Nottingham shot film wins national award

April 2015

A SHORT film shot in Nottingham city centre and starring Wollaton actress Lauren Carse has picked up a major award.
Echo, a 15-minute drama about a schoolgirl who tricks shoppers into giving her cash, won Best Short at the National Film Awards in London, where the likes of Idris Elba and Tulisa Contostavlos were in attendance.
“It was great that we won although we weren’t expecting it because we were sat right at the back,” laughs Lauren.
“And we were on a table with the people who supplied the linen for the tables, so we thought this is not spelling out ‘award-winning’.”
She collected the award with the film’s producer Lawrence Mason.
“It took an age for us to get to the stage,” adds the 23-year-old.
“And it was the last award of the night so I was on my third glass of wine after two glasses of champagne.”
The graduate of the Television Workshop thanked its director Ian Smith during her speech.
“I mentioned the cast and crew who couldn’t be there and thanked Ian for his continued support, much like Jack O’Connell did at the Baftas.”
The fellow Workshopper was up for two awards for the drama Starred Up and the film ‘71 at the National Film Awards at Porchester Hall in Mayfair.
“He couldn’t be there because he was filming in New York,” says Lauren, whose character in Echo is a 17-year-old called Caroline. She is seen taking a call on her mobile, becoming distressed at some apparent bad news about her dad being in a motorbike accident. But it’s a con, to trick passers-by into giving her money for a taxi to the hospital. It’s based on an incident witness by the film’s writer James Walker.
Its director came to the Television Workshop, where Lauren started as an 11-year-old, to cast the film.
It was shot two years ago in King Street, Wheeler Gate and the Old Market Square, where Lauren is seen with her on-screen brother, played by Newark teenager Oliver Woollford.
So convincing was her apparent distress, many people interrupted filming to check if she was OK.
“That was really reassuring, good on you, Nottingham,” says Lauren who has also appeared in Casualty, Doctors and the Nottingham-set BBC drama Truckers.
Echo director Lewis Arnold went on to work on TV dramas Misfits, Human and Russell T Davies’ E4 drama Banana, in which Lauren also appeared.
“He couldn’t come to the awards because he was casting in Manchester,” says the former Fernwood Comprehensive pupil.
“I was at the audition but I got to London in time for the awards.”
She adds: “I’ve been to quite a few auditions lately are quite exciting.”
Others at the awards included Keith Chegwin, Rizzle Kicks, Linda Robson, EastEnders’ Tanya Franks, were in attendance.
The red carpet event, included a goodie bag for nominees that included jewellery.
“There was another one we were given on the way out that included popcorn, water and chutney,” she laughs.
“We were really treated.”

Arsher Ali

March 2015

THE mystery surrounding Doctor Who is legendary. Cast and crew are sworn to secrecy in order to ensure storylines for future series are never leaked.
“It’s the first thing you sign; even before you sign your contract,” says Arsher Ali, of the confidentiality agreement with the makers of Britain’s long-running sci-fi series.
The Nottingham-born actor has already filmed his two episodes for the next series which is likely to hit the small screen in late summer.
“I can say it’s a two-parter and my general view of Doctor Who but no more than that,” says the 30-year-old, whose acting breakthrough came five years ago in the comedy film Four Lions.
He has since appeared in Silent Witness, Beaver Falls, The Guilty, Complicit, The Missing and, most recently, Arthur & George opposite Martin Clunes.
About Doctor Who, he says: “I am a fan of the show although it was a shame that the first Doctor for me when I was growing up was Sylvester McCoy.
“You could see that the show was dying so I didn’t really appreciate it until they brought it back with Christopher Eccleston,” says Arsher, who lives in the city centre with Emmerdale actress Roxy Shahidi. “He is up there on my favourite actors’ list so I started watching it again.
“I don’t like the sillier elements of Doctor Who; when it’s really camp and everyone is running around. That’s why I like Peter Capaldi,” he says of the current Doctor.
“The show should be dark and mysterious, and shouldn’t pull any punches in terms of being scary. When we were kids it’s what we all wanted.”
He adds: “Peter Davison was an underrated Doctor; he had a kind of vulnerability. And Tom Baker was silly but he could be serious as well. He was just mad, like The Joker.”
Doctor Who is just the latest in a string of TV series and films that Arsher has been busy filming over recent months.

