David Cornwell, who wrote under the pen name John le Carré, attended Sherborne School (Westcott House) from September 1945 to July 1948.
A television adaptation of John le Carré’s second novel, A Murder of Quality, was filmed by Portobello Productions at Sherborne between 19 November and 14 December 1990, forty-two years after le Carré had left Sherborne and twenty-nine years after he had written the novel.
A Murder of Quality was first screened in the UK on 10 April 1991 by Thames Television and, six months later, it was shown in the USA where it was introduced by Alistair Cooke on Channel 9’s Masterpiece Theatre.
The Novel and the Screenplay
A Murder of Quality was published in 1962 by Victor Gollancz and was written, le Carré tells us, ‘in the flush of the modest success enjoyed by my first, Call for the Dead. I began it in 1961 when I arrived in Bonn ahead of my family to take up a junior post at the British Embassy, and by the time it appeared I had The Spy Who… in my sights.’[1] Interestingly, it is one of only two novels by le Carré published in the Soviet Union, the other being A Small Town in Germany.
Although A Murder of Quality is considered by some as an oddity amongst le Carré’s literary output, le Carré was keen to explain how, despite its location, it contained the same themes as those that run through all his Smiley novels:
‘What George Smiley had discovered at Carne School was the same root-and-bough corruption that he later unveiled in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Carne was the Circus made School. Both were rotten through and through, each had been entrusted with its sacred mission: the one to protect our freedom, the other to educate our children. Both had fallen down on the job. Forget the country house murder. This was war. If there was anyone at all in the novel with whom I identified, apart from safe old George Smiley, it was the luckless schoolboy. Tim Perkins, the antecedent of little Bill Roach, the boy watcher in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Both were the overburdened inheritors of a social system they would never be on terms with, both were doomed. Everyone else, in one way or another, was enemy.’[2]
Despite le Carré stating in the Foreword to the novel that ‘There are probably a dozen great schools of whom it will be confidently asserted that Carne is their deliberate image. But he who looks among their common rooms for the D’Arcys, Fieldings, and Hechts will search in vain’[3], the novel is clearly set at a thinly-disguised Sherborne School (Carne School).
The novel’s setting was recognised by Portobello Production’s location manager, who wrote to Sherborne’s Headmaster in October 1990 saying that despite having looked at a number of other boy’s public schools ‘none of them seemed to match so well the requirements of our story, or provide so many fine school building in such close proximity to the heart of the town’[4], as Sherborne did.
Le Carré admitted he was squeamish about revisiting his novels and felt that A Murder of Quality would require a considerable rewrite to overcome its ‘serious structural deficiencies’[5]. As Le Carré predicted, adapting this novel would prove particularly problematic with the result that neither of the first two screenplays, written by John Goldsmith and Hugh Whitemore[6] (best-known for his stage play Breaking the Code about Old Shirburnian Alan Turing), were taken up.
By 1990 le Carré had already had considerable experience of seeing his novels adapted for both the big and the small screen – The Spy Who Came in the from the Cold (1965), The Deadly Affair (1967), The Looking Glass War (1970), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), Smiley’s People (1982), The Little Drummer Girl (1984), A Perfect Spy (1987) and The Russia House (1990) – and knowing better than anyone the restructuring that the story needed ‘to contain the dynamic that was now gathering on my private horizon; such as inventing new characters and scenes to bear the load of a stronger plot’[7], in the end he could not resist the temptation of writing the screenplay himself.
