" Doctored Doctor"

Time Out London.- Tom Howard

There's a mini-crisis on the set of Granada's 'Doctor Zhivago' in Prague. Seventeen-year-old star Keira Knightley's bag has been stolen from her trailer, and along with it her purse, her phone, but most importantly her diary. 'The diary was particularly bad because I'd just spent the whole weekend sticking things is and drawing in it, and it was all looking pretty,' she tells Time Out during a break from filming.

It's rather an endearing moment - the fate of the biggest ITV1 drama for several years rests on an actress who decorates and draws into her diary. Knightley, who plays Lara, is relatively experienced for her age, but she is nonetheless one of many risks Granada is taking with this remake. There's an unknown Italian director (Giacomo Campiotti) at the helm, and unknown actors play all the main parts (with the exception of Sam Neill as Komarovsky), including Hans Matheson as Zhivago and 'My Family's' Kris Marshall as Pasha. In fact, the only safe pair of hands involved in the project is Andrew Davies, who adapts Boris Pasternak's novel. 'With this I don't think age has anything to do with it' counters Knightley. 'Everyone has the same emotions - happiness, sadness, love, lust. Just because mine took place at school doesn't devalue the emotion I have to play from. You can still take things from your own life, however short it has been.'

The production faces a classic remake quandary. On the one hand a story that everyone loves and knows should be a shortcut to success; on the other, it's bound to disappoint a whole generation of existing fans. So the spin on set is that this is very much an adaptation of the book, not a remake of the film: 'TV tends to revisit classics every eight to ten years and there is so much in the book that was there to be mined,' says producer Anne Pivcevic. '"Zhivago" was a classic film to a certain generation, but half our crew haven't even seen it. It's such an amazing love story, it's extraordinary that it hadn't been done for 40 years.'

...Set apart from all the production politics is the 27-year-old who is playing the title character - Hans Matheson. He's another casting risk (Granada wanted Ioan Gruffud but he was too expensive), although you wouldn't know it to talk to him. It's his day off so the intense Outer Hebrides-born actor is happy to chat about why he is obsessed with the novel. 'A book on Pasternak said that "Zhivago" was a monument to humanity, poetry and grief. That's it right there,' he says. 'I think the film was the first time people had seen epic cinema, but it didn't really take many risks emotionally. I don't think David Lean's film does justice to the book and I'm not even sure we will, actually.'...

From October 30 - November 6, 2002 issue

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