Pramface: Playing the pregnant teenager

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Scarlett Alice Johnson Scarlett Alice Johnson | 06:55 UK time, Thursday, 23 February 2012

Pramface centres around two unlikely teenagers who are thrown together after a night of post A-level partying.

I play Laura Derbyshire, the very unlucky pregnant 18-year-old by the even unluckier 16-year-old Jamie Prince.

Both them and their families are forced kicking and screaming into bringing their lives together, into one big unplanned and unprepared-for melting pot.

The script written by Chris Reddy was, as an actor, one of those rare gems that I knew I would love every minute of making.

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Exams are over, the drinks are flowing and across the room Jamie sees Laura...

Most days I laughed so hard my face ached, my stomach cramped and my mascara ran.

Sean Michael Verey who plays Jamie, and with whom I had some of my funniest scenes, shares a similar sense of humour to me.

Which was both a blessing and a curse. Most of the time I was giggling just reading the scenes so by the shoot I was normally in bits.

I resorted to trying not to look the other cast in the eye whilst filming because I was constantly stifling a smirk. Not an easy task, and not entirely helpful to the others who were normally trying to control their own fits too.

And of course Angus Deayton and Anna Chancellor who play Laura's not-too-enthusiastic parents were just funny, brilliant people to work with.

Laura's mum (Anna Chancellor) drinks a glass of wine

Anna Chancellor as Laura's mum

Angus has an amazing quick wit in a quiet and really understated manner that he makes you giggle when you least expect it.

And Anna being a tall, beautiful and experienced actress has an amazing presence, which she brilliantly cuts through with her own brand of humour.

So basically when you combine those cast members with Dylan Edwards, Yasmin Paige, Ben Crompton, Bronagh Gallagher and Emer Kenny, along with a wonderfully observed script, I was a wreck.

I even, I am ashamed to say, got sent off set one day because I couldn't control my hysterics. A BIG no-no.

Whilst we did have a great time filming, I hope audiences appreciate Pramface and get what it is about.

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Jamie has the contraception chat with friends Mike and Beth

I think it is fair to say that we didn't want to let it take itself too seriously, or for it to be making in any way passing judgment on teen pregnancy.

I hope we managed to avoid some of the clichés relating to it. It was important to me for instance that Laura wasn't a down-and-out young mum from an inner city estate, but a well educated, well-informed young woman with a bright future.

After all, the point of the pregnancy isn't a comment on the youth of today. It's a catalyst for two unlikely characters to be pulled together, in various bizarre and awkward ways.

That said, no one wants to be flippant about such an emotive subject and I think due regard was paid to the many dilemmas the twosome face.

I think some of the best comedy out there walks a fine line between humour and drama and I'd like to think that audiences might recognise that in Pramface.

It felt to me to be a script full of wit but heart too, which is why I guess I enjoyed making it so much. And if people can laugh even just a hundredth of the amount I did when we made it then I'll be very happy.

Scarlett Alice Johnson plays Laura Derbyshire in Pramface.

Pramface begins on Thursday, 23 February at 9pm on BBC Three. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

You can follow Jamie's best friend Mike on Twitter and also visit the Pramface Facebook page.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Upstairs Downstairs: I design the sets

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Arwel Wyn Jones Arwel Wyn Jones | 14:28 UK time, Friday, 17 February 2012

I was standing on a rooftop in central London on the last day of filming a crucial scene for Sherlock when I got a call offering me the role of production designer on the new series of Upstairs Downstairs BUT - I had to start the following day!

This was my introduction to the rollercoaster ride that was to take over my life for the next five months.

We pick up the story of 165 Eaton Place in September 1938 which is a great era for design - the height of art deco.

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Returning to 165 Eaton Place

As the production designer, I was very keen to utilise this in our distinction between 'Upstairs' and 'Downstairs' - the opulence and crisp elegant lines of art deco as opposed to the rougher, more textured world of the working classes.

The interior of the house is all a set and is spread between three studios at BBC Wales' new facility down in Cardiff Bay (next door to Casualty and Pobol y Cwm).

We've added a couple of extra rooms to the interior set this year and one of those is a dining room.

I enjoyed designing it as we were able to introduce some very contemporary shapes and patterns into the set. Look out for the pair of doors leading into the dining room and the floor inside.

We designed and made these ourselves - without seeming too Changing Rooms, they're all paint effect and MDF!!

The main hall is in a larger studio than the rest to allow for it to be two storeys, which helps sell the idea of it being a real house. You can follow the actors from the dining room across the hall and up the stairs to the landing and drawing room.

The decorating of these sets correctly is very important.

We must make sure that the patterns and colours look good on camera, so we co-ordinate with the costume department to make sure that the actors' outfits are complementary to the scenery and don't blend into the background.

The cost of redecorating a room could be the difference between coming in on or over budget.

Therefore I have to discuss options and themes beforehand - with the producer, director, director of photography and costume. I have to admit that I tend to get my own way most of the time!

Harry Spargo (Neil Jackson) stands in front of one of the vintage cars sourced for Upstairs Downstairs

Harry Spargo (Neil Jackson) and one of the vintage cars

Interior design is only one aspect of the job however, and as much as I like my wallpapers, we also have cars, planes, trains and buses to source as well as all the props.

