This was their life

Believe it or not, Tenko owes its existence to the long-running TV series This Is Your Life. A researcher for the show, Lavinia Warner, had been looking into female prisoners of war for a This Is Your Life episode about a Nursing Corps Officer named Margot Turner who had been a Japanese prisoner.

For Lavinia, reading about the experiences of the women who'd been unfortunate enough to fall into enemy hands after the fall of Singapore proved a real eye-opener. She quickly realised the story of the interred women would make for a remarkable TV series, not least because, in Lavinia's words, it's a "story of transformation" – of rich, elegant women forced to live in rags, eat the most basic food and develop an inner strength they didn't even know they had.

The female perspective

When creating Tenko, Lavinia Warner and producer Ken Riddington kept one innovative objective in mind: to tell a war story that is defiantly un-macho and concerned with the small details rather than big set-pieces. While previous prisoner-of-war tales such as The Colditz Story and The Great Escape were focused on grand heroics, military duty and gallant confrontations with the enemy, Tenko was to be the female take on POW life: covering the nuances of friendship and rivalry, the support network of prisoners, and issues such as abortion, lesbianism and sexual oppression.

That said, the creators were also careful not to create black-and-white stereotypes of "goodies versus baddies" in the camp. Some of the women are selfish, some want to co-operate with their captors, whilst others take a tyrannical stance towards their fellow prisoners.

Expert opinion

While the Tenko writers naturally read and researched historical documents about the Japanese camps, they also received invaluable assistance from Molly Smith, a survivor from the period. Molly and her mother had been evacuated from Singapore and put on a ship bound for Australia – but unfortunately for them their vessel was intercepted and they were marched off to a prison camp.

Acting as a script advisor and turning up to watch the filming and provide essential guidance to the crew, Molly revealed not just how horrible things had been ("The rice wriggled with insects and often contained bits of glass") but also how the prisoners kept each other going. "We talked all the time and took refuge in our collected memories," she recalled. "Food was our favourite topic of course, and we'd talk about what we'd have to eat when we got out. I remember my mother wanted bacon and eggs, she yearned for that more than anything."

East meets West

Making Tenko was a truly global effort – the first two episodes were actually shot in Singapore, while most of the rest was filmed right here in Britain (in Dorset to be precise).

This is because the initial episodes convey general life in Singapore, so genuine external shots were needed. It would have been far too expensive (and unnecessary) to film the prison scenes there, however, so ultra-realistic camps were built in Dorset instead. Palm trees were even flown in to create the effect.

And speaking of being ultra-realistic, the actors were certainly put through their paces. They weren't allowed to shave their armpits, and make-up was only used for negative effect (such as bruises, cuts and sunburn). They were also smeared in baby oil to look suitably sweaty, and their hair matted with a mixture of soil and gel. And people say showbusiness is glamorous...

Method madness

The actors in Tenko were actually cast depending on their willingness to look progressively more ragged and filthy as the series went on. And one star who perhaps took to her role a little too much was Stephanie Beacham.

The celebrated beauty was more than willing to make herself almost unrecognisable for the series. She prepared by gorging herself on "mashed potato, rice puddings cream cakes by the dozen" – it was a deliberate attempt to give herself a well-fed "wealthy colonialist" look for the first few episodes.

She then went on a crash diet and lost so much weight that she became, in her words, "very nearly anorexic". It certainly made her look the part of a starving prisoner, but even she realised she'd perhaps gone too far when, while just before going onto the Tenko set, the actor James Fox bumped into her and complimented on her "realistic make-up". As she later recalled, "He was congratulating me on how awful I looked, and I wasn't even wearing any!"