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Albert Finney and Vanessa Redgrave head an all-star cast in The Gathering Storm, a major film on DVD - originally made for BBC TWO.

The Gathering Storm

Starring Vanessa Redgrave, Albert Finney, and an out-of-retirement Ronnie Barker The Gathering Storm is the story of Winston Churchill’s pre-war 'wilderness years', before he became Prime Minister.

It explores his struggle to alert the British people to the threat posed by the Nazis, and his frustrations as a backbencher, at being ridiculed as a warmonger over his warnings about the dangers of appeasement.

This lavish new production features Derek Jacobi (as the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin), Jim Broadbent (as Churchill's close friend and advisor, Desmond Morton) and Linus Roache (as Ralph Wigram).

Joining them are comedy legend Ronnie Barker (as Churchill's manservant, Inches), Hugh Bonneville (as Ivo Pettifer), Celia Imrie (as Churchill's secretary, the redoubtable 'Mrs P') and Tom Wilkinson and Lena Headey (as Vansittart, and Ava Wigram respectively). The film portrays Churchill’s family life, his relationship with his wife Clemmie, his struggle to support his children through journalism and his brushes with bankruptcy.

”A Definitive Performance”

The film has been directed by Richard Loncraine, fresh from his success last year with Band of Brothers, who also has The Missionary and Richard III under his belt.

He was initially reluctant to take the project, until he found out who his leading man was going to be. “When I heard that Albert Finney was doing it, I could see that it would be something completely different, and I loved Hugh Whitemore’s script.” He said.

“I had lunch with Albert and we knew, early on, that we weren’t going to be using prosthetics or make-up. Instead we shaved his head and used a hair-piece. Albert watched hours of archive television footage of Churchill and listened to countless speeches. He studied Winston’s body language and broke the speeches down into phonetics, so he would have Churchill’s rhythm of speaking, and he annotated his script. Albert has done a wonderful job, it’s a definitive performance.”

Ronnie Barker Returns

Of all the guest stars in the production, the news that 72-year-old Ronnie Barker would be appearing as Churchill’s long-suffering batman has generated the most interest. Most famous for his television comedy roles in the Two Ronnies, Porridge and Open All Hours, The Gathering Storm sees him taking the brunt of Churchill’s anger. He says of the role: “Churchill shouts at him a lot; they’re obviously quite close...he’s a bit of a drunk but very loyal and he loves Churchill.”

So how did he find going back to learning lines again after his well-publicised retirement from acting? “They’re not difficult.” He says. “There are only a couple of scenes in which I’m I have a lot of lines, although I’m sprinkled around the film a lot – but I’m out of practice. You have to remember that I haven’t learnt lines for fourteen years.”

They Were Churchill’s Doubles!

A wide variety of actors have portrayed Britain’s wartime premier on television and at the cinema, with Miles Mander playing him as early as 1942 in Captains of the Clouds. In more recent times Warren Clarke played him in Jennie in 1975 and Bob Hoskins in When Lions Roared in 1994.

Several actors have played Churchill more than once, after the war Russian actor Viktor Stanitsyn played Churchill no less than three times between 1949 and 1952. Robert Hardy, perhaps best remembered for his portrayal in The Wilderness Years (1981) has tackled the role twice more – in The Women He Loved (1988) and War and Remembrance (1989). David Ryall tried his hand in Bertie and Elizabeth in 2002, and will be seen again in the forthcoming feature, Two Men Went to War.

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