Exclusive Ruby Bentall Interview

Ruby at this year's National Television Awards
pic Far Far Away site

Ruby Bentall captured our hearts as the overlooked and put upon Verity in Poldark, indeed the phrase 'poor Verity' was trending in the UK during the second episode's airing. Ruby was born in London in 1988 to actor parents, Janine Duvitski and Paul Bentall. She has been acting since 2006, most notably in Lark Rise to Candleford and as Mary Bennet in Lost in Austen. Ruby has performed in theatre as well as on screen, taking the title role in Alice in Wonderland at The Sheffield Crucible in 2010 as well as several appearances in the West End. Ruby kindly agreed to answer some questions for us before flying off to Poland and Prague for filming on new projects.

Poldarked: What attracted you to the role of Verity and what do you think has made Poldark such a success?
Ruby Bentall: I think Poldark is a success because people like good old fashioned relationship dramas. Poldark has it all, love, hate, family problems, class divides.

Ruby as Verity Poldark
pic BBC One

P: Blamey's chat up lines about shipping gave the audience quite a giggle, did you find the scene funny to film and did you ever find out what a spanker boom was?
RB: Every scene you do with Richard is a laugh. He is a naughty funny person, very Welsh. That ball scene was the only scene I had to try and show Verity falling in love. So I just tried to make it as sweet and romantic as possible. I never properly found out what a spanker boom is!

P: Do you think Blamey was really a good match for Verity (especially given his background) or did she just jump at her first and possibly only chance of marriage?
RB: I'm not sure, I think if you don't have much attention, it is very easy to fall for anybody who is nice to you. So in some ways I think anyone who came along she would have fallen for. But I do think Blamey was right for her, she is good at helping people and is use to looking after people. I maybe would have liked her to be with someone who didn't need her, but just wanted her.

Ruby as a happy Verity with true love,
Captain Blamey (Richard Harrington)
pic BBC One

P: Verity becomes quite rebellious in series 1, do you think this is a natural part of her character, like Ross, or something forced on her by circumstance?
RB: Verity is a strong person but I don't think rebellious. She would have preferred to not go against her family. She didn't enjoy hurting her family to get what she wanted. But I love that she is a romantic who will follow her heart even if she has to be selfish.

P: Verity appears throughout the books. How do you feel about playing a character that ages like that through a series and what challenges does that present to you as an actor?
RB: It's a bit of a worry, the ageing thing. I have a youthful face. I think some of my costumes for the second series make me look a bit older, I have tried to slow my natural speech speed down. Not sure how different we can look, I don't think we should start trying to age ourselves up with make up it would look stupid.

Looking glam, a far cry from Verity.
pic by Dan Wooller

P: Mark Atkinson of Atkinson Action Horses tells us you're a very good rider, but did the riding pose any challenges for you?
RB: I rode all through my childhood, but side saddle is completely different. I'm naturally easy around horses so that is to my advantage, but with side saddle the balance is totally different so I didn't feel very good at it.

P: You’ve done a lot of period work, but which genre would you love to do if you had the choice of anything?
RB: I don't have a particular genre in mind. I just want to play three-dimensional people and interesting characters.

P: What’s the best and worst thing about being an actor?
RB:The worst thing about being an actor is the heartache. All you want to do is work. But you spend most of the time being rejected and feeling sad about being unemployed.
The best thing is when you are doing a well written scene with another actor and for a moment you can forget all the stressful filming things around you, and just act. It's usually only for a few minutes but it can be wonderful.

P: You were involved in the Body Positive Campaign, how did that come about and why did you feel it was important to be involved?
RB: The Body Positive Campaign came about as they were looking for people in the public eye who were not conventionally attractive. I thought it was a good cause so was happy to do it. It's an important message they are trying to get across, it's a sad thing that so many of us are made to feel less as people because of the way society tells us we should look.

P: We’ve seen you in Jekyll and Hyde recently as well as Poldark, but what’s up next for you?
RB: I'm going to Poland to do a few days on a film called Bikini Blue and then Prague for a week to do a bit on a film called Interlude in Prague.

Verity looking troubled
pic from Masterpiece PBS

You can follow Ruby on Twitter @RubyBentall 

Ruby's interview with the BBC on Verity
Poldark's leading ladies revealed.

