{"id":16919,"date":"2022-05-31T10:17:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T14:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-midwich-cuckoos\/"},"modified":"2022-06-01T09:30:31","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T13:30:31","slug":"david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/","title":{"rendered":"David Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Screenwriter David Farr and director Alice Troughton had read John Wyndham\u2019s critically acclaimed 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos<\/em>, about aliens that impregnate all the women of child-bearing age in a small English town, as children. When the opportunity arose to bring the dystopian classic to TV as a scripted series for the first time, they both jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt blew me away a bit,\u201d says Farr of the experience of reading the novel when he was 12 or 13. \u201cI was in a small town in the south of England, and it had similarities to the insular community the book was set in. There\u2019s this alienating feeling of dread. You couldn\u2019t trust the world you lived in. It\u2019s perfect for being a teenager! It stayed with me for years. I met a producer 10, 15 years ago, who asked, Do you like John Wyndham? I said, Yes, particularly The Midwich Cuckoos<\/em>. And he said, Well, we\u2019re trying to get the rights. I don\u2019t know if we can. It\u2019s very complicated. They\u2019re stuck in Hollywood because of the John Carpenter movie. That\u2019s why nothing\u2019s ever happened with this extraordinary story. And then I get a phone call about four years ago saying, We\u2019ve got them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farr, whose extensive list of credits includes The Night Manager<\/em> and Hanna<\/em>, decided to set his adaptation\u2014produced by Route 24 and Snowed-In Productions, in association with Sky Studios\u2014in the modern day rather than late \u201950s England. \u201cI wanted to bring it to a new audience and new viewers. It\u2019s a modern setting, not as rural as the book. I wanted to set it in more of a commuter town. That brought in all sorts of different things. So, for example, it felt very important that you shouldn\u2019t pretend that you could hide these children in the way they do in the original book. In the original book, the children are all identical. They all have the same blond hair; it\u2019s obvious that they\u2019re not human in a normal sense, but because they\u2019re in a tiny community in 1957, no one notices them. Whereas in our world, we are surveilled, we are monitored. John Wyndham was interested in totalitarian ideas, Stalinism and Nazism. That\u2019s not our world. Our world is a world of individualism, consumerism, the illusion that we have choice, the illusion that we can make a safe world for ourselves. So I didn\u2019t want the children to be all identical. I wanted it to be subtler in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farr also flipped the gender of the book\u2019s protagonist, Gordon Zellaby, in the adaptation, which premieres on Sky Max this week. \u201cThe book is very male,\u201d Farr says. \u201cI wanted to make the television program much more about the women, the mothers. It\u2019s a female story. So I changed the lead character to a child psychologist, a woman called Dr. Zellaby, whom Keeley Hawes plays. That shifted the entire drama. It became about anxiety among children and about mothers and children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Farr and Troughton knew Hawes would be perfect for the role. \u201cWe both wanted someone who could carry a little bit of glamor,\u201d Farr says. \u201cShe\u2019s not from the town. She has a certain stature that perhaps not everyone in the town has. She\u2019s not as normal as some of them. She\u2019s a touch of an outsider and she\u2019s a listener. As I think of her, she\u2019s the priest of the village. She also is a complete emotional mess under the surface. But you mustn\u2019t see that too soon. She knows how to time a performance. She doesn\u2019t give everything away too quickly. She can be very calm and relaxed. And then she suddenly surprises you with emotion that you didn\u2019t see coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Troughton (Tin Star<\/em>, Baghdad Central<\/em>, A Discovery of Witches<\/em>) quickly signed up to serve as the show\u2019s lead director, attracted to \u201cthe cleverness of it, the boldness of it, the time to spend with the characters who become parents to these children. I was just so hooked. It\u2019s not the 1950s power dynamics between genders. There\u2019s the theme of control over female bodies. Controlling female bodies is the essence of an uncivilized society. Until we have volition and power over our bodies again, we won\u2019t have equality or gender parity. In a genre format, we\u2019re allowed to explore that with imagination and creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The novel has twice been made into feature films: in the 1960s, by MGM, and again in 1995 by Carpenter. Farr had not seen Carpenter\u2019s 1995 take previously, despite being a huge fan of the director. \u201cThis is probably his worst film,\u201d Farr says of Village of the Damned<\/em>, which moves the action from a sleepy 1950s English town to contemporary California. \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t quite work. Curiously, I learned quite a lot from it. The old film [MGM\u2019s 1960s release] was very faithful to the Cold War aesthetic and worked beautifully, although I found the second half less satisfying. I