At the end of last year he was in hit BBC drama The Missing opposite James Nesbitt, then in March in Arthur & George, a three-part ITV drama adapted from Julian Barnes’ acclaimed novel about the true story of The Great Wyrley Outrages.
In 1906, George Edalji, a young Anglo-Indian solicitor, was imprisoned for mutilating animals and writing obscene letters. He served three years before being released, after which he set out to clear his name in order for him to return to practising law.
Helping him in his quest was Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
“I can’t believe it’s real; it’s like someone getting done for terror charges and Russell Brand leaping to their defence,” says Arsher, who played Edalji opposite Clunes as Conan Doyle.
“You think you know him from Men Behaving Badly, that he’s a kind of oafish, comical guy but he’s not at all,” he says of his co-star.
“He’s super smart, super sophisticated, very witty and super posh. And he was so good in it.”
The three-parter pulled in up to six million viewers.
“The actual case, and the achieving of the pardon was quite an historic event. A lot of laws and regulations were changed from that first case. So it is an important landmark case in terms of law now.
“I’d read the book when I left drama school. Then the Nottingham Playhouse did a co-production of it and that landed at my door. But I thought ‘no’ because they don’t do catering,” he jokes.
The theatre’s artistic director, Giles Croft, is a neighbour and has often asked Arsher to appear in various productions there but he’s always been too busy.
“I’d love to work at the Playhouse; it’s where I saw my first theatre really.”
That was when he was at Bilborough College.
“It would be great to work with Giles. My missus has. She did The Importance of Being Earnest with Anjli Mohindra,” he adds, of the Nottingham actress who played his wife in The Missing.
After Bilborough College, Arsher went to East 15 Acting School at the University of Essex, then graduated to roles with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
There will be two more films featuring Arsher out this year; one with This Is England actor Stephen Graham with the working title A Patch of Fog.

“It’s about stalkers and Stephen’s really good in it; very creepy. And he has a menacing persona which he plays on, just for a laugh. Some of the cast members who’d not met him before didn’t know how to take him.
“It was fun. I don’t do a lot of film because I get offered a lot of good TV stuff.”
He had complained that due to his looks, he’d been repeatedly offered roles as a terrorist.
“If you see anything that has a kind of terrorist plot at its heart, be sure it landed at my door,” he laughs.
“It’s getting better though.”
Arsher, who’ll be in another film due out this year called Remainder, based on the cult novel by Tom McCarthy, is writing a screenplay about heavy metal music in Iraq.
“I’m very excited about that, because it’s mad,” he says.
“It’s from an article I came across and I optioned it. We’re on the third draft of the script now.”
He adds: “I’ve always fancied writing. I read so many scripts, why wait around for that perfect thing to land at your door? Why not do it yourself?”
When he’s not working, Arsher’s free time is dominated by sport. His first choice of career was sports journalism and he’s sort of achieved that with regular columns in the Nottingham Post about his beloved Nottingham Forest.
“I’ll travel everywhere to watch them. And if I can’t make it I’ll ring home and get my mum or my missus to put the phone to the radio so I can listen to the commentary on Radio Nottingham.”
He played football for his school team but was “too lazy” to make a go of it.
Arsher, the son of a Raleigh welder, now retired, is also often to be seen at Trent Bridge during the cricket season.
“You can just walk around there and everyone is so friendly. You can get friendly with the players; they are always more wordly than footballers, so you have a proper conversation with them.”
He adds: “I started a cricket team when I was at Haywood School in Sherwood.

“We only had two other teams to play against and I think we always lost those games.”
He and Shahidi will soon be moving North to be closer to Yorkshire Television, where Emmerdale is filmed.
He says with a grin: “If it was up to me we’d be in West Bridgford, but with the City Ground and Trent Bridge just down the road, she knows I’d never be home.”

Joe Dempsie

March 2015

HAD his family not moved to Nottingham when he was four months old, Joe Dempsie wouldn’t have been an actor.

“There’s no doubt about that,” says the 27-year-old, best known for his roles in teen drama Skins and epic HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones.

He was born in Liverpool but due to his parents’ work, grew up in West Bridgford.

By the age of 13, on his mother’s suggestion, he was a member of The Television Workshop, the Nottingham acting school that has produced numerous stars of TV, film and stage.

