Ghosts’ Larry Rickard Explains Why They Chose the Captain’s First Name
Photo: Monumental,Guido Mandozzi
It couldn’t be a joke. That was one rule laid down by the Ghosts creators when it came to choosing a first name for Willbond’s character. Until series five, the WWII ghost had been known only as The Captain – a mystery seized upon by fans of the show.
“It was the question we got asked more than anything. His name,” actor and writer Larry Rickard tells Den of Geek. “Once we got to series three, you could see that we were deliberately cutting away and deliberately avoiding it. We were fuelling the fire because we knew at some point we’d tell them.”
In “Carpe Diem”, the episode written by Rickard and Ben Willbond that finally reveals The Captain’s death story, they did tell us. After years of guessing, clue-spotting and debate, Ghosts revealed that The Captain’s first name is James. At the same time, we also learned that James’ colleague Lieutenant Havers’ first name was Anthony.
The ordinariness of those two names, says Rickard, is the point.
“The only thing we were really clear about is that we didn’t want one of those names that only exists in tellyland. It shouldn’t be ‘Cormoran’ or ‘Endeavour’. They should just be some men’s names and they’re important to them. The point was that they were everyday.”
Choosing first names for The Captain and Havers was a long process not unlike naming a baby, Rickard agrees. “It almost comes down to looking at the faces of the characters and saying, what’s right?”
“We talked for ages. For a long time I kept thinking ‘Duncan and James’, and then I was like ah no! That would have turned it into a gag and been awful!” Inescapably in the minds of a certain generation, Duncan James is a member of noughties boyband Blue. “Maybe with Anthony I was thinking of Anthony Costa!” Rickard says in mock horror, referencing another member of the band.
Lieutenant Havers wasn’t just The Captain’s second in command while stationed at Button House; he was also the man James loved. Because homosexuality was criminalised in England during James’ lifetime, he was forced to hide his feelings for Anthony from society, and to some extent even from himself.
In “Carpe Diem”, the ghosts (mistakenly) prepare for the last day of their afterlives, prompting The Captain to finally tell his story. Though not explicit about his sexual identity, the others understand and accept what he tells them – and led by Lady Button, all agree that he’s a brave man.
Getting the balance right of what The Captain does and doesn’t say was key to the episode. “It wasn’t just a personal choice of his to go ‘I’m going to remain in the closet’,” explains Rickard. “There wasn’t an option there to explore the things that either of them felt. That couldn’t be done back then – there are so many stories which have come out since the War about the dangers of doing that.
“We wanted to tell his personal story but also try to ensure that there was a level at which you understood why they couldn’t be open, that even in this moment where he’s finally telling the other ghosts his story, he never comes out and says it overtly because that would be too much for him as a character from that time.
“He says enough for them to know, and enough for him to feel unburdened but it’s in the fact that they’re using their first names which militarily they would never have done, and in the literal passing of the baton”.
The baton is a bonus reveal when fans learned that The Captain’s military stick wasn’t a memento of his career, but of Havers. As James suffers a fatal heart attack during a VE day celebration at Button House, Anthony rushes to his side and the stick passes from one to the other as they share a moment of tragic understanding.
“From really early on, we had the idea that anything you’re holding [when you die] stays with you. So it wasn’t just your clothes you were wearing, we had the stuff with Thomas’ letter reappearing in his pocket and so on. And the assumption being that it was something The Captain couldn’t put down, it felt so nice to be able to say it was something he didn’t want to put down.”
Rickard lists “Carpe Diem”, co-written with Ben Willbond, among his series five highlights. He’s pleased with the end result, praises Willbond’s performance, and loved being on set to see Button House dressed for the 1940s. He’s particularly pleased that a checklist of moments they wanted to land with the audience all managed to be included. “Normally something’s fallen by the wayside just because of the way TV’s made, it’s always imperfect or it’s slightly rushed, but it feels like it’s all there.”
Rickard and Willbond also knew by this point in the show’s lifetime, that they could trust Ghosts fans to pick up on small details. “Nothing is missed,” he says. “Early on, you’re always thinking, is that going to get across? But once we got to series five, there are little tiny things within corners of shots and you know that’s going to be spotted. Particularly in that very short exchange between Havers and the Captain. We worried less about the minutiae of it because you go, that’s going to be rewound and rewatched, nothing will be missed.”
The team were also grateful they’d resisted the temptation to tell The Captain’s story sooner. “We’d talked about it every series since series two, whether or not now was the time, but because he’s such a hard and starchy character in a lot of ways you needed the time to understand his softer side I think before you had that final honest beat from him.”
“What a ridiculously normal name to have so much weight put on it for five years,” laughs Rickard fondly. “Good old James.”
From Den of Geek
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I've been musing over a few thoughts inspired by this ask about a mafia-ish style of Apex Polarity without it being too close to Pearl Eye, and after watching a few videos of Orcas hunting their prey (which included dolphins), landed on a sort of Mafia inspired Apex Polarity AU
Also not to add another Y/N to Orclipse's growing collection but this Y/N is a white-beaked dolphin. Look! They're so beautiful!
Sirens are cunning, brutal, and take everything with teeth and claws. The strongest kill and maim at a whim. As a siren who's not particularly strong, though incredibly agile, with a tail streamlined and dark gray with white patches, fins curved and mostly black, you're somewhere at the bottom. You're doing your best to survive and avoid trouble. You pick your battles and you pick your escapes, and most importantly, you stay alive.