Three weeks before the first day of shooting, le Carré began working on the screenplay, faxing the pages to the director Gavin Millar as he wrote them.[8] The script was still being written on 4 December 1990 when Gavin Millar admitted when interviewed by Jean-Marc Pascal and Andrew Stooke for The Shirburnian, that even though filming had already begun he and le Carré were still revising the script.[9]
One major change that le Carré made in the screenplay was to put Sherborne School centre stage – literally so – opening with boys rehearsing a production of Everyman in the Big Schoolroom (BSR). Le Carré had himself appeared in June 1947 in John Melvin’s production of Everyman at Sherborne School when he played ‘Discretion’ alongside George Cheyne (Messenger), Christopher Berrisford (God), Peter Gell (Death), John McEwan (Everyman), John Belfrage (Fellowship), Michael Tovey (Cousin), Hugh Murray-Hudson (Kindred), Chris Chataway (Goods), Michael Peacock (Good Deeds), Douglas Spankie (Strength), Malcolm Macdonald (Five Wits), William Blackshaw (Beauty), Peter Willis-Fleming (Knowledge), Simon Carey (Confession), Christopher Zealley (Fiddler), James King (Scourger), and Lance Percival (schoolboy).
By opening the screenplay with a scene from a medieval morality play, in which the character Tim Perkins (Christian Bale) plays ‘Fellowship’, it is apparent that le Carré wants us to view A Murder of Quality as a morality play, with George Smiley representing ‘Everyman’ and Terence Fielding as a man whose downfall is the result of his ‘too many appetites’ or his fatal flaws.
The Score
Stanley Myers’ score for A Murder of Quality is subtle and understated, using a small selection of instruments (pipe organ, pump organ, piano, strings) and a boys’ choir to create the atmosphere of an English public school. Myers had been pupil at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, which, like Sherborne School, was one of the schools founded in the 1550s by King Edward VI. During his career Myers amassed a huge credit list on films and television shows, but is best known for his guitar piece ‘Cavatina’, a version of which played by John Williams was used as the theme for Michael Cimino’s film The Deer Hunter (1978), for which Myers won an Ivor Novello Award.
The Actors
George Smiley is probably le Carré’s most famous creation, inspired as he was by the Rev. Vivian Green who le Carré first met at Sherborne School where Vivian was a master.
Casting this iconic role for the television adaptation of A Murder of Quality proved surprisingly problematic. Rupert Davies and James Mason had both played Smiley on film, and Alec Guinness had played Smiley in two TV series – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley’s People (1982). Le Carré asked Alec Guinness to reprise the role in A Murder of Quality and although he accepted he later changed his mind.[10] By October 1990, Anthony Hopkins was down to play Smiley[11], but a week before shooting was due to start he pulled out, apparently unhappy that his role had been reduced in the revised script.[12]
With just three days before production was due to start, Denholm Elliot, then best known for playing Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones films, agreed to take on Smiley. Denholm was not intimidated at the prospect of taking on a role so clearly linked in the public imagination with Alec Guinness, saying ‘I wanted to play him with more comedy, something that was missing from Guinness’s portrayal’.[13] In his biography of le Carré, Adam Sisman tells the story of how on his arrival in Sherborne Denholm Elliott was introduced to someone called David Cornwell but failed to connect him with John le Carré, later admitting that he thought Cornwell might be the headmaster of Sherborne School![14]
By 1990 le Carré’s name on a film or TV script was sure to attract the best actors, as proved by those who signed up for A Murder of Quality: Joss Ackland (Terence Fielding), Glenda Jackson (Ailsa Brimley), Billie Whitelaw (Mad Janie), Diana Fletcher (Shane Hecht), Michael Cochrane (Charles Hecht), David Threlfall (Stanley Rode), Ronald Pickup (Felix D’Arcy), Tim Dutton (Simon Snow), Emily Raymond (Ann Snow), Samantha Janus (Alice Lawry), Thorley Walters (Bishop Harry), Matthew Scurfield (Inspector Rigby), Charles Pemberton (Sergeant Ted Mundy), and fifteen-year-old Christian Bale (Tim Perkins) who had already appeared in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun (1987) and Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (1989).
