Between The Lines

[andy-hughes]

It has dated, which is not uncommon, but the most obvious way in which society has changed is the noticeable amounts of cigarettes being consumed every minute of every episode.

I'm amazed the cast can see each other through the fug of nicotine!!

[barry1010]

It's not nicotine, even smokers have to smoke herbal fags and have done for many years.

[andy-hughes]

Do you mean actors smoking as part of a role?

[barry1010]

Yes, the actors that smoke on set have to smoke herbal cigarettes.
In Coronation Street the actors who played Bet Lynch and Deidre Barlow hid their real cigarettes all over the set so as soon as filming stopped they could light up - even if that been smoking the fake fags for hours during filming.

With so many re-takes during filming actors can be smoking a lot and of course it is a workplace so nowadays the producers have a duty to protect everyone from secondary smoking, but herbal cigarettes were the norm long before this legislation

[tiggerblue10]

Nearly every scene in Peaky Blinders has smoking in it. I think I asked a question regarding this a few years ago and was told they'd be fake cigs.

[barry1010]

The whisky is cold tea :)

[bobbinwales]

Recently saw an old Saturday Night at the London palladium on Talking Pictures TV and magician David Nixon was on stage smoking while doing he's act. And watched the Champions from 1960s and they were smoking on a plane!

[andy-hughes]

I watched The Champions as well - can't vouch for the smoking though - as soon as Alexandra Bastedo is on screen for more than twenty seconds, I get a loud rushing in my ears and everything goes dark and I wake up on the lounge floor and I have to have a rubdown with a damp 1981 copy of the Melody Maker.

[ichkeria]

It’s dated in other ways of course: no mobiles, the patrician style higher echelons of the police.
Makes it all the more interesting though and still very hard hitting. It sort of warmed up as it went on

[KUSTARD]

But surely Dave Allen's cigarettes and whisky were real?!

[emmie]

i would have thought so.