But then you do something really stupid: you venture where you shouldn't have.
You don't usually swim so far up north but you're hungry, and the thought of a few tasty squids distracts you from the silent waters and vast, blue emptiness. You realize a bit too late that you're not the only one hunting.
You catch the first orca siren in the distance as a dark figure, and then another. Two who immediately cut through the water, charging straight for you like shadows. Though you turn tail and bolt, you quickly spot them in the corner of your vision. They easily keep pace, their size and strength overwhelming as they flank you on both sides, wide grins flashing their deadly teeth. You can hardly look at the mismatched color of their eyes as you dodge and weave, diving down only to be cut off by one with midnight blue colors at the tip of his flukes, and shooting off to the left just to almost be snatched by the black-bone claws of a siren with bright yellow fins framing his head.
They're toying with you. You know that for a fact in how they just barely keep back, corraling you onwards, draining your already spent energy, and picking at your panicking pulse. You have no choice but to avoid the edges of their jaws and the tips of their talons, and swim in the direction they want.
You near a field of ice floes floating on the water, and though you cut into the jagged structures dipping into the sea, the orca sirens never lose you. A desperate need for air pushes you onward. One small drop of hope still burns in your chest. Despite the aching of your muscles, you steal a gulp of oxygen and dip back down once more, charging away—
Only to run smack into a third orca siren.
This one grabs you, his burning red and orange colors filling your vision. The other two orcas join to help their kin keep you in place long enough for you to truly regret ever venturing here. Between the three of what you can only assume are brothers, hands hooked over you shoulders, claws clutching your wrists, and palms pressing into your hips, you're a fish caught in a net.
You brace for a voilent end. It never arrives. Instead of digging into your sweet meat, the sirens offer you a deal. The tips of sharp fingertips trace your jawline and the soft inside of your arms and down your slick tail while they explain.
You keep watch for human ships and report back when they're getting close, and in exchange, you get the best food you can imagine, the entire Arctic Ocean to swim, and anything else you'd like. The best benefit? You're under their protection. Of course, they expect utter loyalty from you. You are no one else's. Failure to devote yourself to this work and the brothers would mean a grisly fate, but hey, you're nothing if not eager to not be torn apart. So you agree.
You have a few questions about this whole arrangement, struggling to understand why they, powerful orca sirens, bother with a smaller fish like you when they could rip you limb from limb and be done. What's with the human ships? Why task you to this? Are you just fodder so they can keep their fins nice and unscabbed? They reassure you that they'll explain in due time (the sunny one booping your nose, much to your chagrin), but for now, all you know to know is that the human ships are a problem, and you are their solution for it. You've never really encountered humans before, but they've never really encountered sirens, or so you thought.
The burning red one lets you go, but you don't slip away too far before he tugs on your flukes and tells you to follow him. It's not a request. The darker blue one leaves for a moment, jetting away as the other two guide you to a nice resting place on an icy shore. They introduce themselves, and then their brother reappears with a squid in hand, half dead, and an insistence that you eat—they could tell during the chase that you didn't have all your energy.
And that's how you unwittingly join a very powerful pod of orca brothers who may or may not be teasing and taunting you simultaneously.
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what I was talking abt earlier. we have fully looped back around and away from feminism, societally, whereas before it was very Feminism 101 to acknowledge that many parts of existing as a woman in a misogynistic society are painful and upsetting.
not that being a woman is Inherently Negative in a bubble. but that living on this earth, in the conditions we're living in, is hostile to women.
and that gender is a performance. that many of the Staples Of Femininity as accepted by society are things that you have to create and perform and mold artificially and aren't inherent, that COMPLAINING about day to day difficulties of existing as a woman is something that you're allowed to do.
acknowledging these basic, again, feminism 101 things, that something tied to womanhood is more time consuming or more expensive or more dangerous Because Of The Problems. does not CREATE the problems. that when women complain about having to perform femininity, they are not, in fact, oppressing themselves. the call does not come from inside the fucking house.
saying that you HAVE suffered does not fucking equate that you believe you SHOULD have suffered.
like I could talk about this for hours. how braindead and one-dimensional the Takes are getting. "being a woman is looking in the mirror and going fuck yeah i'm a woman" damn. I guess any negative experiences you have by living in a misogynistic world... are your fault if you are anything but positive?
"you don't actually want liberation" we've fully gone back to telling feminists "you WANT to be oppressed" when anything negative about our society is pointed out. it's not real until I say it out loud, I guess, and then I'm actually the one who caused it.
if anybody expresses any unhappiness with how they're treated or the status quo or the language and culture surrounding womanhood and femininity. they've created it, right that second. they invented it just now. it wasn't a problem before somebody complained, right?
also trans women aren't braindead zombies who just follow the flow of whatever cis women around them say. I am pretty fucking sure they are very much aware of pain, and are MORE than aware of the swirling torrent of misogyny and standards of femininity than anybody else. actually. and I am pretty sure someone complaining on tumblr that being a woman means always putting on a performance is going to make someone change their mind about transitioning. also "performing femininity" as a necessity to being treated well as a woman is not fucking NEWS to your Local Trans Woman. I AM PRETTY SURE SHE GETS THE CONCEPT. using trans women as a scapegoat for this braindead perspective on gender politics is spineless, meritless, and pathetic.
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