think the children run out of steam because they\u2019re so identical. You just know exactly what they\u2019re going to do. For me, that was a great lesson. If you\u2019re going to do a long television series, you don\u2019t have the stereotypical children who are always going to do exactly the same thing. You have to create relationships that change and evolve. That involves conflict. You have to have conflict in the end. And how do you have conflict when you\u2019ve got a hive mind? That\u2019s one of the most interesting things about this story. John Carpenter went very fast, and therefore, we never got to care about anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farr and Troughton were excited about the opportunity to tell a complete story in a limited series, without having to worry about turning it into a returning production. \u201cFor me, the pleasure of adapting a book is there is an acknowledgment that you are updating it, revolutionizing it, making it relevant for now, but you\u2019re telling that story,\u201d Farr says. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve always preferred to have a proper ending and resolution to my shows, even on something like Hanna<\/em>, where there was an understanding that it would go on. I only dared once to actively have an open ending, if you like. I don\u2019t feel that comfortable with it. It feels a bit whorish somehow! But this one has a very strong resolution. Having said that, it is the culture now that if something\u2019s successful, people will always come knocking and asking [if there is more]. We\u2019re only looking at one very small lens of this idea. It is possible to say, Well, actually there are other lenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Troughton adds, \u201cIt made it a joy to work on knowing that it was finite and that there wouldn\u2019t be this huge play for a recommission. But actually, now that we\u2019ve finished series one, I think there absolutely should be a series two. First of all, Wyndham was making a sequel in his head. I don\u2019t know how much I can give away about that, but his idea behind it was incredible. And something I\u2019ve always thought about is, did the Cuckoos just go for this very small town? Was Midwich their only scoring place? So I pitched to David: Who knows what happened in Russia or India?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows if there are other countries that have them and haven\u2019t told us,\u201d Farr adds. \u201cWe all made it with the absolute clarity that we were doing this story. That\u2019s how you have to do things. When you finish it, you look at it and see potential seeds for something else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Screenwriter David Farr and director Alice Troughton on bringing John Wyndham’s 1957 classic The Midwich Cuckoos to contemporary audiences in a new Sky original series that premieres this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":16920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,70],"tags":[5018,5019,5020,5021],"class_list":["post-16919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-alice-troughton","tag-david-farr","tag-john-wyndham","tag-the-midwich-cuckoos","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nDavid Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"David Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Screenwriter David Farr and director Alice Troughton on bringing John Wyndham's 1957 classic The Midwich Cuckoos to contemporary audiences in a new Sky original series that premieres this week.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-31T14:17:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-01T13:30:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2017\/07\/Farr-Troughton-522.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/\",\"name\":\"David Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-31T14:17:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-01T13:30:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"David Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"David Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos - TVDRAMA","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"David Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos - TVDRAMA","og_description":"Screenwriter David Farr and director Alice Troughton on bringing John Wyndham's 1957 classic The Midwich Cuckoos to contemporary audiences in a new Sky original series that premieres this week.","og_url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/","og_site_name":"TVDRAMA","article_published_time":"2022-05-31T14:17:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-06-01T13:30:31+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":319,"url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2017\/07\/Farr-Troughton-522.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Mansha Daswani","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mansha Daswani","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/","name":"David Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos - TVDRAMA","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-05-31T14:17:00+00:00","dateModified":"2022-06-01T13:30:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-farr-alice-troughton-talk-the-midwich-cuckoos\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"David Farr, Alice Troughton Talk The Midwich Cuckoos"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/","name":"TVDRAMA","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad","name":"Mansha Daswani","description":"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}