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Cameras to roll on unflinching tale of village
Yorkshire-born author Blake Morrison's candid memoir of the weeks leading up to his father's death attracted critical acclaim and now his award-winning book is being transferred to the cinema screen with an all-star cast. Lizzie Murphy reports.
WHEN Arthur Morrison was diagnosed with terminal cancer he was given just weeks to live and Blake embarked on a life-changing emotional journey that led him to contemplate their relationship.
And When Did You Last See Your Father? is an unflinchingly honest account of a father/son bond as Blake attempts to understand his relationship with the man who exerted so much influence over his life.
The film has attracted a high-profile cast with Colin Firth as the author and Jim Broadbent as his father. Matthew Beard will play Blake as a boy, and Juliet Stephenson is cast as Blake's mother, Kim Morrison.
Arthur and Kim were well-known for their work as doctors in Earby, near Skipton, where they ran the Water Street Practice until their retirement in 1977.
Although the book is set in Yorkshire, filming will actually take place in Derbyshire's Peak District, where producers have tried to use buildings and locations which resemble the village of Thornton-in-Craven, near Earby, and Blake's childhood home.
Blake's sister Gillian Allen, who still lives in the village, said when the book came out she read it through with her late mother, who died in 1997, before they both gave it their blessing.
"It's a very honest description of my father's life and what he was like. Some people liked him and some people didn't. It was hard to read the book and it might be hard to see the film but I've got to do it."
Mrs Allen added she was impressed with the casting for the film. "As far as I know, not everyone has been cast yet but I'm amazed at the actors they've got so far. I really like Colin Firth," she said.
"It seems a bit strange to think I'll be watching a film and seeing someone else playing me."
The story surrounds Blake and Arthur in the weeks leading up to Arthur's death in 1991 after he is diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.
Blake makes frequent visits to Yorkshire to stay with his mother.
The story jumps between childhood and teenage memories, and the present day, which sees him at 40, married with two children, and dealing with the fact that his father is terminally ill.
Stephen Woolley, co-producer of the film, which is being made by Intandem Films, said in a statement: "We are thrilled to be working on this long-cherished project uniting two of Britain's finest actors, Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth, with one of our finest directors, Anand Tucker.
"David Nicholls's script, adapted from Blake Morrison's novel, is a moving, often hilarious and universal tale of coming to terms with your own mortality.
"Producer Elizabeth Karlsen and I believe And When Did You Last See Your Father? will be one of the high points of British cinema in 2007."
Blake, now 56 and married with two children, attracted critical acclaim for the book and won several literary awards, including the JR Ackerley prize for autobiography, when it was published in 1993.
A former pupil at Ermysted's Grammar School in Skipton, he went on to work for the Times Literary Supplement and became the literary editor of both the Observer and the Independent on Sunday.
His literary career includes a string of plays, poems and books. His play The Man with Two Gaffers, an adaptation of Goldoni's classic Italian comedy The Servant of Two Masters, is coming to Skipton's Mart Theatre next week.
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