Lissa Evans

What sparked Their Finest Hour and a Half?

At the age of 13, I read – and then re-read, many times – How We Lived Then, a non-fiction book about domestic life in Britain during the second world war. It was written by Norman Longmate, who used the diaries of ordinary people in order to construct a finely detailed picture of the era. It gave me an abiding interest in the Home Front; in particular, I was fascinated by how people strove to keep their routines intact and their every-day pleasures unchanged, even in the midst of destruction and loss.

In my thirties, I started working in television. I produced and directed comedy programmes, and was always struck by the ludicrous intensity of the process. When you're trying to film a scene, no matter however trivial the material, nothing seems more important than actually getting it into the can. Cataclysmic world events simply whisk by unnoticed.

The idea for Their Finest Hour and a Half flowed from these two sources. As I started to research, I discovered that, after a moribund 1930s, the British film industry actually grew and flourished during the war, and that films continued to be made even while shrapnel was hammering on the roof of the studios. Moreover, I realised that attitudes behind and in front of the camera have scarcely changed in 60 years: writers still mistrust directors, directors despair of producers, producers ignore writers and actors totter around the set, hoping for just a tiny whisker of respect for the near-insupportable artistic burden imposed by the demands of their craft. And also a comfy chair.  And a cup of tea with just a splash of milk. And is there an ashtray?

So, a combination of a world that I knew very well, and a world that I had long been fascinated with, led to this novel.

Please set the scene of the novel for us.
It's set in London during the early years of World War Two, and follows a group of characters who are trying to make a feature film.  As well as the usual problems of filming: - last-minute script changes, rampant egotism and ceaseless rain - there are a host of other difficulties.  Half the crew have been called up, the city is being bombed nightly, and the Ministry of Information has asked for an American character to be added to the script.   Which causes problems, as the film is about Dunkirk, and there weren't any Americans at Dunkirk....

Do you have a particular attachment to any of the characters or places in the novel? If so, which one(s) and why?
I did love writing Ambrose Hilliard, the ageing matinee idol who's unable to accept that he's no longer leading-man material.  Sometimes it takes a while to nail a character, but I 'found' him in the first sentence.  It's strangely satisfying to create a character who possesses no redeeming features.

I'm also very attached to a description that I wrote of London in 1941, as seen from Parliament Hill - a viewpoint very near to where I live.  I couldn't find a suitable photograph taken at the time, so instead I'd stand there, with a 21st century city spreading to the horizon in front of me, and try to imagine what Ambrose would have seen after six months of almost nightly bombing raids. 

What are you reading at the moment?
John Krakauer's Into Thin Air, a harrowing and brilliantly-written account of an Everest expedition. I'm an armchair explorer, never happier than when drinking a cup of tea while reading about people struggling through waist-high snow.

What are you working on now?
I'm writing my next novel (slowly) and producing a topical chat-show for BBC radio.