This was my first taste of directing period drama. Smoke 'n' bonnets.
Hetty Feather is a new 10 part period drama for CBBC based on the book by best-selling author, Dame Jacqueline Wilson (creator of Tracy Beaker). It's all about Hetty, a young girl abandoned as a baby by her mother at the Foundling Hospital . This is a real place with a compelling, moving history.
Hetty Feather brings the realities of being a kid in the Victorian age – good, bad, funny and tragic – to life, through the eyes of the boys and girls who live in the Foundling Hospital. They endure the terrifying dictatorship of Matron Bottomley (played by Eva Pope). Punishments are the norm, kindness is a rarity. The Foundlings have to stick together.
12-year-old newcomer Isabel Clifton landed the role of Hetty - her first TV job!
I directed 5 episodes, all on location at Cobham Hall, a boarding school in Kent. It transmits in May.
I'd love to post behind the scenes photos but it's been strictly embargoed by the BBC ...