HUGH BONNEVILLE: A SELECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE

VICEROY’S HOUSE

The final Viceroy of India (Hugh Bonneville) is tasked with overseeing the transition of British India to independence. New Delhi, 1947. The huge and stately Viceroy’s Palace is like a beehive. Its 500 employees are busy preparing the coming of Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who has just been appointed new (and last) Viceroy by Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Mountbatten arrives accompanied by Edwina (Gillian Anderson), his liberal-minded wife and his 18-year-old daughter Pamela (Lily Travers). Matters will prove to be extremely difficult on both the geopolitical and personal level.

UK

/INDIA 2017 GURINDER CHADHA 106M

Wed 23 Aug 13:30 –

Fri 25 Aug 20:15 – Studio

Sat 26 Aug 18:30 – Pic Palace

Hugh Bonneville writes: “I said yes to this almost before I’d finished reading the script. Director Gurinder Chadha is a ball of energy, I love India and was delighted to re-visit Rajasthan for the first time in 30 years. The House of the title is still a government building, so the Umaid Bhawan hotel in Jodhpur was our principal location. Stayed there, too. Shortest commute to work I’ve ever had. But the hotel remained open throughout filming and so, with hundreds of extras assembled on the magnificent steps, red carpet in place, ready for the arrival of the new Viceroy, we had to stop everything and wait while two guests in white towelling robes and fluffy slippers padded their way down the steps on their way to the hotel pool.”

The Monuments Men

George Clooney’s film brings together both stars of our two retrospectives: Cate Blanchett and Hugh Bonneville.

In the last months of the war, with the Third Reich teetering on the brink of collapse, the German army is ordered to destroy every piece of looted art in its possession. In a race against time, President Franklin D. Roosevelt mobilises a seven-man platoon comprising museum directors and art historians to rescue the cream of the world’s artistic and cultural treasures from the hands of the enemy and return them to their rightful owners. But with no previous experience of weapons and tactics, the hastily assembled group soon face a rude awakening. All-star cast includes Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Jean Dujardin.

USA 2014 GEORGE CLOONEY 118M

Hugh Bonneville writes: “We shot part of the Normandy landing sequence at Camber Sands, near Rye. Nearby, in Winchelsea’s New Inn, we filmed a moment at a bar when my character is recruited to the team. There’s also a voice-over in the film – a letter my character has written home: George Clooney, the Sound Recordist and me, hunkered down in a B&B bedroom above the pub.”