ON-SET EXCLUSIVE
The story is inspired by a real school
in Bexhill-on-Sea near to where Izzard
grew up. “I’m a patron of the museum
there,” he tells Teasers during a break,
“and the museum curator Julian Porter
showed me this school blazer badge,
which is the one used in the film. And I
thought, ‘Holy cow! That’s a Union Jack
and a swastika on the same badge!’”
This quaint Sussex seaside town, it
transpires, housed a finishing school
attended by girls sent by families living
in Nazi Germany. “As is always the
case, the most unlikely part was true,”
comments James D’Arcy, sitting on a
garden swing-chair. Set just before the
outbreak of WW2, Izzard’s character
Thomas Miller takes a teaching position
and later goes on the run – pursued by
D’Arcy’s military spook Captain Drey –
after he’s accused of murder.
A
t Splott farm, thirty minutes from Cardiff, it’s like the clock has
been turned back. A collie dog lies down sunning himself, while
chickens strut around the yard. Eddie Izzard, meanwhile, is
running around in grey woollen trousers and shirt sleeves. The
stand-up is here for Six Minutes To Midnight, a film he stars in and co-wrote
with director Andy Goddard (Downton Abbey) and Celyn Jones.
“If we get it right, it should be a
wronged man thriller, [like] The 39
Steps, North By Northwest, The Ipcress
File,” explains Izzard. “But layered in
is the fight for hearts and minds. It’s
Thomas Miller against the National
Socialists.” D’Arcy nods his approval
at the plot. “It’s quite nice to see
any sort of film that doesn’t have a
superhero in it, isn’t it?”
Today, the scene is Thomas on the
run with help from bus-driver Charlie
(Jim Broadbent), a character based in
part on Izzard’s own grandfather. “We
were children when we first started
working together,” laughs Izzard,
recalling his time with Broadbent on
The Secret Agent and 1998’s TV spy show
adaptation The Avengers. “I played a big
orange teddy bear!”
Izzard has also managed to recruit
Dame Judi Dench, using his downtime
on 2017’s Victoria & Abdul well. “I
pitched it to her then, but I knew her
from before. She’d come to my comedy
show. She has a great sense of humour
- her whole family has.” Dench plays
Miss Rocholl, “a National Socialist
sympathetic head teacher who had
been beguiled”.
And the title? Izzard, who is currently
planning to quit comedy and run in
the next election, says it refers to the
Doomsday Clock, set towards midnight
according to how dangerous times are.
Given the current rise of the far right, he
feels the story is utterly relevant to now.
“What happened in the ’30s was not a
German problem but a human problem
and it can happen again.” JM
ETA | 29 MAY / SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
OPENS NEXT MONTH
DOOM DAY
SIXMINUTESTOMIDNIGHT I Eddie Izzard
scripts and stars in this shocking true-life tale...
OLDSCHOOL
EddieIzzardstars
alongsideJames
D’Arcyinthistale
ofaschoolforNazi
daughtersabove
JudiDenchplays
theheadteacher
below
LIO
NS
GAT
E
TOTAL FILM | APRIL 2020 SUBSCRIBEATWWWTOTALFILMCOM/SUBS