That’s a wrap on Landship, the latest independent British feature film from Tin Hat Productions:
Passchendaele 1917. The crew of British tank ‘Fray Bentos’ become stranded in No Man’s Land. Yards from the German front line, the crew must fight for their lives and find a means of escape, before F41 is finally lost beneath the mud.
(👆 Yours truly) Had a blast playing Henrichson as well as some other cuddly characters in the fog of No Man’s Land.
Trivia for your tea party: ‘Jerry’ was a derogatory nickname for a German soldier, particularly during the First and Second World Wars. The word likely originated as a shortening of ‘German’ OR may have been inspired by the German stahlhelm (steel helmet) – ‘jerry’ being an informal word for chamber pot.
Jeffrey Mundell as King Henry VIII for Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut dir. Daniel Kleinman
This was such a crazy audition: one day my agent sends over a casting invitation and I’m so chuffed to have an audition, as usual, until I notice the character is Henry VIII – the older, more familiar version. I’m a bit of a lanky beanpole and I just sit there thinking, well, this’ll be a waste of time.
However, I decide I’ve got nothing to lose and end up doing something a little outlandish – I fully dress up for the audition. I use cardboard and bubble-wrap to create American-football-style shoulder pads on top of a puffy jacket and dress it all up with curtains and sparkling fabrics – the volume is impressive. I even grab some elegant white leggings from Primarny and stuff cotton wool into my cheeks to fill out my face. To give a little more context, dressing up like this is generally not encouraged and is considered a little unprofessional. It can also look silly VERY easily. With regard to costume, best practice is to give a hint of the character and concentrate on the performance.
I actually found some footage of me developing this Henry VIII costume ahead of my audition!
I think the casting director was a little confused when I asked if there was a changing room at the audition location; when I stepped into the room he was genuinely taken aback, but then grinned and said, “10 Out of 10 for preparation”.
To my delight, I was invited back for the recall. This time there was a whole crew of people in the room, including the director, Daniel Kleinman (creator of many superb James Bond title sequences and brillianty funny commercials). Again, I wore the full costume, but this time I entered in character and stayed that way, treating everyone in the room, who would be deciding my casting fate, with absolute contempt. It was simply delicious. Of course, I came back down to Earth once the acting part of the audition was over – I observed all the usual pleasantries and when my skirt (yep, my curtain-skirt) started slipping off, I quickly made my exit.
Long story short, I booked the job and had an excellent time in an amazing costume, riding horses, shooting arrows and meeting all sorts of fascinating filmy folk. An interesting bit of trivia: the cloak I’m wearing in this commercial was one of a series originally created for Eric Bana in The Other Boleyn Girl – because this one never appears in the film, we were allowed to use it.
Watch me show off a poker face in The Good Ship Murder on Channel 5 with Catherine Tyldesley (Coronation Street) and Shayne Ward (Coronation Street and X-Factor…yes, that Shayne Ward 👇)
I love it when an audition specifically calls for a South African accent (my own) and was absolutely chuffed to land the role of Keith Lomax, the Bitcoin-billionaire with a penchant for high-stakes poker. Lomax is eccentric, high status and a little dangerous – so it was a lot of fun preparing the role (and maybe playing a little more poker than was strictly necessary). It was also great getting to work with prolific TV director, Steve Hughes, who gave a masterclass in calm efficiency while on a very tight turnaround.
On set from left to right: Florin Piersic Jr (Nikolai Volkov), Jeffrey Mundell (Keith Lomax), Jacqueline Boatswain (Wendy Weston), Douglas Rand (Lee Stanard) and Rahul Arya (BL Zeebub)
Shayne Ward and Catherine Tyldesley lead the cast as an unlikely duo who team up to solve a spate of murders, with a host of other recognisable faces joining them for the eight-episode drama, which kicked off on Friday 13th October.
It was quite the adventure, filming a TV show on a working cruise liner alongside hundreds of passengers. My cabin was high up near the bow of the Virtuosa with a little balcony overlooking the sea – brilliant for watching dolphins skip across sunset swells or for staring into the mesmerising oil-blue ocean heaving below.
Jeffrey Mundell 