Ashes To Ashes
1981: Behind the scenes
It's 1981, the year of leg warmers, the Rubik's Cube and the ZX Spectrum.
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Those with less rose-tinted memories will remember that era for the Brixton and Toxteth riots and the decade that identified the Aids virus.
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It was also a time when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's privatisation of nationalised industries sharply divided political opinions.
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With those years so fresh in the minds of today's TV-viewing public, the production team were aware of their responsibility to get the look spot on.
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"The Eighties was a very colourful decade, so we felt that needed to be reflected in the costumes, make-up and locations in the show," explains producer, Beth Willis.
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"There was lots of big hair, so DS Ray Carling has a tight perm and DI Alex Drake has big curly hair. Our other characters have moustaches, mullets and there is lots of blue eye shadow and lots of polo necks, bomber jackets, Ray Ban sunglasses and off-the-shoulder tops. Alex wears a fantastic white leather jacket and matching white boots – she looks a million dollars."
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Despite the fact that Ashes To Ashes is set in the not-too-distant past, a lot of research was still needed to fine tune each of the characters' distinctive looks.
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Costume designer Rosie Hackett drew inspiration from a variety of publications and icons of the era:
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"My first port of call was a library in Westminster where they have all the back issues of magazines like Vogue, the Sunday Times supplements, Woman magazine, TV Times and the Radio Times. We looked at what famous men and women were wearing – for example, Joanna Lumley was really popular then – and we were able to get a flavour of what was going on over a wide cross-section of society."
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Once the team had referenced archive material, the wardrobe department had to find clothes that expressed the look they were aiming for. Rosie and her team searched high and low to find the right clothes:
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"Recreating the Blitz Club in episode two was really fun," smiles Rosie. "The New Romantic scene was all about hand-made clothes; people used to beg and borrow stuff from anyone – even their gran!
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"Often their clothes would be from the local jumble sale, so it certainly wasn't slick. Coincidently, there's a New Romantic revival going on at the moment, so we got a load of people coming down to shoot the Blitz club scenes having styled themselves from their own wardrobes!"
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Finding the right locations for the era proved much trickier, however. The past two decades have seen major changes to London's skyline – for example, Lord Foster's award-winning Gherkin and the London Eye are both fairly recent additions.
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Even at street level the environment has become a very different place. Everything from shop fronts to street signs have undergone changes without people even noticing, making locations that look like London, circa 1981, almost impossible.
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Beth confesses: "Our location department spent hours scouring London for roads which didn't have buildings beyond 1981. We can safely say that there aren't many left out there!"
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God is in the detail and so the hard work for Beth and the team didn't stop at just finding a suitable location: "We've had to take down a lot of TV dishes, cover road markings, put up strategically placed greenery, and we also asked lots of people to move their modern vehicles," laughs Beth.
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So, once you've uncovered a location and sourced the ideal wardrobe, how do you go about adding those extra details that add authenticity and make the show feel real?
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Finding necessary tools to bring the set alive was one of the surprise challenges of the series: "Even though the Eighties weren't that long ago, sourcing props was harder than you'd think as technology has moved on so much," continues Beth. "The Ashes To Ashes production team has spent a lot of time on eBay this past year!
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"People had just begun to get VCR players, but not slick models like the ones that have only recently been replaced by DVDs. In 1981, the machinery was massive and you loaded the tapes from the top rather than the front – they took for ever to load up."
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Although the modern technology that today's police take for granted was not available to their 1981 counterparts, DCI Gene Hunt's office proudly sports a rare treat that should take people back and raise a few smiles:
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"Gene has the most enormous computer in pride of place on his desk," reveals Beth, "even though it only tells the time and date and he only uses it to play the game Pong."
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Gene's new toys don't stop there and, like any self-respecting Eighties man, he now drives a sexy red sports car. Even though the model finally chosen for Gene wouldn't have been for sale in the UK in 1981, the producers wanted to show how the newly-divorced Gene Hunt might have coped with his midlife crisis by importing a flash new motor.
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Beth explains: "In 1981, the Audi Quattro was the car to have, although you could only get them in Europe at the time. Gene's wife has left him, he's moved to London and the flash new car reflects his brand-new start in life."
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With the car in place, the props department had to make sure it could cope with Gene's somewhat over-enthusiastic driving: "As one of the first four-wheel drives, it clung to the road like no other car," continues Beth. "We had a hydraulic handbrake fitted because, even though he'd die for this car, he still wants to rag it round corners when he's chasing criminals."
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The painstaking work of the Ashes To Ashes team in recreating the era has left no stone unturned. Those that remember the decade will cringe with recognition at the shoulder pads, the mullets and the demi perms, whilst those whose memories do not stretch that far will marvel at just how much things have changed.
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Now – anyone for Campari and soda?
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