GAVIN DOCHERTY finds the Newcastle underworld being captured on film
in Glasgow
ON a hilltop graveyard a long line of one hundred black-clad actors
and extras drifts in a gentle slope to the cemetery gates, laughing,
joking, smoking and cracking hangman's jokes.
Things were getting off to a slow start on the film set. Today there
are four sequences on the schedule, none more than a couple of minutes
long; but the sheer scale means the place is over-run by grips, gaffers,
camera assistants, etc, who began preparing for the set-up long before
the cameras start to roll.
The cast and crew of Finney, ITV's new six-part gangland saga, have
been ready to go since 9.30am but it was almost 11.30am, before the
board finally clapped down on the first shot.
They are filming a pivotal opening sequence from the funeral of Tucker
Finney, the godfather of a family that controls a large piece of the
city's underworld.
The set, at Kilbowie Cemetery in Clydebank, is appropriately eerie,
adorned by bulging, garish wreaths which read TUCKER and DAD. The
gangsters' molls are garbed in state of the tart black dresses with
slits up the sides. As far as bad guys go, the accompanying men are from
the bottom of the pit.
In this weird, violent urban fairy tale, the son of Tucker -- who has
been brutally murdered by a rival gang -- comes back from London to
avenge his father's killers.
There is a strong whiff of deja vu about the scene unfolding here in
the cold wind and bright sunshine at the graveside. With a similar flair
for the theatrical, over a year ago they buried Glasgow godfather Arthur
Thompson at a cemetery in Glasgow. There was the same gleaming
flower-bedecked motorcade, the same well-dressed men waited to pay their
respects, the same feeling in bystanders that they were watching
something straight out of a Hollywood Mafia film.
''There are families like the Thompsons all over Britain,'' says
Finney director David Hayman. ''Families who have got it all sewn up.
''They are into gaming rackets, they are into car sales, they supply
vending machines to pubs, they are into property.
''They are just a family of villains in a sense. In this piece the
head of the family is assassinated. Everybody assembles for his funeral
including the families who are in opposition to him running the town.''
His wayward son (played by rising star David Morrissey) comes back for
the funeral. He is a musician and he has nothing to do with the family
business. His father leaves him a derelict bit of property which he has
decided to turn into a jazz club -- smack in the middle of the rival
gang family's patch.
Hayman says: ''In the process of doing that he becomes involved in the
conflict between the two families and decides he is going to bring peace
between them.
''There's a moral line to it all, but by the end, unfortunately, most
of the people are dead.''
This is organised crime in stylish Armani suits; the thugs who
populate Finney are a class act that have become part of the fabric of
society. ''It's a kind of facade for Glasgow,'' Hayman asserts. ''I
remember being approached when I wanted to do a version of No Mean City,
which kind of debunks the hardman myth. I was approached by an unnamed
member of Glasgow District Council saying if I didn't pull this
production, I will not get public money again.
''They wanted to keep the image clean. Cut to today when Glasgow
thinks it has cleaned up its act, but there are 27,000 handguns in
Strathclyde alone. The amount of armed robberies that are going on, it's
just escalating out of control. It's endemic in any major contemporary
city. Violence and corruption is endemic.''
A Zenith production for Tyne Tees Television, Finney is set on
Tyneside, but is being made in Glasgow to save money.
Says Hayman: ''My argument was I could shoot it faster, better,
cheaper, with a better calibre of crew and cast in Scotland than I can
in England.
''I still needed a week in Newcastle to do general views and
establishing shots. Glasgow and Newcastle are very similar cities,
geographically, architecturally, and the industrial heritage is
similar.''
He met resistance from his producers because they didn't see the
wisdom of it to begin with. ''But I wouldn't have done it if I had to go
to Newcastle to shoot it. I'm fed up going to London to work ll months a
year. If it is something I know I can shoot in Scotland and bring work
to Scotland through it, then without compromising the piece why the hell
should I go three or four hundred miles twice a week and be away from my
family and the crews that I want to work with?''
Now he's started a one-man crusade to bring work to Scotland, rather
than him going south to find emplyment. With Cardiac Arrest One and Two,
with Finney, and with a movie he is planning to make at the end of the
year, Hayman says he has brought #7.5m worth of work to Glasgow.
Finney is set to be David Morrissey's big break. Even before the
series is completed he was being geared up for the publicity machine
which wants to pitch him as the next Liam Neeson.
Currently starring as the bent customs officer Gerry in ITV's ratings
blockbuster series, The Knock, Morrissey, 27, says: ''I do tend to play
quiet, naive, sort of intense and very morally bound young men who get
corrupted, get seduced by people. I think I might have a bit of a
corruptible face.
''What I do have here is a great part in a six-part series
fantastically written, and that's for 17 weeks. I need to concentrate on
that. If I do this job and do it well enough the rest can look after
itself.''
His co-star is the Bread and Cardiac Arrest actress Melanie Hill, who
is cast as his sister Lena, and to whom the father has bequeathed the
entire business.
''Parts like this rarely come around,'' Hill says. ''It's actually
made in heaven. You get to dominate men.
''A lot of people, since I've got the part, have said, 'oh are you
playing a gangster's moll in it?' It's mostly the men that say it. And I
think that's really sexist. I say no, I'm actually playing a gangster.
''I have got some great scenes. I really humiliate this barman in it.
He has started buying his slot machines off the other gangsters. Lena
goes in and gives him what for. She makes him strip off and burn his
clothes.''
''Arthur Thompson might be grinning in his grave.''
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