Jock Lewes - Co-Founder of the SAS

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There is no recorded footage of Paddy speaking, which is helpful for me. It just means I have got a bit of room for manoeuvre, instead of trying to hone into something that is famously known. I can sort of reimagine it a little bit. I think if it wasn’t for Tom I wouldn’t have been able to play David Stirling at all. I think he feeds off the chaos and because of that always keeps morale, even when it’s really hard. I think on face value Tom Shankland wouldn’t have been the guy to do this job, but ultimately when you meet him he’s the most extreme adrenaline junkie, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing, sweet-talking dude who is perfect for this kind of experience. There is a version of this story that you could tell - a superhero version where no one has any emotions – but this isn’t that. This is a version that features the flawed nature of all of these characters too. These are the things Tom and myself really wanted to dive into, and what I think is going to make this show so special. SAS Rogue Heroes, the first episode of which airs on Sunday, depicts the real-life events that were revealed at great length by historian Ben Macintyre in his 2016 book of the same name. Based on Ben Macintyre’s best-selling book of the same name, SAS Rogue Heroes on the BBC has been a huge hit with audiences and critics alike, with episode one attracting 9.4 million viewers (28-day all screens figure). This makes SAS Rogue Heroes the BBC’s third biggest drama launch of the year so far. The series has been available in full as a box set on BBC iPlayer since launch. Her brother, retired Brigadier John Almonds, who served three tours with the SAS and was the regiment's chief of staff, was among those enjoying the show. But Lorna also admitted a few former members of the SAS and some historians were not entirely happy with Steven Knight's portrayal.

Here we have a group of men who were by no means ordinary, yet never expected the ‘superhero’ treatment. They came from all corners of the UK and from every class, working together with an unforced swagger that tells us they have no point to prove, simply a job to do and a strong belief at their core that they can deliver. All this whilst surrounded by the most extraordinary and perilous circumstances. He then agreed to work with Stirling if he would adopt the name Special Air Service for the regiment. I love anything about the SAS, I think it’s fascinating. I’d read the book by Ben Macintyre when it first came out. When Tom Shankland, who I worked with on Les Miserables a few years ago, rang me up and said “I’m doing this, do you want to be involved?” I said, “Yes Thomas - yes I do Shanky!”. Stirling might well have met a French spy or two in those early days, but Eve, chic smoker so she is, is a construct of Knight's imagination, according to the show notes. You'll probably recognise Boutella, though, having appeared in films like The Mummy, Kingsman and Atomic Blonde. Did Connor Swindells' David Stirling really lob a grenade at a crowded snooker table? He was also the only original who kept a contemporaneous diary, which informed not only Lorna's biography of her father, Gentleman Jim, but countless other historical accounts of the SAS founders, including Ben Macintyre's book SAS Rogue Heroes on which the BBC series is based.The fearsome trained killers have protected Britain's interests wherever required - most famously in the 1980 siege of the Iranian embassy, when they rescued 24 hostages as millions watched on the television news. Well that’s always very nice to hear! I guess I’m a big believer that when you are on set you are playing. There are so many things that you could get stressed about when you’re filming. I tend not to only because, I suppose fundamentally I do think we are just playing. Yet the series also showcases the role of Dudley Wrangle Clarke, a genius of military deception who was once arrested while dressed as a woman. Brilliantly portrayed by Dominic West – whom viewers first meet in full drag – Clarke did not just create the idea of British commandos. He invented a phantom regiment of paratroopers, the first SAS Brigade, to increase Italian fears of an airborne assault, and encouraged Stirling to take their name. (Chillingly, in a scene with French intelligence officer Eve Mansour (Sofia Boutella), Clarke estimates Stirling's chances of survival as perhaps 10%). Still, SAS Rogue Heroes has been well received by people who know their stuff, such as the historian Antony Beevor, often grumpy about historical accuracy in war films. “Knight has of course taken liberties with the precise record,” he wrote in The Guardian, “but they are mainly additions, fleshing out characters and context, not distortions.”

Tim Jones. SAS Zero Hour: The Secret Origins of the Special Air Service. Barnsley, S. Yorks.: Pen & Sword Books. p.204. Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama, says: “The fantastic response and huge iPlayer figures for SAS Rogue Heroes is a testament to Steven Knight’s incredible skill for turning our history into modern, must-see TV. BBC viewers have really taken this series to their hearts, and we’re delighted to be working with Steven and Kudos to bring the Rogue Heroes’ exciting next chapter to life.”I’m always excited to go to set and see what everyone else thinks about what we’re going to do that day. I’ll go in of course with a plan, and I’m a great believer in communicating and prepping your ideas as early as you can so you are not springing surprises on people. I think fundamentally you just want to get there and make sure and listen to people. Encourage them to be as brilliant as they can be, and just enjoy watching that kind of magical thing. Of course you know you are telling a story, I think everyone understands the goal of what you are doing and the process should be as joyous as it can be. That’s my fundamental thing about what a film set should be like. It’s a glorified sandpit, and – when filming in the Sahara - we are in the biggest one in the world!

It’s about one of the most intense and mysterious combat organisations that started in 1941 during Second World War in North Africa. They were a group of men that were intense, intelligent, and that didn’t go by the rules. She also said she thought the behaviour of some, particularly after the war, owed a lot to post-traumatic stress. Best-selling author Damien Lewis, whose new book SAS Brothers In Arms also tells the story of the founding of the SAS, had access to early memorabilia kept by Paddy Mayne, as well as the soldier's personal effects. What also drew me was the fact that I grew up in a military family. My grandfather was a colonel when Algeria gained its independency in 1962, but was a captain under the French military. I grew up very much in a military family, so it just hits home for me. In that way being Algerian, growing up in Paris and having that relationship with France - and so does my character who is Algerian but serves under the French regime under General de Gaulle directly. I was also very proud to play an Algerian character who is considered highly in those kind of areas, who is also educated, and serving a purpose that is bigger than her own. General Bernard Montgomery was among senior officers who initially did not look kindly on the SAS. He described Stirling as 'mad, quite, quite mad'.

Success in the SAS

These characters were also very particular, essential and so eccentric. I think they represent something even bigger than liberating North Africa from the Nazis. Just looking at Paddy Mayne’s character and the arc that it follows, it’s very very current and essential to be talked about. I think that’s the same for David Stirling. As much as my character is not based on one real-life person, she’s very much a character that existed at the time - women that were essential to the liberation during the second World War. I was really drawn to telling this story, to play this female character who is strong, powerful and essential to a story – to an arc of the story.