Return of the native Tess

Filmed in Bristol, Bath and across the West , Tess of the D'Urbervilles is set to be the great costume drama of the autumn. David Clensy reports

It's remarkable to think that the BBC has never attempted to tackle Thomas Hardy's greatest work in the past.

But the corporation's first ever adaptation of Tess Of The D'Urbervilles presented daunting challenges for the production team.

The series, which starts next weekend, saw the team travel across the West Country to find suitable locations – from Georgian terraces in Clifton to manor houses in Bath, Wiltshire, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Dorset.

Screenwriter David Nicholls says he became obsessed with trying to capture the light and shade in Hardy's classic novel.

"To my mind, Tess and Angel's farewell in the morning light at Stonehenge is the most moving scene in English literature," he says. "So to be able to recreate it, at dawn, on location at the correct time of year, was tremendously exciting.

"This production was shot entirely on location on 35mm and while the results are frequently stunning, this inevitably brings huge challenges. In Hardy, people tend not to sit in front of drawing room fires; they stand in landscapes, frequently in the rain or snow. Shooting outdoors, through a particularly unpredictable English spring, made great demands on the production team.

"Any adaptation of Hardy has to capture the beauty of his nature writing without forgetting that this is a brutal, unforgiving landscape too and David Blair, a director who works a great deal with contemporary writers like Jimmy McGovern and Donna Franceschild, has brought a toughness and authenticity to the world and the performances.

"We set out on this adaptation with various aims. The production should be beautiful but not pretty; it should be about characters in a landscape, not just the landscape. It should grip like a thriller, but also move the audience deeply.

"Tess Of The D'Urbervilles is a romantic epic, one of the great love stories but a cruel and violent saga too, and I hope we've faithfully captured that high emotion, the mix of light and shade that makes Hardy's novel so compelling and sublime."

For viewers, it will be quite a challenge to see which West Country landmarks they can recognise.

In Bristol, a property in The Paragon, Clifton, even became the exterior of the Sandbourne Guesthouse in the film.

You might also spot places such as Church House in Corsham, which becomes The Plough Inn, Great Chalfield Manor House, near Melksham or Owlpen Manor, in Dursley.

For bright young star Gemma Arterton the role of Tess was a world away from acting alongside Daniel Craig in the upcoming Bond film Quantum Of Solace. She spent a day on Wharf Farm near the south Gloucestershire village of Cambridge to learn the techniques of milking. The farm's owners Judy and Bert King took the starlet's visit in their stride, and Judy says Gemma enjoyed her time with the goats.

"Gemma had to learn how to milk goats for the role," Judy explains. "She was a bit nervous at first, but by the end of the day she'd got to grips with basic milking."

But the biggest challenge for the crew was losing £150,000-worth of costumes overnight in a suspected arson attack on the unit base at Tog Hill near Wick, five weeks in to the shoot.

"I'd never wish it on my worst enemy," says the costume designer James Keast. "We had to remake hundreds of costumes from scratch – it meant dyeing and painting and spraying around the clock."

But the crew refused to allow the set-back to dampen their spirits, and soon were back in to the filming schedule, as passionate as ever about the project.

Like many of us, screenwriter David first tackled the novel at school.

"I read Tess Of The D'Urbervilles when I was 16, rather grudgingly, as part of an exam curriculum," he says. "I don't think I can recall ever being so affected by a book. Re-reading it nearly 25 years later, it had lost none of its power to engage and move, shock and delight. It's a novel of remarkable power, with a story that grips from its very first scene until its terrible, heart-breaking conclusion.

"It seemed to cry out for a new screen adaptation and I'm delighted with our final version. I hope it faithfully captures the light and shade of Hardy's masterpiece."

"It's commonplace to talk of classic novels as being surprisingly 'modern', but this seems especially true of Tess.

"The pleasure, and occasional frustration, of many classic novels is that they revolve around unspoken passions, but in Tess, everything is expressed. It's a wonderfully emotionally charged story, both intensely romantic and startlingly violent."

Eddie Redmayne gives the heroic Angel Clare an easy charm, while Bond girl Gemma Arterton takes the title role.

"The courtship of Angel and Tess contains some delightful, sensual love scenes – almost a romantic comedy at times – and yet this follows an act of startling cruelty and callousness," says David.

"Hardy is justly famed as a writer of the natural world, but he is also tough-minded, provocative, indignant at hypocrisy and injustice, and I hope we've captured some of this dark drama as well as the beauty and romance of the story.

"Perhaps Hardy's greatest achievement is his heroine. It's a daunting challenge for any actress, but I think Gemma Arterton's performance is extraordinary."

Tess Of The D'Urbervilles is on BBC1, on Sunday, September 14.

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