Please remember to credit Poldarked when sharing this interview.

Vote 'Poldark' for BAFTA Audience Award 2016

Well done Poldark.  The show has been nominated for the BAFTA Radio Times Audience Award 2016 and now it needs your vote!

The RT Audience Award is the only BAFTA TV Award voted for by the public.  Poldark is up against Doctor Foster, The Great British Bake Off, Humans, Making a Murderer and Peter Kay's Car Share.

You can vote here http://www.radiotimes.com/win/radio-times-audience-award-2016/443.html

Voting will close on Thursday 5 May at 4 pm. Only one vote is allowed per person and duplicate votes from the same person will not be counted in the vote.

The winner will be announced at the British Academy Television Awards ceremony on 8 May, 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Tickets are available from the BAFTA site.

First Look at 'Poldark' S2 Advert

The first official advert for Poldark Series 2 is out!

ITV Studios Global Entertainment has a picture of Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark on the back cover of the World Screen MipTV 2016 catalogue.

Mip TV is a large marketing event where television companies worldwide buy and sell their programmes.  Whilst Poldark is produced by Mammoth Screen for BBC One, ITVS GE have the rights to sell the show internationally. Poldark S1 has been sold in 107 countries according to ITV's Annual Report 2015.

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'Poldark' Nominated for BAFTA Craft Awards

Well done, Poldark!  The drama has received two nominations for the British Academy Television Craft Awards 2016 which honour, '...the very best behind-the-scenes talent working in television.'  The nominations are Marianne Agertoft for best costume design and Anne Dudley for best original music score.

The other contenders for best costume design are:
Barbara Kidd - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Fotini Dimou - The Dresser
Joanna Eatwell - Wolf Hall

In the running for best original music score are also:
Ben Foster, Nick Foster - Thunderbirds are Go
Olafur Arnaulds - Broadchurch
Steven Price - The Hunt

A full list of nominations can be found here.   

Stephen Mangan will host the awards ceremony which will be held at The Brewery, London on Sunday 24 April, 2016.  (The BAFTA Television Awards are announced at a separate ceremony from the BAFTA Craft Awards, on 8 May, 2016.  Nominations are out at the end of March.)

Good luck to Marianne and Anne!

Awards and Critical Acclaim for Aidan Turner

It's been a great week for Aidan Turner. After wrapping on Poldark series 2 last week he has not only won the Breakthrough Award at the Broadcast Press Guild (BPG) Awards, he's also been nominated for an Irish Film and Television Academy Award (IFTA) for Best Lead Actor in Drama for Poldark and had rave reviews for his performance in And Then There Were None on the other side of the Atlantic as it screened in the USA.

Aidan Turner Photo: Barry McCall

Aidan in his Being Human days
Screencap, Poldarked

Nobody who first saw Aidan as the brooding and enigmatic Mitchell in Being Human will be surprised that he's getting this recognition. That was his first role on British TV and, even as a relatively inexperienced actor, his performance caught the eye of director, Peter Jackson enough to help land him a role in The Hobbit, as well as having a huge impact on the audience and critics. Toby Whithouse (Being Human writer) always said he knew Aidan was destined for greatness and at the time The Guardian said, 'Turner plays him (Mitchell) perfectly as a bohemian with hidden depths, an old man in a young body.'

Aidan went on to impress in The Hobbit movies. His character, Kili, had quite a bit of screen time compared to some other dwarves, so Peter Jackson was obviously impressed and Aidan won an Empire award for Best Newcomer in 2014 for his role in the second movie, The Hobbit:The Desolation of Smaug. Of course, he also won an Impact award at the National Television Awards for his role in Poldark back in January as well. The NTAs are voted for by the public, again highlighting his popularity with audiences. 

Aidan is Ross Poldark
Pic Radio Times

The BPG awards are voted for by television journalists, so a tough group to please. The award was for 'gaining a new level of success in 2015', which he most certainly did. Not only did Aidan win the Breakthrough award, he was also nominated for Best Actor, which in itself is an achievement, especially alongside the likes of Oscar winner, Mark Rylance and Jason Watkins, who won a BAFTA for the role he was nominated for. 

