Stephan Elliott Almost Killed Crew

Stephan Elliott almost killed his crew before filming on the period comedy Easy Virtue started - by serving them dead rat tea.

The Aussie director thought he was being a saint when he offered to make tea for the film crew as they were preparing Nottingham's Flintham Hall for shooting - but he had no idea he was serving up contaminated water.

He explains, "It was only later when the owner of the house came up and she made herself a cup of tea, using bottled water that I suspected something was wrong.

"I asked her why she was drinking bottled water and she said, 'Oh, we've got dead rats in the water tank, you can't drink the water!' I'd actually made the entire crew rat tea."

Easy Virtue was an adaptation of Noel Coward's play, which has been brought to the big screen by Hitchcock in 1928 as a silent movie.

The film starred Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Kristen Scott Thomas and Ben Barnes and followed a glamorous American widow who married a young Englishmanon the spur of the moment only to fall out with his domineering mother.