Robert Altman called Gosford Park – his take on a 1930s country-house murder mystery – a “Who cares who dunnit?” But he did care that Eileen Atkins, learning to play the sour cook Mrs Croft, knew how far to whisk eggs for ice cream. A woman who worked in houses of the period taught her, though Mrs Croft’s relentless contempt for her “betters” is pure Atkins.
The accurate ice-cream is for a weekend’s shooting party hosted by Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon), a wealthy industrialist. Servants tend to the gathered guests in their rooms, or toil and gossip below in a network of dim corridors and internal windows. Gosford Park takes place in November but was shot in March, so the previous season’s pheasants were defrosted and dropped from the sky. They are the only fakes in an ensemble cast of real deals.
