The events of four-part series The Sixth Commandment could easily seem like a brilliantly written fiction, but in fact this gripping drama explores real-life crime: the deaths of a much-respected teacher, Peter Farquhar, and his neighbour, Ann Moore-Martin, in an English village, and the complex investigation that followed.
And so for actor Timothy Spall, taking on the role of Farquhar, who died after his life intersected with charismatic student Ben Field (Éanna Hardwicke), carried extra responsibility.
“When I received Sarah Phelps’ brilliant scripts, I knew this was an essential story to tell. I am honoured to be playing the remarkable Peter Farquhar and hope I do him justice, which is the very least he deserves,” says Spall (a familiar face on screen, with roles ranging from Mr Turner and several Harry Potter movies to and more recently, Wicked Little Letters).
Timothy Spall as Peter Farquhar. Credit: Amanda Searle / BBC / Wild Mercury
Executive producer Derek Wax says of casting Spall:
“Tim Spall was our first choice for the role of Peter Farquhar. There's a degree to which physical resemblance is important as you couldn’t cast a six-foot-five actor to play Peter, but the key element is the emotional imagination of the actor and his sheer ability to get under the skin of that person. Tim has been absolutely remarkable and has found so many different layers and dimensions to Peter. It was an extraordinary experience seeing the way that he engaged with the character as a person, found his sense of humour, his dryness, his wit, his vulnerability, his loneliness, his beginning to fall in love for the first time in his life, and seeing him opening himself up to somebody with obviously fatal consequences really touches our hearts in that first episode.”
Here, Spall talks about what drew him to the role, the responsibility of playing a real person and working with Éanna Hardwicke.
What sort of person was Peter Farquhar?
Peter Farquhar was a brilliant teacher, a Cambridge graduate who had just retired from Stowe when we first meet him and was about to take up a position as a guest lecturer at Buckingham University. He was obviously highly respected, much loved, had a huge influence on young people's lives and careers. We also discover early on that he was a very serious, devout Christian and that he found it very difficult to reconcile his repressed sexuality with his faith. Through discussions with a friend and a counsellor we discover that although he had many friends, he was quite lonely and felt deeply isolated within himself.
What sort of people are there in his life?
In Peter's real life, there was all sorts of friends and ex-students, and so forth. But his closest friends were his neighbours Liz played by Sheila Hancock and Ann played by Anne Reid and he has a brother Ian and his wife Sue who are very clever, and they were very close all their lives. These are the main people along with the lawyers and his colleagues. Pretty early on we’re into the relationship that he forms with Ben who is a student at Buckingham University. Not only is he very brilliant and mature but as soon as they meet it’s obvious that he's a cut above as far as his intellect is concerned. Ben is also the kind of young man that he's been secretly desiring for many, many years without doing anything about it.
Timothy Spall as Peter Farquhar and Sheila Hancock as his neighbour, Liz Zettl. Credit: Amanda Searle / BBC / Wild Mercury
What are the red flags that the audience is seeing that Peter isn't?
Ben's character is not just a manipulator, he’s somebody who becomes what Peter wants him to be and is very convincing. I think the audience are going to ask themselves if this is sincere. It isn't a standard gaslighting story where you see the victim as a pawn. This is much more sophisticated. You're talking about deeply intelligent people who are hoodwinked by their own dreams being answered, the softest part of their souls are being touched by somebody so seemingly genuine. As far as the audience are concerned, they’re not seeing an Iago here, you don't get scenes where he says, ‘I will do this or that to him’ - none of that. The psychology of Ben's character is far more sophisticated, far more subtle. It's not a cloak and dagger thing he does but much more psychological. Where are they? What are we? What's going on here? Is this real? Is this manipulation? Luckily, we have a brilliant young actor in Éanna playing his part superbly. He comes across as so genuine, so real, loving and helpful even when things seem to be going awfully wrong. When Peter starts to get very ill and hallucinates and behaves in ways that are totally out of character, he makes the assumption that he is just getting old. At the very point where he's about to live out the rest of his life in absolute blissful happiness with the love of his life, he becomes ill but doesn’t see anything nefarious going on at all.
Éanna Hardwicke as Ben Field and Timothy Spall as Peter Farquhar. Credit: BBC / Wild Mercury
What were the challenges of taking on the role?
It’s a massive responsibility when you're playing a real human being who was a family man, as they live on with love in people's hearts. It’s never lost on me and I have done my very best for Peter. I'm not trying to make it sound like some worthy, noble thing, but you're telling a story about someone who's loved and remembered and was alive not that long ago. So you really do want to get it right. Sarah Phelps has done a marvellous job in writing a drama that’s so subtle and delicate, riddled with such emotional depth. It's so important to me that the family are behind this; he was a much-loved human being who died so tragically.
What do you think is the appeal of The Sixth Commandment?
The more experience I've got, the more I realise you're never going to know how something is going to turn out – you may have an inkling but you endeavour to make it the best you possibly can. This drama is a tribute to murdered people and to the bravery from within the family in finding justice for them, because they loved them so much. They felt they deserved to be respected, understood and, as I mentioned before, it’s usually the murderer who gets top billing, not the victim. This is a drama about the victims, as well as the perpetrator.
How have you found working with Éanna?
Fantastic. When I first read the script I wondered ‘Who on earth are they going to get to play this part?’ From an acting point of view it’s a great role to play, but in reality it's very subtle and needs a brilliant actor. What we have in Éanna is a talented young actor doing everything one would hope to make the character of Ben so convincing, so believable and so attractive. Fundamentally, we're telling a story which might entertain but we’re also paying homage to the people who lived - and talking about the frailty of the human heart.
This is an edited extract of material supplied by BBC / Wild Mercury / True Vision.
The Sixth Commandment premieres on SBS on September 4th at 9.25pm, with episodes airing weekly. All four episodes will also be streaming .
