'I worked behind the scenes on huge TV show - syphilis was our biggest challenge'

Daily Mirror

27-04-2025

EXCLUSIVE: Behind your favourite TV shows are a team of creatives who work tirelessly to produce the biggest and best episodes. We chat to some of the experts...
You sit in front of the TV and look for something to watch - do you choose Baby Reindeer on Netflix or maybe a historical series like Mary & George? Perhaps you want to tune into the latest series of Industry or sob at One Day?
Whatever you choose, you'll be watching the work of a team of creatives who work long hours to ensure the end product is visually compelling.
‌
Ahead of the BAFTA Craft Awards this weekend, we spoke to the creatives behind some of this year's most captivating and exciting shows.
‌
Fake pox, tattoo bruises and wigs
Paul Gooch, who worked on Sky's hit series Mary & George, shared details on what went into creating the elaborate hair styles and make-up for the historical drama.
"We needed to create a form of Pox for our lead actor," he explained. "It could have been syphilis, a skin disease of a form of small pox. In the script it was non specific.
"And for another character a full blown case of syphilis which are away at the soft bone tissue of the face. To do these effects we used a combination of tattoo transfers and pro bondo sculpted prosthetics. It took five of us an hour to achieve, along with a red rash, as it had to cover the actor's whole body.
"Fun to do but very time consuming and man power heavy, for speed. Death, disease and ageing were a large part of this shows remit."
‌
In order to help with continuity, Paul shared bruising would be created as tattoo transfers so they're "fast to apply and always identical".
Unfortunately when it comes to continuity, the weather can prove challenging for the hair and make-up team as Paul explained: "Maintaining elaborate hair styles in these conditions is a major part of our work alongside continuity, making sure things stay the same, so we don't give problems to the editors.
"When using wigs and facial hair these require gluing to the skin. Damp weather will affect this too. Long working hours are also a factor. An average filming day for the makeup/hair department is around 16 to 18 hours long so maintaining these highly stylised looks is a long game. We use heavy duty hair products to help keep these sculptural styles."
‌
'Electric' performances and 'tricky' scenes
Industry writers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay had the job of showcasing Sagar Radia's character Rishi Ramdani's struggle with gambling. Reflecting on why the episode focussing on Rishi's downfall had such an impact, they shared: "Because of its relentless pace and the fact the script turned the screws on the character at every available opportunity, married to Sagar's electric performance. Very hard to take your eyes off him. Very volatile. Very unpredictable."
Meanwhile, writer of Netflix hit One Day, Nicole Taylor, detailed how creating the script was much harder than she anticipated.
‌
"The greatest challenge was probably figuring out what the 'motor' of each episode would be," she explained. "In a story like this about people and a relationship over time, without any particular 'plot' as such, without traditional TV 'hooks', how could I lock viewers into this story? How could I make sure they never looked away?
"The hardest scenes to write were those in episode 14 and the opening scenes were tricky too. It was all quite tricky! Trickier than I expected – ha. With material that brilliant, one might have hoped it was a cut and paste job but alas no!"
‌
The scenes you'll never see
Baby Reindeer took Netflix by storm when it quietly dropped on the streamer in early 2024. It had viewers gripped from start to finish but fans might be surprised to learn key scenes were cut from the series.
Editor Benjamin Gerstein divulged: "I think scenes that end up on the cutting room floor mostly end up there for a reason. Sometimes you have to lose moments you love in order for the whole episode or series to work best. Having said that, there was a bar-fight I really liked that we ended up losing.
‌
"It was tragic and funny but didn't fit the overall thrust of the episode as we accelerated towards the end."
Reflecting on the challenges he faced when editing, Benjamin shared: "There were some pretty traumatic sequences in the show, and cutting them was challenging on an emotional as well as technical level.
"I found it meant making yourself both emotionally available and objectively distant at the same time so that you could feel what the audience might feel in watching and also have the capacity to make creative decisions that were more measured."
The BAFTA TV Craft Awards are on 27th April