FILM COUNCIL SHARES A SLICE OF ‘SWEENY’ WITH BBC TWO

JESSICA Stevenson, Samantha Spiro, Shaun Dingwall, Kulvinder Ghir, Karl Johnson and Dudley Sutton are to star in ‘Sweeney’, a Home Movies Production jointly commissioned from BBC Films and the Film Council's New Cinema Fund for BBC Two.
Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Francesca Joseph, and produced by Ruth Caleb, ‘Sweeney’ follows an opera company's performance of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd in a maximum-security prison using a chorus of lifers.
‘Sweeney’, the first film to be made under the New Cinema Fund's joint venture with BBC Two, is co-produced by Christopher Collins through his Home Movies production company. The actors have improvised dialogue through three weeks of workshops prior to the start of filming on September 23. The film is shooting at Haverigg Prison in Cumbria and in Neasden, North London. It is the first time that permission has been given for the opera to be performed outside of a theatrical performance, after Francesca Joseph personally approached Stephen Sondheim.
Francesca Joseph - whose previous credits as a director include the BBC documentary series ‘Driving School’, ‘The Matchmaker’ and ‘Four Tarts And A Tenor’ developed a story outline with television writer Paul Abbott.
Ruth Caleb's recent credits include Pawel Pawlikowski's ‘Last Resort’ and Dominic Savage's ‘Nice Girl’ and ‘When I Was 12’, all of which followed a similar process of development and production. In addition, Caleb also produced ‘Care’, which recently won the Prix Italia for Best Drama (singles) as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Single Drama. (CD)