Extra, extra! Ex-Sun editor Stuart Higgins scoops role in new screen adaptation of Far From The Madding Crowd

I signed up after stumbling across a flyer in Bridport library inviting local people to be extras in an “upcoming period feature film” shooting in west Dorset. It requested flexibility and reliability but, more importantly, men were required to have longer hair (at least 1.5 inches) and beards.

A later bulletin added that “experience of sheep-shearing or handling livestock” would be an advantage.

As a clean-shaven 58-year-old with little history of close encounters with sheep, I had to be pretty low down the pecking order. But I let my hair grow and attempt to grow a beard for the first time — which immediately cast me, among friends, as more a contender for a shopping centre Father Christmas than a background artiste in a major movie.

Nonetheless I get the call, and am invited to a costume fitting and three days of filming. I attend the fitting at a lock-up on a Bridport trading estate where the powers that be determine I am to be a gentleman farmer. An engaging chap called Ron selects a three-piece charcoal suit, silk shirt and bow tie, big overcoat and grey bowler hat.

I am allocated a label with a code-number rather than a character’s name. I am CB21, which sounds more like a monster from Doctor Who.

Our first call time is 7.15am at Forde Abbey near Chard. Part of the abbey has been transformed into the Corn Exchange.

We are summoned to make-up so sideburns can be delicately added, hair matted down, hands made to look dirty and fingernails and cuticles “blacked up”. The attention to the smallest of detail is impressive. Lizzie, the chief wardrobe mistress, can only tie my silk bow-tie with her eyes closed.

I am immediately promoted to the role of a grain inspector — which requires me to slip into a smock, and stand over the sacks of grain apparently testing the quality of the contents.

We lost count of how many takes we did as director Thomas Vinterberg strived to capture the shock of a male-only Corn Exchange being “invaded” by farmer Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) with her maid and confidante Liddy Smallbury, played by ex-Coronation Street star Jessica Barden.

None of us minions attempt conversation with the stars on the understanding that the rule was Royal-like — only speak when you are spoken to. For all that, Mulligan and Barden appear to be relaxed and patient and when I doff my hat, I am rewarded with a big smile.

The action hots up when Michael Sheen enters the Corn Exchange in the role of wealthy farmer William Boldwood, catching the eye of Bathsheba.