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"In the same way, we are only now coming to terms with what happened in Europe during the Thirties and Forties, the biggest tragedy in the history of Western civilisation. So the horror of the past seeps into the present in Joe's Palace."
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Poliakoff explains further: "The past always impacts on the present but, in Joe's Palace, I wanted to make that connection in an unexpected and intimate way, through the prism of Elliot's story and the adultery between Richard and Charlotte.
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"The past has a particular hold on Elliot. He feels he will be stuck forever until he has come to terms with the past. He goes on a very brave journey. At first, he seems ineffectual and paralysed by his situation. He can't move on until he has discovered the truth about how his father came by his wealth.
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"Stories about murky money often take years to come out. But gradually, Elliot is rescued from his state of 'stuckness'. It's a simple, but poignant lesson; we have to question and confront our past again and again and again."
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Continuing, Poliakoff says: "Joe's Palace also allowed me to explore the feelings one first experiences as an adolescent. As teenagers growing up, we all have extraordinary moments of wanting to connect with the adult world and failing to do so.
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"I wanted to use that emotion in a boy who's slightly apart. He's not autistic like Johnnie in The Lost Prince, but he comes from a very different background to my usual characters."
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This apartness is common to several characters in Joe's Palace. The writer-director avers: "This loneliness is also evident in Elliot, who feels cut off from people because he never knows why they want to be friends with him.
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"It's present in Charlotte, too, who had a high-flying career but has given it up to have children. She's dissatisfied with her life but can't break away from it because of the kids and her own lack of confidence. I thought those three pools of apartness, Joe, Elliot and Charlotte, make an interesting conjunction. This house brings them all together."
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The affair between Richard and Charlotte also plays a key role in Joe's Palace. "I didn't want it to be tabloidy, I wanted it to be utterly believable," says Poliakoff.
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"We know that people in power do use grand houses for illicit affairs, David Blunkett being the most obvious example. It had to be artistically justifiable. Charlotte finds it queasy that they're allowed to use Elliot's house. But I thought that was plausible, the elite always help each other out."
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"There is a real vibrancy about the affair between Richard and Charlotte. It would have been too easy to say that all politicians are vile. Richard is a very charismatic man who has a lot of gifts and charm. He always has to keep moving, and he is pumped full of adrenalin and libido, that comes with the territory. But you can see exactly why she is attracted to him."
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Poliakoff highlights the delicate state that Charlotte is in when she embarks on the affair. "There is real poignancy in her emotional fragility," he observes. "She is this gorgeous woman who is deeply dissatisfied with her life.
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"Having an affair is a very intoxicating feeling for her. It's an escape for Charlotte. She feels completely alive when she's in the house with Richard, but is at a loss about what to do with the rest of her life. We see her pain through Joe. She feels she can reveal to Joe just how damaged she is because who's he going to tell?"
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The house in Joe's Palace plays a central role in its own right. "In many ways, it's the leading character in this film," reflects Jones. "It's like a Chinese box, as you discover different rooms you discover different aspects of the story.
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"Langley Park outside Slough was used for the interior shots of the film, and even inspired details in the script. For instance, there is a finely wrought door and a strange Sixties conservatory which Stephen incorporated into the drama."
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Poliakoff explains the inspiration behind the Mayfair mansion:
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"I've always held onto this image from my childhood. My father knew this millionaire who'd bought a building in Piccadilly. To my child's eye, it seemed to be always empty, but at the same time, it was being kept alive.
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"It was an amazing thing to have this gleaming, opulent building just standing there with apparently nothing happening in it. Mayfair is full of such secret properties.
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"They are tremendously important places. I'm haunted by the fact that so much of 20th Century British life has been governed by what went on at these great London mansions. At the same time, these houses can be tainted by the past, and the darkness of the past certainly infiltrates Joe's Palace."
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Poliakoff concludes by returning to the central relationship between Joe and Elliot. "Their friendship is surprising. I've always liked unexpected relationships and creating worlds that we haven't seen before.
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"Even though most viewers aren't billionaires or ambitious MPs, they will understand this universe because they are seeing it through the eyes of an innocent young boy. I hope this film will move people, regardless of who they are. The great thing about TV drama is that it can reach so many imaginations and hopefully will remain in them for a long time."
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