Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen (2009)

Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Director: Justin Hardy

Writers: Peter Harness, Peter Guinness

Cinematographer: Douglas Hartington

Cast: Bill Paterson, Mark Gatiss, Paul Freeman, Kenneth Cranham, Charlotte Riley, Olwen May, Jamie Spencer

Dr. James Niven, a Scots medical health officer in Manchester, battles manfully against the forces of politics and commerce to shut down his adopted home city to prevent the spread of the titular virus, which claimed more than 70 million victims worldwide at the close of The First World War, in this beautifully crafted and terribly affecting fact-based television drama. Iain.Stott

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Butterfly Effect (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Series Title: Moving On (2009-2010)

Director: Richard Standeven

Writer: Esther Wilson

Cinematographer: Len Gowing

Composer: Steve Wright

Cast: Lesley Sharp, Finn Atkins, Lisa Millett, Joanne Froggatt, Luke Bailey, Elliott Tittensor

Whilst helping out in a role for which she had not been trained at the hostel where she works as a cook, Sylvie Jackson has a run-in with an armed youth, which leaves her an emotional wreck unable to leave the safe confines of her own home, in this convincingly written short drama. Iain.Stott

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Dress to Impress (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Series Title: Moving On (2009-2010)

Director: Illy

Writer: Arthur Ellison

Cinematographer: Len Gowing

Composer: Steve Wright

Cast: Dervla Kirwan, Ian Hart, Jack McMullen, Neil Fitzmaurice, Ramon Tikaram

A teenaged boy’s cross-dressing secret threatens to tear apart his parents, when a misunderstanding over the purpose of a bag full of sexy lingerie leads to accusations of infidelity, leaving him with no choice but to confront his fears, in this humorously and sensitively crafted short drama. Iain.Stott

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Drowning Not Waving (2009)

Not Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Series Title: Moving On (2009-2010)

Director: Gary Williams

Writer: Sarah Deane

Cinematographer: Len Gowing

Composer: Steve Wright

Cast: Christine Tremarco, Jo-Anne Knowles, Richard Armitage, Sharon Duce

Ellie, heavily in debt, and forced to put her house up for sale, becomes seduced by the glamorous lifestyle of her new boyfriend John, whom she believes to be a property developer despite being warned of his drug-dealing past by her best friend Maria, in this mildly diverting if obtrusively scored television play. Iain.Stott

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Bully (2009)

Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Series Title: Moving On (2009-2010)

Director: Gary Williams

Writer: Mark Pye

Cinematographer: Len Gowing

Composer: Steve Wright

Cast: Mark Womack, Lee Boardman, Julia Ford, Claire Keelan, Jack Ryan, Luke Roskell

Bully begets bully begets bully, in this well acted, boldly scored, and convincingly written if a little too easily resolved tale of two neighbouring families – long-term friends, just back from holidaying together in Spain – torn apart by bullying fathers and sons. Iain.Stott

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The Rain Has Stopped (2009)

Not Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Series Title: Moving On (2009-2010)

Director: Gary Williams

Writer: Karen Brown

Cinematographer: Len Gowing

Composer: Steve Wright

Cast: Sheila Hancock, Bhasker Patel, Emma Lowndes, Paul Fox, Claire Hackett

Liz, long widowed, meets the Nepalese Damar, a proud former Gurkha, whilst on holiday in Torquay, and the two are soon planning to marry; but their union, and Damar’s presence in the country, is resented by ungrateful offspring, jealous neighbours, and the law, in this well-intentioned and competently acted if never entirely convincing television play, whose characters often feel terribly one-dimensional. Iain.Stott

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Whistle and I'll Come to You (2010)

Highly Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Director: Andy DeEmmony

Writers: Neil Cross, M.R. James

Cinematographer: Rob Hardy

Composer: Tristin Norwell

Cast: John Hurt, Gemma Jones, Lesley Sharp, Sophie Thompson

After putting his dementia-suffering wife into a nursing home, James Parkin, a rational man-of-science, eaten up by guilt and grief, embarks on a seaside walking holiday; but before long he is seeing ghostly figures on the beach, and being kept awake at night by increasingly menacing sounds, in this beautifully crafted, expertly acted BBC production, which puts an inspired spin on M.R. James’s ghost story, resulting in a film that is as affecting and provocative as it is creepy and unsettling. Iain.Stott

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The Song of Lunch (2010)

Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Director: Niall MacCormick

Writers: Niall MacCormick, Christopher Reid

Cinematographer: Jan Jonaeus

Composer: Srdjan Kupjel

Cast: Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson

Adapted from Christopher Reid’s 2009 narrative poem, a pathos-laden look at the horrors of middle-age, MacCormick’s sensual short film depicts a boozy, acrimonious lunch between a cynical book editor and an old flame, whom he has not seen for fifteen years, in one of their old haunts. Iain.Stott

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Excluded (2010)

Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Director: Misha Manson-Smith

Writers: Ben Bickerton, Brian Fillis

Cinematographer: Ashley Rowe

Cast: Bryan Dick, George Whitehead, Craig Parkinson, Monica Dolan, Nicholas Sidi, Juliet Cowan, Perry Benson, Karl Collins, Brendan Mackey

Having just given up a well paid but unfulfilling job, Ian Bateley, an idealistic, newly qualified teacher, starts work teaching maths at an inner-city comprehensive school, which the principal is busily trying to bump up to academy status, where he comes up against an unruly pupil, who he eventually manages to tame, an achievement seemingly beyond his peers, as the boy is soon threatened with exclusion (expulsion), in this compelling, well acted, and thoroughly credible feeling BBC drama. Iain.Stott

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Where`s the Money Ronnie! (1996)

Not Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Publicity Title: Where's the Money, Ronnie?

Series Title: First Cut (1994-2004)

Writer/Director: Shane Meadows

Cinematographer: Jimmy Hynd, Shane Meadows, Debbie Tuck

Cast: Shane Meadows, James Hynd, Mat Hand, Paul Anderson, John Powell, Mick Pritchard, Mark Roper

Meadows’s debut short, a black & white, typographically challenged, dryly-humorous comic tale, told in flashback, examines the aftermath of a number of disastrous criminal escapades, which have all come to a climax on the same Sneinton street corner. Iain.Stott

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