The IFTAs are Ireland's leading film and television awards, Ireland's equivalent of the British BATFAs, so it's a coup to get a nomination, especially in a country that produces a plethora of great actors. Aidan hasn't been nominated for an IFTA before, which underlines the impact his role in Poldark has had on his career. 

As Philip Lombard in And Then There Were None
Pic BBC

Aidan's performance in And Then There Were None was magnificent, and it seems we weren't the only ones who were impressed. The New York Times picked Aidan's performance as the 'stand out' along with that of Maeve Dermody, who played Vera. Variety were also impressed,
declaring: 'Turner does the best work of his career as an Irishman whose cynicism hides a fierce, rational intelligence, and his chemistry with Dermody leaps off the screen.' No mean feat to stand out in a cast as luminous as this one.

Good times for Aidan
pic Article Magazine

We're delighted to see Aidan getting the recognition he deserves as an actor and it's a joy to watch him develop in each role. We wish him all the best at the IFTAs and hope it leads to more great roles the small screen, big screen and on stage.



Aidan Turner talks about And Then There Were None
Aidan and Awards
Aidan's acceptance speech at the Jameson Empire Awards 2014

Aidan Turner Nominated for IFTA Award

Photo: Kitty Gale

Congratulations! Aidan Turner is up for an Irish Film and Television Academy Award!  The nomination, for Actor in a Lead Role in Drama, is for his role in Poldark.

The Irish Academy Awards '...celebrate and honour the very best in Film, Television Drama, Feature Documentary, Live Action Short and Animation.'

Other actors nominated in Aidan's category are Dara Devaney (An Klondike), Colin Farrell  (True Detective), Stephen Rea (Dickensian) and Barry Ward (Rebellion). A full list of nominations can be seen here http://ifta.ie/awards/nominees_2016/index.html

Winners of the awards will be announced at the 2016 IFTA Film and Drama Awards ceremony on Saturday 9 April at the Mansion House, Dublin.

Good luck, Aidan!

Related links:
Poldarked: Aidan Turner Wins Breakthrough Award
Poldarked: The National Television Awards 2016
Poldarked: Aidan Wins At Jameson Empire Awards
Poldarked: Aidan and Awards

Poldarked: Aidan's Speech at Jameson Empire Awards

'Poldark' Event in London

Eleanor Tomlinson filming Poldark  Photo: BBC

Update 15 March, 2016:  Jack Farthing who plays George Warleggan will also be on the panel.


If you've been thoroughly Poldarked by the BBC drama then the Royal Television Society talk Anatomy of a Hit is just the thing for you!

Writer Debbie Horsfield will be joined by executive producers Karen Thrussell and Damien Timmer and the BBC's controller of drama commissioning Polly Hill in a panel discussion about the creative processes involved in making Poldark.  Members of the cast, to be confirmed, will also take part.

Anatomy of a Hit is at 1 Great George Street, London, on Thursday 14 April, 2016 at 6.30 for 6.45 p.m. and, for those not able to go, a video of the event will be available the following day on the RTS website

For further details and tickets, priced £12.50 for non-members, see the RTS website

'Poldark' Series 2 Wraps

It's a wrap for Aidan Turner
pic by @PoldarkTV

Poldark series 2 filming wrapped on 8 March after filming since September 2015. It seems a long time since we excitedly devoured all those photos from location filming on the Cornish coast. But, apart from a short Christmas break, it's been non-stop for the Poldark cast and crew, with filming on location in Cornwall, Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucestershire as well as at Bottle Yard Studios in Bristol, where the majority of the filming is done.

BBC One posted the short clip of Aidan, below, on Twitter to mark the end of filming.

That’s a wrap! @AidanTurner celebrates shooting some of the final scenes of #Poldark Series 2. @PoldarkTVhttps://t.co/BIFrl6ef9H

— BBC One (@BBCOne) March 8, 2016

Series 2 will be ten episodes long, has three directors and new characters aplenty, as well as our favourites returning. Over the past couple of weeks we've had word via Twitter from a number of actors who were filming their last scenes, but Aidan Turner was there until the end, appearing in the final day's wrap photo.

