Some plays are so obviously films that the only surprise is how long it takes. Frank and Percy ran in the West End with Ian McKellen and Roger Allam, and both of them are back for the film.
Sean Mathias directs, Martin Sherman adapts Ben Weatherill’s play, and the cast around Ian and Roger has become something quite absurd: Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, Derek Jacobi, Jessica Gunning, Ncuti Gatwa, Rob Brydon, Felicity Kendal.
It is a story about an unexpected friendship between a widowed schoolteacher and a rather grander gentleman who meet walking their dogs on Hampstead Heath. Two men in the last act of their lives, discovering there is more of it left than they thought. It is very funny and it will absolutely get you in the end.
I am an executive producer, alongside Hilary Strong, Carl Moellenberg and Richard Batchelder, with John Gore, David Gilbery and Naomi George producing, for John Gore Studios and BK Studios. Kaleidoscope have worldwide sales and Icon are distributing.
Working on a film where the read-through sounds like that is a strange privilege. Mostly I have tried to stay out of the way.
