Over on our podcast blog, you can now hear my interview with actor Sam Heughan, the star of First Light, a drama based on the memoir of Spitfire pilot Geoffrey Wellum.
Like Radio 4’s Saturday Play Spitfire! last Saturday, First Light incorporates personal recollections from Wellum himself. It also uses archive footage, and a little bit of CGI, to show the full horror of the battle for the skies. Another battle plays out in the minds of the pilots who have to come to terms with losing colleagues in such circumstances.
It’s a superb drama, and I really do recommend everybody watches (it’s on BBC2 at 9pm, and on BBC HD at 10.30pm).
Over on the BBC’s television blog, co-writer, director and producer Matthew Whiteman writes about the technical challenges involved in bringing the flying sequences to life:
We had access to a real Spitfire - and the budget for maybe 45 minutes flying time - but the Spit is a single-seater and there was no question of anybody but a very experienced pilot taking the controls of several million pounds’ worth of vintage aeroplane.
We had access to a replica Spitfire, which could be shoved about on the ground but had no proper cockpit interior.
[…] Then we found a friendly pilot, prepared to have the back cockpit of his two-seater Russian YAK trainer converted to look like a Spitfire cockpit interior.
Sam leapt in, surrounded by high defintion (HD) mini-cams and took to the sky with his script taped to the instrument panel.
Meantime, our real Spit took off with the pilot delivering Boy Wellum’s point of view (by way of a specially designed camera mounting on his flying helmet).
The effect is impressive, and the overall drama is incredibly moving.