A final pic for cast and crew from series 2
pic by @PoldarkTV

Heida Reed wrapped Poldark Series 2 on 1st March,
pic from @ReedHeida

Aidan and Eleanor with crew on the last day's filming at Chavenage House
Pic @CLW_Chavenage

Series 2 will air in September on BBC One in the UK and we can't wait.

'Poldark' to Air in September

Poldark will be returning to our screens in the early Autumn!

The BBC's controller of TV channels, Charlotte Moore, told The Telegraph that the second series of the drama would be broadcast in September in the UK and, just as importantly, that she planned to continue to commission more!

Earlier in the year Aidan Turner may have let it slip that series three had been commissioned when he told The Sun that, "We start shooting the third series, I believe, in Se...Oh no! I'm going to be in trouble. It's possible we're not doing that."

Thanks to Poldarked-Fangirl for the video.

Aidan Turner Wins Breakthrough Award

Congratulations!

Aidan Turner has won the Broadcasting Press Guild Breakthrough Award! The Breakthrough Award is for attaining a new level of success in 2015.  This is most certainly true of Aidan who has seen his popularity rocket since Poldark aired a year ago and whose performance in Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None met with critical acclaim.

Fellow Poldark co-star Heida Reed collected the award on Aidan's behalf at the Broadcasting Press Guild Award Ceremony at Drury Lane Theatre on 11 March, 2016. Aidan beat fellow contenders Gemma Chan Humans, Michaela Coel Chewing Gum and Sian Gibson Car Share:  a full list of winners is available here.

Those of us who have followed Aidan's career for years know only too well of the endless months with no word of him, whereas this last year has been positively bountiful in comparison, with Aidan working virtually non-stop on a variety of interesting projects including films like Look Away, The Secret Scripture and Loving Vincent, as well as filming  And Then There Were None and the second series of Poldark for TV.

We hope the increased interest in Aidan brings him many new opportunities in the coming years in film, TV and in the theatre too and wish him our sincerest congratulations.

Related Links:
Poldarked: Aidan Turner Nominated for Broadcasting Press Guild ...
Poldarked: Aidan Wins At Jameson Empire Awards
Poldarked: Aidan and Awards

Poldarked: Aidan's Speech at Jameson Empire Awards

World Book Day

World Book Day

Today is World Book Day in the UK and Ireland, so we're celebrating by taking a look at the Poldark novels by Winston Graham. There are twelve books in the series in total, the first, Ross Poldark, was published in 1945 and the last, Bella Poldark, was published in 2002. They have of course been famously adapted for television, first in the 1970s, when it went on to become one of the biggest shows of the day, and again to huge success in 2015.

All 12 Poldark novels

Winston Graham wrote the first four novels in the late 1940s and early 1950s: Ross Poldark, Demelza, Jeremy Poldark and Warleggan, cover the first period of time in the novels and tell the story of Ross and Demelza. Winston Graham came back to the series in the 1970s, publishing a further three novels: The Black Moon, The Four Swans and The Angry Tide. He then took another break before returning to the series in the 1980s, after the success of the first BBC adaptation.

Ross Poldark is the first novel in the series,
published in 1945

The books written in the 1980s are set later in time and whilst still featuring Ross and Demelza, also feature a host of characters from the next generation. The Stranger From the Sea was published in 1981, followed by The Miller's Dance, The Loving Cup,and The Twisted Sword in 1990 and finally, Bella Poldark in 2002. There was a TV adaptation the The Stranger From the Sea in the 1980s, which was poorly received, but the rest of the later novels have never been adapted, so if the present television series continues for the planned five series it will be the first time they have been adapted.

Demelza is the second novel in the series,
adapted as part of series 1

The first series of the BBC's 2015 adaptation of Poldark covers the first two novels, Ross Poldark and Demelza. Series 2, due to air this autumn, will cover the novels Jeremy Poldark and Warleggan. Of course many fans have read these books so, in celebration of World Book Day, tell us your favourite Poldark book.  Comment below or let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

Bella Poldark is the final Poldark novel,
 published in 2002

Related links:

Poldarked: Audible Release New Poldark Audiobooks

Poldarked: 'Poldark's Cornwall': Delightful in Every Way