Wednesday 11 May 2016

Celebrity candle


Recognise this? Well you ought to. It's one of the 6 inch candles used on the sets of 'Wolf Hall' recently. It was given to me by an antique dealer friend. He has about 100 more.

They wanted to have a big, fat flame which would be picked up by the cameras easily in natural light, so they had them made with thick, plaited wicks. The trouble with this is that they burn so large that they give off a lot of black smoke - just like the real tallow candles of the time - so you can only really use them outside for garden parties.

They filmed Wolf Hall in some lovely National Trust properties, but got into trouble by blackening some of the ceilings in them with all those candles. There were big cleaning bills by specialist cleaners.

I don't know how many candles they had left unburnt at the end of filming, but there must be quite a few. I am told they spent £23,000 on candles. That is a heck of a lot of candles. I'm giving this one to a friend who has a large garden with integral barbecue.

7 comments:

  1. I just read a story by a student about a chemistry class. On entering one day the room was dark except the teacher with a candle in his hand. He asked the students to make empirical statements about the candle. That went along well until one student said "The candle is made of wax." The teacher immediately took a bite, chewed and swallowed. When the lights went on, the candle was a banana and the wick an almond.
    Long story short (haha), they could have found a better wick for the twenty three thousand pounds, plus the cleaning bill.

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    Replies
    1. I would have done something obscene with that candle to the chemistry teacher.

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  2. I was noticing my air filters were nearly black when I changed them for the AC which had never happened before. The AC men came out and asked if I was burning a lot of candles. No, but a new kind. Quit using it and no sooting. And, my Birdie, the parrot, died from a candle burning.

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    Replies
    1. Did Birdie die from inhalation of fumes, or a direct burning? If the latter, are you sure he wasn't a moth?

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  3. Thank you for thinking of me for the candle, it will look perfect by my integral BBQ.

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  4. It looks like beeswax but I doubt it smells like it!

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