Dreams that money can buy.
My mother worked as an usherette in the local cinema, the grandly named La Scala, known more popularly as the “La Bugs” because of the insect life. It showed three changes of programme per week and I got in for nothing. I am an expert in 1950 American B movies and a sucker for sultry dames with hot lips.
The movies. Dreams that money can buy.
Behind the grandeur of the TAJ MAHAL, is a saga of treachery, murder and political machinations but also a tale of love between MUMTAZ MAHAL, whose beauty inspired this wonder of the world, and SHAH JAHAN, the emperor who has to discover that power is an empty vessel and only love can fill his soul. An epic story.
Commissioned by Sir Ben Kingsley’s Lavender Films and about to be green lit.
Adapted from the book by Eça de Queiroz. A tale of sexual fire and psychological truth set in 19th Century Lisbon; adultery, blackmail and lust scattered like so many seeds of black comedy in the fertile earth of a corrupt bourgeois society.
Commissioned by Lavender Films. Now with Trademark Films.
Starring Minnie Driver, adapted from the Jane Gardham novel. Set just after the Second World War in the North Yorkshire coast – a small girl watches the chaos ensuing when a voluptuous young woman arrives as the new maid to her deeply religious family. Comedy with tragic consequences.
Commissioned by Channel 4 and Skreba Productions.
Animated feature film, theatrical release produced by Hollywood Road productions. A superhero frog saves dear old Blighty.
Commissioned and broadcast by Channel 4 for Short and Curlies starring Jim Carter and Francis Barber.
Original feature script. The life adventures of Django Reinhardt the great gypsy jazz guitarist in occupied Paris and his involvement in helping a young Jewish girl to escape from her pursuers.
Modern reworking of Shakespeare’s The Winter's Tale. Work shopped at Equinoxe in France.
Commissioned by film director Peter Chelsom (Hear my Song, Funnybones).
Original film script. A redemptive contemporary comedy/drama about a fractured family drifting in France. Waiting for a guardian angel.
Contemporary film script adapted from the successful radio play, set in Scotland reinterpreting the legend of Don Quixote/Sancho Panza with Billy Connelly and Brian Cox.
Yet to write my American B movie. I’ll dream on.