Character: Henry Beaumont
Actor: Robert Hardy
Episode: The German Woman

Robert Hardy was transported back in time in his role as Henry Beaumont in Foyle's War - thanks to a dressing gown.

"When I went for the costume fitting, the designer told me she had the most perfect dressing gown for me. She asked if I remembered the old fashioned Jaeger camel-haired dressing gowns with the roping. I said I did, of course, because as a child I had one. When I put it on I felt like a child again. You can't get them now - I know because I went into Jaeger 20 years ago and tried without any luck.

"Henry has a tweedy look and wears enormous checks. He has a nice dinner jacket, too. Those are the garments you needed in big icy houses in winter. His clothes are not much different from what I wear now, so I was very comfortable."

Henry Beaumont is an ex-guardsman and wealthy landowner-cum-magistrate in the village of Lower Fenton.

"Henry is described as quite a cold character. He is revealed to have a softer side, but he reserves that for his daughter and wife. He is deeply in love with his wife but because of his character he can't show it very much.

"He has the extremely difficult problem of having a German wife living in England in the 40s. At that time there were terrifying attitudes and people could be vile about Germans. I remember that vividly as a 15-year-old."

Adds Robert: "I've played Churchill on film and before thousands of people on stage every night in Paris, and I met him three times. It does help to have that historical knowledge, the feel of the times and the style of the people. You could identify people by the way they dressed and talked."

Robert was delighted to work with his Foyle's War co-stars.

"I looked forward to acting with Michael Kitchen and Edward Fox is an old friend of mine. Rosamund Pike has an instinctive ability to go for reality and truth. I told her she has great talent and will have a very successful career. Joanna Kanska plays my beautiful and much younger wife - she has a great sense of humour and was a delight.

"The house we filmed at, Squeerys Court, near Westerham in Kent was lovely, with gorgeous pictures on the walls. The gardens were splendid and there were fantastic views across to the lake. It was quite near my old stamping ground of Chartwell where we filmed Churchill."

Robert has enjoyed a long and fruitful career, including leading roles in All Creatures Great and Small, Hot Metal, The Far Pavilions, War and Remembrance, Middlemarch and Gulliver's Travels on television, and the films The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, How I Won The War, The Shooting Party, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Sense & Sensibility and An Ideal Husband.

He is an expert on archery, a documentary writer, director and presenter and was appointed a CBE in 1981. As well as Foyle's War, he stars as Professor Neddy Welch in ITV1's adaptation of Lucky Jim.

September 2002; Publicity Release