Vicki Pepperdine interview
Vicki Pepperdine says the Seychelles was a lovely setting to work in, although the centipedes that bite are a problem.
Explain a little bit about High & Dry, what's the show's concept?
It's about a group of passengers and an air steward who endure a plane crash and survive and end up on a completely deserted desert island. They're all very different incompatible characters, and everybody wants to do things differently.
My character used to be a Brown Owl, very practical, wants to order everyone about and make everything work her way. But nobody else will pay any attention to her, certainly not Marc's character, who just wants to have fun and be in love.
Marc's character is Brett. He's something of a monster, isn't he?
Oh, absolutely. I think he's a very, very funny comic creation, very out there, very flamboyant, very unusual, crazy, odd, difficult, vain - a real mix. But at the heart, a very lost little soul, desperate to be loved and to love.
Is it fair to say she's probably the most practical of the bunch? If she was on her own, would she be the most likely to survive?
100%. If she hadn't been held back, I think she'd somehow have got to a fishing trawler by now. She'd have about six swimming badges from her time as Brown Owl, she'd already be back home in the UK and would have gone back into head teaching having realised she should never have stopped in the first place.
She's incredibly practical, incredibly strong, very determined, very bossy and a bit of a nightmare for everyone else to be around.
Where did you film it?
We filmed it on a very hard-to-get-to beach on Mahé Island in the Seychelles. We had the most brilliant commute to work every day. We got a boat round to the bit where we filmed, and that was the best commute you could ever have in the world. It was stunningly beautiful scenery and coastline, just really lovely.
Normally with these shows, it turns out they stuck a couple of palm trees on a beach in Kent. This was the real deal?
It's 100% natural. The only time we had to do anything different was when a tourist boat occasionally would hover into view, or a loan snorkeler would appear on the coastline and we'd have to stop filming and wait till they'd gone.
It is the most extraordinary place, the Seychelles. It is prehistoric-looking in parts, amazing as a place. We had very little time off, but I went to this sanctuary which had giant tortoises that had these thousand-year-old eyes and were just extraordinary.
It's so far from everywhere, so hasn't changed in the same way as the rest of the world. They have fruit bats that hang around above you in the trees, and crazy wildlife. We saw a funny little warthog thing that appeared once and then ran away.
Unfortunately there is a lot of dead coral around the island, which is part of global warming destroyed by our careless human actions. You see it so starkly in a place like that. You've got this fabulous beauty, and somehow we've messed it up.
Had you worked with any of the cast before?
I'd worked with Asim on an independent film called Eaten By Lions, which was a film written for Jack Carroll, a young comedian who was in Britain's Got Talent. Asim and I had just recently filmed that when we made High & Dry. He's great.
And I'd worked with Harry Peacock on a short that I wrote with Ellie White for Sky, about a female Morris dancing troupe [Vicki Pepperdine & Ellie White's Summer]. Harry was the dodgy scoutmaster-slash-organiser of the hall where they rehearsed. He was hysterically funny.
And I worked with Marc on a radio thing with Julia Davis called Couples, where I played a couples counsellor.
So I knew everybody pretty well apart from Grace Rex, who I thought was fabulous from the moment I met her.
Does it help, when you already know the cast?
Yes, I think it does help. Just that bit of connection, where you don't have to put on a front, and you can just say "I feel knackered today" or whatever. It's nice to go to something knowing that you really like the people involved.
Harriet is quite fond of dispensing a good slap - she seems to spend quite a lot of her time whacking people in the face. Did you accidentally smack anyone in the face while filming?
We never had to make contact at all, thankfully. We had a fantastic fight director during rehearsals so there was never any contact during the slaps, but carefully choreographed and hopefully executed in a way to make them look real.
You play Princess Anne in The Windsors - do you see certain similarities between her and Harriet? A certain no-nonsense poshness?
Yes, I suppose so. Neither of them were written by me, but I suppose they may partially be a reflection on a certain type of late middle-aged woman. They're both such funny characters, I could easily have thought of them as negative role models of what it is to be an older woman. But because they've got that comedic backing, and they're funny, and it's clear that it's not intended as a negative impression of what female later years are like, I think that that's a good comedic device.
They're both fairly formidable women - who would your money be on in a battle of wills between them?
I think on Anne, somehow. She's got that royal backing. And something to do with Anne's horsemanship would give Anne the edge. But I think Harriet would give her a run for her money. Actually, I think in the end perhaps they'd see eye to eye, and come up with a joint plan for whatever was going on.
How do you think you would fare, marooned on a desert island?
I'm quite a wimp, in many ways. Certainly when we were filming, there were these centipedes that were really quite big. They weren't poisonous, but they could administer a bite that made you feel like you were in a vice for an hour or so. One bit the fixer, and one bit the sound guy, and from their faces I could see that they were in absolute agony. I spent the time there being absolutely terrified, and stamping along the ground to make sure none of these bloody things came anywhere near me.
And I had a bit of sunstroke, because I'm very fair-skinned. It was really, really, really hot. I'm quite a wimp in those conditions, so I think I'd just work very hard to get off there. I'm quite practical, can make things, so I think I'd try and get off there rather than enjoy the scenery and the coconuts too much.
Which of the cast would fare best?
I think Harry Peacock. He's very, very, very stoic. I think he would endure all of those extremes without moaning. And, in fact, did, because it was quite extreme during the filming. There were moments where everybody was boiling, feeling exhausted because it was long days, and we had six episodes to film in five weeks.
It becomes clear on the show that the worst thing about being marooned would be if you were stuck with awful people. Who would you choose to be marooned with?
I'm going to say Michelle Obama. I think she's got her head screwed on, she's very intelligent, she's got great humanitarian qualities, she was just fantastic, continues to be fantastic, and I hope will be fantastic again amidst this political mayhem and despair. I'm going to choose her for lots of reasons, really.