A first-look picture has been released for Onward and Sideways – coming to cinemas, BBC iPlayer and BBC One from John Gore Studios and Hilltop Screen.
Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning Laura Linney (Ozark, Love Actually, John Adams) and BAFTA award-winning Rhys Ifans (Inheritance, Venom: The Last Dance, House of the Dragon) star in a touching story about two people with lots in common – a great sense of humour, a love of dance, and Parkinson’s.
Joining Laura and Rhys are Monica Dolan (Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Sherwood, Black Mirror), Rory Kinnear (The Diplomat, The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, Bank of Dave) and Paul Mayhew-Archer to name but a few.
The feature-length drama is written by Paul Mayhew-Archer (The Vicar of Dibley, Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot, and co-host of award-winning Parkinson’s podcast Movers and Shakers), directed by Academy Award-nominee John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, Operation Mincemeat, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), and produced by Hilltop Screen for the BBC and John Gore Studios. Kaleidoscope Film Distribution is representing worldwide sales.
Set and filmed in North Norfolk, Rhys plays Tony Evans, the deputy head of a local primary school. Laura stars as Emma Dretzin, a pianist, composer and single mother of two daughters. Neither knows the other until a startling encounter changes the course of their lives: on the same morning, they are both confronted with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s.
Onward and Sideways is the confirmed title for the previously announced But When We Dance (w/t).
kat@katblair.co.uk
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