Cash splashed on Scottish reshoot of Agatha Christie drama
A no-expense-spared rescue mission salvaged the production at Renfrewshire’s Ardgowan House – the country mansion setting for Ordeal By Innocence, a big budget drama which had starred Ed Westwick.
Westwick was replaced in all scenes by fellow 30-year-old Christian Cooke.
But that was the least of the hurdles when filming resumed, according to the Radio Times, as most of the original cast and crew returned to the 18th century mansion and estate on the Firth of Clyde, near Inverkip, where they spent several weeks filming last year.
Producer Sandra Goldbacher said she was given “the money to do it really properly”, but neither the BBC nor production firm Mammoth Screen will say how much or whether any of it could be reclaimed through insurance.
They had to fly in key cast members, including Anna Chancellor, Alice Eve, Billy Nighy and Eleanor Tomlinson, from all over the world as they were working on new films.
The team were able to re-use Ardgowan House for 12 days’ work involving 35 scenes only because the owner, Sir Ludovic Shaw Stewart, hadn’t changed the decor, which included a new carpet, after it had been painted, “otherwise it would have taken ages to repaint it all again.”