Friday 30 July 2010

Time Present and Time Past.


Straight off the plane and back into Tender Souls with a final day of edits and rewrites. We worked with Harriet on the ending of the play and Katie on her Lady Scott Hopkins interview and I think made some good ground. The weight feels good now and the writing balanced, mixing some smart comedy with moments of poignancy and nostalgia.

In the three days I've been away Eleanor has managed to squeeze out some more money from the Heritage Lottery Fund to enable us a fifth actor, which really takes the pressure off in terms of casting and enables everything to flow smoothly. All five now have confirmed. David Burt will play Frank Matcham, Emily Butterfield will play Jo, who guides the time travel whilst Fran Maston, Moira Hunt and Ian Midlane will all play five or six additional roles.

I'm delighted with the strength of the company and all of them seem excited by the project and the sections of the script that they've seen. I'm hoping in particular that we've got the casting for Matcham and Jo right - if they can find a rapport it'll make the show. The young writers are very impressed with Ian, whose appeared as a Slitheen in the Sarah Jane Adventures. It's lost on me.

The marketing team at Richmond have also played a blinder, with newspaper coverage and their own blog . We're beginning to get a good house for next week.
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