Although Dempsie wasn’t harbouring dreams of becoming an actor.

“I went because it was a laugh” he admits, talking to Confetti students as part of their ninth annual Industry Week, a series of events over five days and nights designed to inspire students of film, TV, music and games.

“It wasn’t something I’d considered before joining the Workshop. It wasn’t something I considered the first few years of being a member of the Workshop either.

“I just enjoyed messing around there twice a week. Every now again you’d go for an audition for a part in a TV show or a film but that was just a bonus.

“It was only when I’d been told by the guys who ran the Workshop that it was maybe something I could do, that I started to take it seriously.”

After finishing A-levels at West Bridgford School, where he admits to being “a frustrating student to teach”, Dempsie took a year off to “mull over” the idea of becoming an actor.

“I got a job at Cineworld in the Cornerhouse, thinking I’d be watching loads of films but at the end of a ten-hour shift the last thing you wanted to do was to spend another two hours there.

“By the end of that gap year not a lot was really happening auditions-wise so I applied to do history at university in Birmingham.”

But then he got the part in Skins, the E4 series about partying teenagers in which he played loveable hedonist Chris Miles.

“Skins was nuts,” says Dempsie, who was a regular at Media and Stealth nightclubs as a teenager.

“We shot series one and had no idea what would happen. It was a low-budget show for E4. But then the ad campaign for it started. The trailer seemed to be on every ad break on Channel 4, there were posters on buses, on the Tube... so the build-up for it was huge.

“When people talk about things changing overnight, that’s what happened for us. The night after it was shown, life was different. It was a bit like being in One Direction, I imagine.”

Dempsie, who recalls his first acting role as the ox in a school nativity play (“crouched with a Cornflakes box on my head”), was in the series for two years before being killed off.

“I think the success of it was that out of this motley crew of friends there was one that everyone could identify with.”

As a result of Skins he was being recognised in the street wherever he went.

“Skins started informing some of my career decisions; I didn’t really know if that level of attention was for me.”

He turned down a lot of Skins-style parts offered to him and took on small roles in Doctor Who, Merlin, Shane Meadows’ This Is England ‘86 and The Damned United, before his next major success came along: big budget US fantasy series Game of Thrones.

“I felt like I’d reclaimed my anonymity but then I had to readjust again when Game of Thrones came along,” he says.

“But it doesn’t affect my day to day in the same way that Skins did.”

Since 2011, he’s been playing Gendry in the internationally successful series based on the novels of George R R Martin.

A movie has been rumoured but he doesn’t know if it will happen.

“I think it’s a really good idea but I think the proposal is to do a couple more seasons and then a series of three films, like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I hope it does happen, as long as I’m in it,” he laughs.

Other TV hits he’s appeared in include The Fades, Moving On, Accused, Southcliffe, New Worlds and Murder: Joint Enterprise, a one-off drama set in Nottingham that won a BAFTA.

“I don’t get back to Nottingham as much as I’d like,” says Dempsie, who lives in South London.

“My parents are still based here but they’ve been in Surrey for the past five months helping my younger sister, who has cerebral palsy, settle into her new house.

“We’ve got to get a care team in place, which is quite a long process.”

He adds: “When I do get back here it’ll be to see Forest or catch up with friends, although most of them are either engaged or have babies, so no-one wants to go into town anymore.”

Dempsie, who is single, stays in touch with numerous Workshoppers, including Mr Selfridge actress Aisling Loftus and recent BAFTA winner Jack O’Connell, plus Perry Fitzpatrick, his co-star in This Is England 90.

“It’s the most fun I’ve had on a set in a long, long time,” he says of the four-part drama, due to air on Channel 4 in the autumn. “Half the cast I grew up with at the Workshop,” he adds; among them were Vicky McClure, Andrew Shim, Rosamund Hanson, Michael Socha and Chanel Cresswell.

“For everyone it’s a safe environment.”

The BAFTA-winning series recently completed filming in Sheffield, with Nottingham-based director Shane Meadows, who he describes as “the master puppeteer.”

He adds: “We were reminiscing about the Workshop days.

“We’re in the golden age of Workshoppers being professional actors. When I joined it was only Samantha Morton and Chris Gascoyne, who was in Coronation Street, that we looked up to.

