Fives on TV - "Industry"

John Reynolds reports:

29/08/24: The photo above shows Kit Harington (of Game Of Thrones fame) playing a character in the popular TV show 'Industry'.

It's about City intrigue and is co-written by Konrad Kay, who was at City of London school.

You don't get an awful lot of fives in the two-minute scene, sorry to say, but I think it is the first time Eton fives has ever featured in a TV drama.

Anyway, the third series of Industry is being broadcast and this is from the first episode of that. I'm not sure why Harington is naked from the waist up but they kept spraying him with water to make him glisten!

I know this because I was consultant for the scene, coached the players and even had a bit part, playing a character called Reynolds - Harington introduces me (as 'Reynolds') to one of the other characters. That's me lurking around in the background in the dark clothing.

The scene is shot on an Eton fives court constructed specially for the show, and erected in a barn in South Wales where the action was filmed. Weirdly, the court was modelled on the slightly non-standard court at High Elms and there was a odd third ledge high up on the front wall, but you can't tell that from watching the show. It just made serving and so filming a bit difficult.

Industry is written and produced – this series was part-directed – by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, who met in the 6th form at Charterhouse. Down and Kay told me – I don't know how seriously – that the fives court was one of their most expensive sets so far and in many ways it’s a triumph. You’d never know it was made of plywood and built inside a barn and made to look like masonry with a bit of judiciously applied tea. They told me they had wanted to stage a scene in a fives court because it would be completely outside the (largely American) audience's experience and so would appear to be something exotic and unfamiliar.