Interview with Keeley Hawes

Can you tell us about your character in Summer of Rockets?
I play Kathleen Shaw. She is a politician’s wife and very much a woman of her time. Everybody in the show has secrets and we find out that Kathleen is also hiding something. But because of her position in society, and the fact her husband is a politician, it’s a secret that is kept within the family. This is very difficult for Kathleen, because she is the public face of the family, and must behave as though everything is fine. And of course, it isn't.

Is there anything particular you did to prepare for this role?
It’s all there in Stephen's wonderful writing. And we had a really luxurious three-week rehearsal period which was very intense, fun and productive. Usually with television, you don't get any rehearsal; generally you just go straight in. Stephen spends weeks with the actors sitting, talking, going through every aspect of the script. Therefore everyone is very well informed by the time we start. I felt incredibly well prepared.

And you haven't worked with Stephen before Summer of Rockets?
I hadn’t worked with Stephen before but I'd wanted to for a long time. I met him at various times for other projects but nothing worked out until now. Summer of Rockets feels like the right thing to have made together. I was very flattered to be asked, and it was a unique experience.

When you were looking into the period (the late 1950s and the beginning of the Cold War) is there anything that stood out or surprised you?
The season’s debutantes being presented to the Queen and there being a huge cake brought out at Queen Charlotte’s Ball I had no idea about... I'm not sure how people don't know about that enormous cake! It’s extraordinary - it took about six people to wheel it out on set. It’s ridiculous and incredibly British and very old-fashioned.

And then of course there’s the fact this is very close to Stephen's heart and a very special piece for him. I’ve known Stephen for a long time and yet I had no idea about his father’s hearing aid business or that he was under surveillance by MI5. It is fascinating.

Is there a memorable moment that stands out?
All of it! It’s called Summer of Rockets and we filmed last year and could not have had a better summer. It really was extraordinary. There were endless beautiful locations and hugely ambitious locations - the cast and crew were filming on the Mall at 3am on a Sunday morning. When you’re watching those scenes, you would think its CGI, it’s incredible that they shot a period piece right there in front of Buckingham Palace. I'm still not quite sure how they managed that. They've done a brilliant job.

And the Shaw’s house and gardens were just breathtaking, amazingly beautiful.

And finally, can you sum up the series and why you think people should watch?
It’s semi-autobiographical and it’s about a really interesting period in history. It’s full of fascinating detail and the characters are beautifully drawn.

Also it's a love letter to film and TV, and really demonstrates Stephen’s great love for the medium.

There’s so much, it’s impossible to sum it up but: it looks extraordinary as well as being an incredible story. I’m very proud of it.

Introduction by Stephen Poliakoff, writer and director

"Summer of Rockets is a six-part series for BBC Two, set in 1958, which was an extraordinary year. It saw the end of the debs [debutantes] being presented to the queen. It was also a time of great fear of nuclear war. The Cold War was at its absolute height and it ended with the Notting Hill riots - a reminder of the racial tensions that were bubbling up. All these things came together within a few weeks in the summer of 1958, that’s why I’ve always been fascinated by that time and thought it was a great setting for a drama.

We follow Samuel, who finds himself caught up with the Secret Service and involved in the mystery which he has to try to solve. Hannah, his daughter, is desperately trying to find her own identity and having to do this grizzly season. Sacha, the little boy, is sent off to boarding school, which is closely modelled on the boarding school that I went to.

Summer of Rockets centres around a family - modelled closely on my own - that gradually gets caught up in the tensions of the Cold War. The story is fiction, but it has many elements that are true. Sascha, the little boy, is sent off to an austere and frightening boarding school, just as I was. Samuel’s firm, the invention of the pager, the use of deaf workers and, most surreally, being suspected by the Secret Service of bugging Winston Churchill’s hearing aid, that’s all true.

When you make a period drama, you are conscious that you must speak to a modern audience and that there may be resonances. The most important is the fear of Russian penetration, which dominates the story of Summer of Rockets, but also dominates us now. But also the sense of technology exploding… these are all very urgent concerns for us at the moment and they’re all contained in the summer that these characters lived through.

Another challenge that I set myself when writing the story was that I had big set-piece sequences happening - one on The Mall, one inside Buckingham Palace, one in a big stately home with military activity… and when you’re creating these big set-pieces you need an incredibly good, big team around you. We’d all worked together before so that was a great short-hand. We all tried to make it as vivid as possible and not like we’re staring into the past from a height, not like we’re looking into a fishbowl.

When Samuel and his family meet the Shaws, Samuel is entranced by them. Linus Roache’s character Richard is a war hero and a famous man. Keeley Hawes wonderfully plays Kathleen, an aristocratic lady, incredibly poised. With them, we see very early on in the story that there is an underlying pain and that something is very wrong.

Arthur [played by Timothy Spall] is a charming character, but you feel early on that there may be something a little bit worrying about him - he asks very incisive questions. Timothy Spall’s great warmth and individuality as an actor means that you have to work out if he is a good character or a bad character, to put it simply. That is a very powerful tension in the story.

Hannah is incredibly resistant to doing the season. She’s quite a strong-willed character and has an original mind. She’s very interested in things going on around her. Lily’s wonderfully illuminating performance encapsulates all of that."

HF

Related Programme Information

• Episode one
• Episode two
• Episode three