The Crimson Field: Alex Wyndham

What is your character Miles like?

Miles is a great character. He’s fantastically written by Sarah. He’s a surgeon, a captain in the RAMC. He’s sort of a louche, privileged, entitled, epicurean sort of fellow, but he’s also sympathetic. As much as he might just hit on the ladies and chat non-stop, he is essentially a benign character, I always felt. And even though he’s not as passionate about surgery as say Tom is, played by Richard Rankin, he’s got a lot to offer in terms of what is beneath the veneer of louche charm. I think he does care about things quite deeply, but he’s possibly not quite found the right thing to connect with yet.

Can you explain what Miles does in the hospital?

He’s a surgeon like Tom, so they take on the lion’s share of the serious procedures on the base. So whatever new convoys come in, which could be hundreds of men, hundreds of horrifically injured men, they have to be there and they have to be ready, whether that comes in at 1am, and they have to work for 10 hours straight. Just trying to save lives, and Miles and Tom take on that responsibility. The buck stops with them when it comes to the major procedures, the big operations.

What is Miles’s opinion of the VADs?

Well he’s just starved of females! But as I said it’s not sleazy. That was the big challenge with Miles, not making him sleazy. I actually think he’s quite lonely really. I think there are not many people he feels he can really connect with, and he really wants to talk to, and when the VADs come along it’s a fantastic diversion from the sheer depressing horror of it all.

Their arrival is an opportunity for diversion, to make some conversation, light repartee like it would have been back in London. He’s thrilled, absolutely thrilled by the VADs.

Who are Miles’s allies in the hospital?

Miles's allies within the hospital are definitely Tom. The wonderful thing about Miles' and Tom’s relationship is it’s one of those rare sweet spots, where two guys can really get along because they pose absolutely no threat to each other, professionally or personally. They come from completely different backgrounds.

Thomas is passionate about surgery, Miles really couldn’t care less, so they can really like each other, and they can really get along, and they do in a sort of oddball way. As the series progress, I think they have quite a caring bromance, which I think is rather pleasing I hope.

How did you find wearing the uniform?

You get used to it! It’s the eternal thing though when you’re doing period dramas. The eternal problem is the height of the trouser – it’s so high! That takes a little getting used too, but after a while you start to enjoy it. The hats particularly! It takes a little bit of getting used to, but then after a while you loosen up and it’s nice to wear a uniform. You don’t have to think about what you have to wear, you just whack it on!

How much research did you have to do into the First World War for the role?

A lot. Read a lot of books. The odd thing was though, it was sort of a rediscovery in as much as you realised your whole childhood was steeped with these memories of the War, and a lot of last posts and readings.

I went to Winchester, and we had a whole purpose -built war memorial for the Second World War. On Remembrance Day we’d all troop out and listen to a whole lot of speeches. And obviously things like Journey’s End and this whole sort of culture that permeates the UK are kind of historical and cultural perceptions.

It’s far more pervasive than we ever thought, but then obviously you have to refresh it and to be specific, you can’t just rely on a general idea of being posh, and charging round and 'tally ho' and chasing footballs! As much as that there was just a lot of reading to make sure we were being specific, so we had the right numbers and exactly how the procedures would work in a hospital. Specifically things like military discipline and how rigorously that was enforced, which I think is a very important thing in the show.

Hierarchy is quite an important element of the show. Were you surprised from what you were reading how far we have progressed, in terms of how men and women were treated differently at that time? 

Oh gosh absolutely! You’re looking at it through the lens of nations at war, so it’s harder to necessarily apply what’s going on in the hospital to what would have been going on back home. I mean actually it would have been fairly similar!

Obviously you had to have rigorous discipline and hierarchies in a war, but at home it probably would have been remarkably similar. It’s constantly astonishing that last century saw just the absolute transformation of society, on a social level, in terms of gender and race and sexuality, and I think doing a show like this makes you realise how new all these ideas of equality are.