2020-04-01_Total_Film

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

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