“Now we’re everywhere.”

Nick Cave

January 2006

More than anything, at this present time, Nick Cave feels “like an old whore”.
Rather than leaking with excitement at his first proper screenplay making it on to the big screen — and with a seriously credible cast — the acclaimed musician, who recently picked up a Q Classic Songwriter award, is on a downer.
Sitting in his Brighton home, which predictably overlooks the English Channel, Cave is reflecting on the hard work that goes in to promoting the movie.
“I’ve been travelling around a lot because I have to go to different places to flog it. And it’s a meat market. I’ve just been to the Sundance Film Festival and I’ve never felt so much like an old whore in my life.”
The film, The Proposition, is a Western set in Australia during the 1880s and stars Brits John Hurt, Ray Winstone and Emily Watson, plus former Neighbours actor-turned-Hollywood star Guy Pearce. A largely English cast then?
“Well it’s a British Australian production,” says Cave, resisting the urge to respond with any more than is necessary. He’s just short of deadpan.
The Proposition is due out in the UK in March and early reviews have picked up on the violent content.
“It’s a very beautiful film actually,” says Cave. “People are focusing in on the violence a bit. It’s a beautifully shot, gripping story with moments of short, sharp, brutal violence.”
It’s his first screenplay to have gone in to production, though his interest in film has been going on as long as he has been with The Bad Seeds. Back in 1983 when the band got together he worked on a script for Ghosts... Of The Civil Dead, which was made six years later, though Cave is dismissive of his part in the project.
“I did get a credit for helping write it, but I really didn’t do that much at all. So this is really my first script.”
Is there a second on the way?
“Yes. An English seaside comic drama set in Brighton. It’s a weepie.”

Having said that, he has no intention of becoming Nick Cave: screenwriter/former musician.
“Film won’t take over. I’ve no interest in getting in to screenwriting per se. I’ve had a working relationship for many years with John Hilcote, who is the director of these two films. He asked me to write this Australian western and I did. I’ve written this other one for him, which will be made in the summer. But that’s pretty much it.”
He’s similarly casual about acting, having cropped up in a few movies, including Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire in 1987.
“There’s a movie called The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Bob Ford which is a Hollywood thing that stars Brad Pitt. I’ve got a small role as a singing cowboy in that, but it’s not really an acting role. I just sing in a bar. I’m really not interested in acting at all.”

Cave grew up in the small Victoria town of Warracknabeal, the son of teachers who played only classical music in the house. His first record, aged nine, was by easy listening instrumentalist Herb Alpert. Soon after he bought The Who’s Live At Leeds.
“That changed things,” he says.
Not too drastically — Cave’s first time at a concert was Procul Harem.
“(Laughs) All the English progressive bands came to Australia at that time. I guess I used to see anything that came from England. We were under the illusion it was one of those extraordinary places.”
He discovered the truth on tours with goth band The Birthday Party and then with the post-punk supergroup The Bads Seeds, during which time he moved over here to live. Cave, 48, has also lived in Berlin, Los Angeles and Brazil, but Brighton, he says, is “for the duration”.

His short UK tour, which visits Nottingham next Wednesday, finds him with just three Bad Seeds: Warren Ellis (violin), Martyn Casey (bass) and Jim Sclavunos (drums).
“It’s a much more intimate, pared down kind of thing, but it’s wild you know. Often, the less members you have, the more forceful something can be, rather than the other way round. We can pretty much do any song, but it sounds different. It’s much freer. It’s a much more enjoyable thing to do actually. With the Bad Seeds it’s a huge production and kind of a massive undertaking. With this I can pretty much ring a couple of people up and say ‘you wanna go out for a week somewhere?’ and just do it.”
A dark and bleak songwriter he may at times, but the show won’t be a sombre affair — expect plenty of chat.
“It’s high comedy,” he promises.
What’s your best gag?
“Well, you know, you’ll have to come along and see.”
Many of his lyrics reference God and the Devil — so how religious is he?
“I don’t know if I’m a religious man. I have my beliefs and they sort of free float around a bit, but no I’m not connected to any church or anything like that.”
His faith helped kick a heroin habit nearly 20 years ago. Are there any demons still to be exorcised?
“Exercised? Like lifting weights and stuff?”
And off he goes, chuckling at his own joke.