Exclusive Interview: Andrew Davies

PREMIUM: Andrew Davies talks to TV Europe about his approach to telling the story of retail magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge in late-19th- and early-20th-century London with his latest project, Mr Selfridge, which ITV Studios Global Entertainment is distributing worldwide.

TV EUROPE: How did Mr Selfridge come about?
DAVIES: Kate Lewis, who is the executive producer—we’ve worked together many times—had this book called Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge, which was an account of how Harry Gordon Selfridge came to London from America and opened a shop. She said, I think this will make a fantastic series. At first I thought, Do I want to do a whole series about shopping? [Laughs] But then I did get drawn in by the story. He’s just a fantastic character. And it’s a story about business and modernity and change—he did revolutionize retail practices and started lots of things we take for granted today. He was a real historical figure, and we know about his wife and about his children and his mother. But he had a lot of mistresses and we don’t really know much about them, so I had the freedom to create characters.

Harry Gordon Selfridge was in a way a self-destructive character. He loved to gamble; that was his way of relaxing. And he took incredible risks with his business and usually got away with them. In terms of his emotional life, he was drawn to the kind of women who would be the most trouble. Of course; that makes for terrific drama. We’ve got a really rich mix, with lots going on in the story in terms of ambition, jealousy, and also secret love affairs. Even though he didn’t have very strict rules for himself, he did have strict rules in the shop—shop romances amongst the staff were definitely [not allowed]. But of course they went on.

TV EUROPE: And you have Jeremy Piven playing the lead role.
DAVIES: We are so excited. You get the feeling that the audience will like him. He’s got that kind of outrageous cheek—that he can do bad things but you’ll still like him. And we’ve got lots of interesting women. There’s an aristocratic character, except she’s not a real aristocrat, called Lady Mae [portrayed by Katherine Kelly]. She’s a former [chorus] girl who marries an earl, but they never see each other. When he’s in the country she’s in town, and vice versa. She thinks that’s the way to make a marriage work! We’ve got [Zoë Tapper as] Ellen Love, who is an actress that Harry wants to [set up] as the face of Selfridges, and of course he starts an affair with her and she turns out to be terribly high maintenance and very flaky, with a cocaine habit. And we’ve got a sweet little heroine called Agnes [Aisling Loftus], who comes from a very poor background. She starts work as an assistant and we’re going to watch her progress. She’ll carry a lot of our hopes.

TV EUROPE: How much time went into the research to make the settings and the language historically accurate?
DAVIES: It’s getting easier and easier with the Internet. Think about [the character of] Ellen Love, who is a musical comedy actress. Google “musical comedies 1909” and you can learn all about who the stars were, what kind of lives they had. The woman who wrote the book, Lindy Woodhead, is a fashion historian and has access to the whole archive of Selfridges, and we’ve got her as an advisor. So if there’s anything we don’t know we can contact her, and indeed, she sees all the drafts of all the scripts. So if we get anything wrong, we certainly hear about it!

TV EUROPE: What are some of the biggest changes you’ve witnessed in your years working in British television?
DAVIES: When I started, producers at the BBC could commission—they didn’t have to go to commissioners. So my early career was very much tied up with two producers, Louis Marks and Rosemary Hill. They would have their four productions a year, and if three of them worked then they were all right for the next [project]. Producers had much more freedom. For a while my career hung on the same fragile thread as Louis Marks, because he would not only commission me again and again, but he’d also recommend me to other producers. One of the big differences [today] is that, at the BBC especially, [there is a greater] number of people that have got to say yes [to a project]. It’s much more straightforward at ITV. There are fewer people involved and decisions are made more quickly.