Albert's Memorial

German actress Judith Hoersch researched her role as Vicki - the beautiful and mysterious young woman who joins the veterans on their journey to bury Albert - by talking to her own grandmother.

"My grandmother was a young woman during the Second World War and so I went to her and asked her what it was like. She told me about some horrifying events that took place at the very end of the war, when Germany had been defeated. A lot of it has been airbrushed out of the history books and as children we never learned about it at school. It would spoil the drama if I repeated exactly what she said, but I really used the insights that she gave me when it came to playing Vicki."

She is delighted, she says, that, although Albert's Memorial is first and foremost a gentle comedy drama, there are also some important underlying themes in the drama and some troubling lessons about the events of that time. "One of the things that I loved about the drama was that it doesn't shy away from the issues, but it doesn't take a stone to the viewers head and hammer any message or any lesson home either. It's so subtly and gently done."

Although the 29 year-old has been acting in German films and TV dramas since the age of 18, Albert's Memorial represents her breakthrough into British drama. "Actually, I've always dreamed of working in England because I'm such a huge fan of English films. Blame my dad," she laughs. "He's a very well known music journalist in Berlin where we live and throughout my childhood he came to London a lot to interview bands like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. He always came back with English films, so I grew up watching them."

The latter partly explains the actress's excellent command of English and although this was the first time she has played a role in a foreign language she instantly impressed both casting directors and co-stars alike. "I wanted the part so badly that, for my second audition I learned every scene and every line of the script because I wanted to be totally prepared, and I was glad I'd done that because everyone came along to see it - the director, the producer, the costume designer and even Sir David himself. It was very nerve wracking, but two days later my agent called to say I'd got the role."

In fact, the makers of Albert's Memorial had already seen many English actresses for the part before they auditioned Judith. "Perhaps they felt, as I did, that it was important for a real German actress to play the role and I know that when I first read the script I immediately thought, 'ah, yes, I know exactly how this character should be'. I felt absolutely that it was my part."

"In the end, I think the producers realised that getting the character of Vicki right was never going to be just a question of someone being able to do a German accent. It was about capturing the different mannerisms and personality of a German person. And we do have a different way of being. While working on Albert's Memorial I discovered, for example, that German people are quite a bit more direct than the English and that English are generally quite a bit friendlier. I had a truly wonderful time."

Although Judith was aware of David Warner's work she didn't realise, until after her second audition, just how acclaimed Sir David Jason was. "I already knew quite a bit about David Warner's work because I'd seen so many of the movies that he'd been in. But David Jason was more unknown to me because, in Germany, we haven't seen the shows that are so popular in Britain. Then, on the way back from my second audition, I was sitting next to an English art dealer on the plane and I told him I was hoping to work with David Jason. He practically fell out of his seat, he was so excited and it was then I realised what a very big star I might be about to work with."

Not that either actor, she says, pulled rank during filming. "On the contrary, once they saw that I could play the part and that I came to the role wanting to be as professional as I possibly could be, they treated me completely as an equal."

The three actors became good friends during the six-week shoot, which involved travelling and filming through much of France and Germany. "It wasn't like working at home in Berlin where you'd go back to your own private house at night. We were together all the time and the two David's looked after me like a pair of uncles. On the other hand, though, I'm happy to say that I was also able to look after them, because in a lot of places where we were filming nobody spoke any English. So it was down to me to translate all the menus in the restaurants and order the food for them. In many ways it was a bit like the role that Vicki plays in the drama. Although she's so much younger than Frank and Harry, many times she's the mature one and the one who seems to look after them. More than that, she is really a kind of Guardian Angel figure, sent perhaps to guide them on their way. Or, at least that's the way that we talked about the character during filming."

It was wonderful, she says, to play a young woman whose intentions are so generous and pure. "Really, Vicki is without any kind of problems. She is totally connected to everyone, so easy and open and she never judges either of them. I would love to be more like her in my private life and while I was playing her I found that a lot of her personality rubbed off onto me, which was lovely."

Judith enjoyed the balance between youth and age in the drama. "We are a little bit obsessed with youth, I think, but here it's really the story of these two men who have had a life and maybe don't have much longer to live. But they are no less important for that fact and they are completely at the heart of the story."

She was delighted to by the dramas subtle nods to history too. "Well, for a start, my character is not called Vicki by accident. It's a reference to Queen Victoria who, of course was married to Prince Albert. During filming we drove around Albert's Memorial in London and we also shot a scene towards the end, in Coburg, sitting beneath a statue of Albert, who of course, had come from that town in the first place. It's something that viewers might not necessarily notice, but I loved all those subtle references."

After filming Albert's Memorial, Judith returned to Berlin where she has been working in various German dramas as well as a musical. A talented singer, she is also happily recording her first album but hopes that Albert's Memorial will lead to more roles in England.