Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Mapperton Again...

Helen Stiles goes behind the scenes at the filming of Rebecca where two historic Dorset manor houses play a starring role as Manderley in this romantic thriller

- Helen Stiles

The road to Manderley lay ahead ...well, the dusty track to Mapperton lay ahead. As the great house comes into view, the car park and the field beyond is filled with trailers and generators. I’ve been invited to the set of the Netflix film of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca. Featuring a glittering cast including Armie Hammer, Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas and Keeley Hawes, I am here to meet the people who will reimagine du Maurier’s Manderley for a new millennium.

First on my list is costume designer Julian Day. Sporting a snappy broad-brimmed hat, shades and a nose ring, he cuts a striking figure as he walks towards me in the shimmering July heat. The elegant, upperclass country set of Daphne du Maurier’s 1930s England must be quite a change of milieu for this award-winning designer, who created the costumes for two recent British films about flamboyant larger-than-life leading men: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and last year’s Rocket Man, for which Julian deployed “sackloads of Swarovski crystals.”

“Though they are worlds apart in terms of look, every film has a combination of a script, the characters and their clothes,” Julian observes. Rebecca does include some high-end glitz and glamour. “Chopard lent us some fabulous diamond jewellery for the ball scene for Lily and Keeley,” he reveals.