A number of boys at the School appeared in the film as extras. Daniel Perrin (m 93), Tom Williams (m 93) and John Warren (d 95) remember their time as extras wearing ‘stereotypical public school uniform (wing collars and tails)’ and also playing in a game of rugby on Carey’s, most of which was cut. There was also a minor insurrection when the School suggested that the boys would not receive any pay for their work as extras, though this was later resolved in favour of the boys.
Ben Davis (c 94) was the only Sherborne boy to have a named part in the film, appearing as ‘Plum’ in a classroom scene with David Threlfall (Stanley Rode). John Hodgkinson’s review in The Shirburnian picked out Ben’s performance for special mention:
‘Ben’s exquisitely timed and considered performance is bound to turn him into a star and already I believe the offers are coming in. His phrase: “An erection, sir”, a frivolous and impertinent reply to a question from his teacher, has so exactly the right tone of adolescent frustration-cum-risqué wit that it was not surprising to find that he was, in fact, a member of The Green fourth form.’[15]
The Locations:
Scenes for A Murder of Quality were filmed at a number of locations at Sherborne School and in the town, including:
Hyle House, Westbury (Stanley Rode’s house).
School House, Sherborne School (Terence Fielding’s house).
Wallace House, South Street (Shane and Charles Hecht’s house).
The Digby, Digby Road (The Sawley Arms, the police station & Inspector Rigby’s office).
Classroom no.8, Sherborne School (Felix D’Arcy’s classroom).
Classroom no.16, Sherborne School (Terence Fielding’s classroom).
Carrington buildings, Sherborne School (Stanley Rode’s classroom).
The Courts, Sherborne School.
Cloisters, Sherborne School.
Old School Room, Sherborne School (graffiti on window ledges).
Squash Courts, Acreman Street.
Carey’s Playing Fields, Lenthay.
Gainsborough Hill.
The Digby Tap, Cooks Lane (The Sawley Tap).
Raleigh Hall, Digby Road (Baptist church hall).
Pageant Gardens, Digby Road
Sherborne Abbey.
Long Street.
South Street.
The Big Schoolroom (BSR) at Sherborne School was used for a costume store.
James Higham (m 94) took photographs of the filming in The Digby and remembered that the scenes inside the police station were filmed in The Digby’s entrance hall and dining room, and that the house library became Inspector Rigby’s office.
Rachel Hassall
School Archivist
References:
[1] John le Carré, A Murder of Quality: the novel and the screenplay (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), p.ix.
[2] le Carré, A Murder of Quality: the novel and the screenplay, p.141.
[3] John le Carré, A Murder of Quality (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.), p.8.
[4] Letter from Angus More Gordon, Location Manager, Portobello Productions, to Peter Lapping, Sherborne School, 23 October 1990. (Sherborne School Archives)
[5] le Carré, A Murder of Quality: the novel and the screenplay, p.139.
[6] Adam Sisman, John Carré: The Biography (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), p.476.
[7] le Carré, A Murder of Quality: the novel and the screenplay, p.142.
[8] le Carré, A Murder of Quality: the novel and the screenplay, p.144.
[9] ‘An interview with Gavin Millar, Director of a Murder of Quality’ by Jean-Marc Pascal and Andrew Stooke, The Shirburnian, Lent 1991, p.27. (Sherborne School Archives)
[10] Sisman, John Carré: The Biography, p.476
[11] Letter from Angus More Gordon, Location Manager, Portobello Productions, to Peter Lapping, Sherborne School, 23 October 1990. (Sherborne School Archives).
[12] Sisman, John Carré: The Biography, p.476.
[13] Sisman, John Carré: The Biography, p.477.
[14] Sisman, John Carré: The Biography, p.477.
[15] John Hodgkinson, ‘A Murder of Quality’, The Shirburnian, Trinity 1991, p.27. (Sherborne School Archives)
Online Resources:
- David John Moore Cornwell (1931-2020) (John le Carré)
- Film: John le Carré’s A Murder of Quality (1991) (YouTube)
- Films made at Sherborne School
For further information about the Sherborne School Archives please contact the School Archivist
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