Belgravia The Next Chapter actress in tears as she's comforted by co-star
Belgravia The Next Chapter star Harriet Slater often had to film crying scenes and her co-star Benjamin Wainwright was on hand to make her laugh during emotional moments
Set 30 years after ITV’s Belgravia, Victorian period drama Belgravia: The Next Chapter picks up the story of the wealthy Trenchard family.
At the end of the original series that was broadcast in 2020, Lord Frederick Trenchard was about to be born, and he is now all grown up and about to get married. He has been raised by Oliver and Susan Trenchard, blissfully unaware that he is actually the biological son of Susan and her former lover John Bellasis. And it wouldn’t be a good costume drama if the secrets of his past didn’t threaten to affect the happiness of his new marriage to Clara Dunn.
Benjamin Wainwright, who plays Frederick, is quick to reassure potential viewers that it’s not necessary to have seen Belgravia to understand the unfolding drama. “It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the first series as there are various discoveries made during the season that can be quite entertaining to find out along with the characters,” he promises.
Harriet Slater, who plays his wife Clara, was drawn to the story as soon as she read the first script. “I thought, ‘I understand this girl!’ Even though it’s set in 1871, it doesn’t matter because the anxieties that she has and the experiences she lives through, the struggles she and Frederick have in their relationship, they are age old.”
Her character Clara starts out as quite timid, but gradually gains confidence and independence in her marriage to Frederick. Harriet, 30, reveals the filming schedule meant she would often be playing the more shy Clara one day, and the stronger Clara the next, which proved to be a challenge. “It’s been challenging because we’ve been shooting all eight episodes at the same time and flitting from the end of the show back to the start of the show,” she explains.
“We were shooting Clara and Frederick’s first ever date quite late in the shoot, which was so strange to go back to that point in the story after knowing where these characters end up and having grown in their relationship, and be the young, naïve versions of themselves when they’d only just met and it was all so exciting and new. It’s been challenging, but really fun.”
Harriet credits Benjamin as a key reason why filming was enjoyable and why their characters have such great chemistry on screen. “He’s amazing, he’s such a dream to work with,” she says. “I couldn’t have been any luckier than I have been to be working with him.
“We have such a laugh on set which I think is essential because for so much of the show our characters’ relationship is quite turbulent, so there are a lot of arguments and crying scenes. I think it’s really important that we can have a laugh in between those, which we do… maybe a bit too much sometimes!”
The original Belgravia series was written by Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes, and Harriet, who is a Downton fan, was thrilled when the filming locations included some that were used in the TV hit. “We’ve been at a different stately home every week since the start of filming which has been incredible as I’m a massive stately home nerd and I go to National Trust properties on my day off – this has been a dream come true,” she says.
“I think my favourite was Basildon Park in Reading because I visited it a year before with my friend, and then as we were arriving to set I thought, ‘I recognise this place!’ It was somewhere I’d visited before, and now we’re back using it as our Eton home. That location was used quite a lot in Downton Abbey, which was fun to recognise.”
The cast were also given access to private areas of Edinburgh Castle, thanks to the show’s historical advisor Alastair Bruce, who was governor of the castle until last year.
“We got to visit Alastair’s house in Edinburgh Castle, and he did a private tour for us one evening, which was amazing,” Harriet remembers. “We all got to have a dram of whisky on the top of Edinburgh Castle. It was a real once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which we were very lucky to experience.”
Benjamin, who was equally impressed, adds, “You have to pinch yourself sometimes because every day you’re walking into these increasingly elaborate places and you just think, ‘Oh, this is my place of work!’ I have to remind myself it’s not normal to be given access to these places.”
Belgravia: The Next Chapter is streaming on ITVX from Sunday 9 March.
Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.