I have a very good team helping me with all these as it would be an impossible task on your own - the organising of the vehicles alone is a monumental task.

The cars, for example, are mostly privately owned and are brought to set by the owners or drivers on their behalf. Due to their age some are trailered if they need to travel very far.

The aeroplane we sourced from Duxford Air Museum, who were, as always, very helpful.

It's also a big task sourcing the dressing props (what we use to make the sets look real) and action props, which are used by the actors and often described in the script which means we have to source or reproduce. We hire some, trawl round antiques markets for others, and eBay is also a good resource.

We even have some made especially - look for the special gasproof pram! It was based on a real one but there were only a few very sketchy photos that survive of it, which were sourced from the internet and some old newsreel.

Anne Reid as Mrs Thackeray

Downstairs: Anne Reid as Mrs Thackeray

There is also all the food and flowers. The end products of Mrs Thackeray's work in the kitchen need to both look good enough to serve at a royal dinner party and be authentic for the period.

Because of this a specialist TV and film food economist was hired in.

She would pre-prepare some of the food and then it would be finished in a specially-made food preparation area just outside the studio so that we could serve it piping hot straight to set!

To support her expert work, we also depended on the culinary skills of our very own Hannah Nicholson (my set decorator) who also did most of the flower arranging as well as a myriad of other things!

It was a very challenging project but with a great team behind me I think we managed to achieve something beautiful - I hope you agree.

Arwel Wyn Jones is the production designer on Upstairs Downstairs.

Upstairs Downstairs returns to BBC One and BBC One HD on Sunday, 19 February at 9.30pm. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Lucian Freud: filming with the artist

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Randall Wright Randall Wright | 10:12 UK time, Thursday, 16 February 2012

At a meeting just before Christmas 2010 Lucian Freud, a small ancient figure at 88, sitting surrounded by fresh piles of newspapers, with their lurid headlines, suddenly stared, with characteristic bulging eyes, out of the window of Clarke's restaurant in Notting Hill, London.

He had noticed a pair of mounted police, heads down, battling through a sudden heavy snow storm.

The street scene erased in the white-out left just the foreground of chestnut horses and fluorescent riders, like a children's book illustration. Lucian was thrilled with the sight.

Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud

I don't want to pretend to have known Lucian Freud. I only met him three times for breakfast, with his wise and practical assistant David Dawson.

We met to discuss Lucian Freud: Painted Life - the BBC Two documentary I was to make.

My impression was of someone extremely alert, animal-like, relying for information to a great extent on what he saw.

The bliss of looking, to struggle to capture in paint something precious, the presence of a human being, were his activities 24/7, but as the newspapers and conversations indicated, he was interested in anything.

At the meeting he asked me a few questions about the nature of documentary films, which were sharp, tough, and funny.

"Is a documentary" (residue of German accent) "like a sign that says 'Toilet'? Is it not merely educational?"

He tolerated my fumbling answers, but he expected absolute honesty. Apparently, I was told later by a close friend of his, this was a mild reflection of the much more contrary and confrontational younger Freud.

His questions put a finger on essential issues.

The problem of 'documentary' is that it claims some sort of automatic or special truth, through photography's claim to truth, an idea that dominated Lucian during his lifetime.

Where does the truth about something or someone lie? How do you deal with it in a film? Stop pretending your medium has any built-in objectivity?

Why bother, Freud would say. For him, painting was the only medium adequate to the task of searching for truth.

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David Hockney on Lucian Freud's painting technique

Making a painting was the most important thing anyone could try to do, if they were to get close to the essence of things, to approach an absolute truth.

At another meeting, the sun was streaming in. By then Lucian knew I liked his regular food supplement: nougat. He cut me a slice without me asking.

At the end of the film, the art critic Sebastian Smee said that in the company of Lucian he did not feel the need to say anything clever, just to be with someone so intense and so alive was enough. I think that is so insightful.

I hardly said a thing - not that it would have been clever if I had.

Lucian started wiggling his fingers around to make interesting shadow patterns. The shadows were green by some accident of light reflecting from the leaves of flowers on the table.

He enjoyed the sight, and so did I.

We started production in the spring of 2011. Lucian said he would still be around for his exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which started this month.

Reflection (self portrait) 1985

Reflection (self portrait) 1985

But of course he was wrong, in July he died. After his death the whole project changed.

Many of his friends and family now felt free to take a bigger part in the film, and, in their grief, to articulate the feelings and insights that are so much in the foreground of the mind when someone you love dies.

The aim of the film is to look more closely, with an open mind, at the work. The editor, Paul Binns, and I tried to deploy the amazingly candid interviews from old friends and family to reveal themes in the painting.

At the moment I write this the composer and musician John Harle is performing a saxophone part for his intensely moving score.

I am sitting in a square room with red curtains on all sides, and a mass of sound mixing technology.

Thinking about Freud makes me look more closely and with greater fascination at the most ordinary of things - to realise what a strange place the world is, and how barely we understand it.

Randall Wright is the director of Lucian Freud: Painted Life.

Lucian Freud: Painted Life is on BBC Two and BBC HD on Saturday, 18 Feburary at 9pm.

For further programme times, please see the upcoming broadcasts page.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

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