Scripts

BITTER HONEY

An original feature length screenplay

“Real love is like a kite flying free, an opposing wind only raises it higher”

Jed, a volatile and unpredictable UK border official (customs officer), a man at war with himself, becomes obsessed with Faranaz, an intriguing Afghan refugee, when she becomes the object of his investigations into drug smuggling.   Through her friendship with Quinn, an enigmatic ex mercenary, Jed is caught up in the underworld of the terrorist drugs trade.  When Faranaz, saves his life and subsequently disappears, Jed, fears for her safety and is compelled to find her.  He knows the key is Quinn.  Nothing, not even the loss of his job, will now stop Jed from pursuing him to Afghanistan.

When he finally catches him he realises nothing is as it seemed and his attitudes of right and wrong are tested to the limit. Together Jed and Quinn and his team, make the dangerous journey across a continent where Jed comes face to face with his own mortality and his life changes forever.

Caught up in the reality of war for ordinary Afghans, he discovers Faranaz the doctor, trying to dispense medical help and humanity with the few resources Quinn has gathered.   Tossed in the storm of war, Jed and Faranaz finally acknowledge their love for each other. With his life turned upside down, Jed resolves to fight for a destiny with her. Is theirs really a love that can survive the clash of cultures and such a war-torn world of terror and torment? The consequences are devastating for all involved.

Yet, Jed still must deal with Quinn, the man he thinks he hates.

There are no easy answers, no black and white, only shades of grey, when two people wrenched apart by their differences, are drawn together by a love that surprises them both and changes Jed irrevocably.

[ VIEW SCRIPT (PDF) ]

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THE HANDSHAKE   

An original 15 minute short film

Genre:  Comedy drama

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”.

SYNOPSIS

William Wickfield works in an office run by overbearing bully Mr Spank.   Desperate to overcome the man’s deeply humiliating behaviour, fuelled by his love of the divine Adeline, Will turns to Mohammed Ali for inspiration, vision and hope.   “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”.   The day comes when the confrontation is set.  Using neither flight nor fight, Will overcomes the abusive control of the hated tormentor causing the office to break into spontaneous applause and celebration, ultimately winning the hand of his fair maiden.

[ VIEW SCRIPT (PDF) ]

 

THE BOY IN THE LEMON SUIT

an original tv screenplay

A sensitive, emotional and heart-warming story about a love that costs everything a young woman has to give 

Loosely based on a true story, this screenplay  is interwoven with archive footage of the Coronation, the Silver and Golden Jubilee in order to show the passage of time. It would suit either a single drama or two-part drama serial.

Pretty Dorothy (19) is a dreamer.  In her 1950’s world she craves excitement and escapes her ordinary life by joining the RAF where she meets the man of her dreams, a womanising matinee idol called George.   Months later, bereft, alone and penniless, her dreams shattered, she is left holding the illegitimate baby of a man who has gone back to his pregnant wife.   Despite her baby unexpectedly filling her world with wonder, she is forced to give up baby Brian for adoption. Determined, to get him back at all costs, she realizes marriage is the only way. As the adoption authorities close in all she has to do is to find a man to marry her and for him accept another man’s child – fast! As her desperation reaches boiling point she makes catastrophic choices, and watches helplessly, as what has become her very reason for living seems to slip away into another mother’s arms.   Yet time does heal, people learn and Dorothy gradually pieces together a life that ends in reunion and hope.

The 1950s brought change to many people’s lives.   The Festival of Britain was an antidote to post war austerity, and heralded a new optimism – science fiction had become fact. It was a world where the old was giving way to the new in both attitude and normality.  Now there were homes for expectant single mothers, who for once didn’t have to go away to have their babies in secret, however, there was an expectation that adoption would follow.

The characters in the Boy in the Lemon Suit reflect society’s transition, Dorothy representing young women, her grandfather those who couldn’t face the problem, and Miss Kinchin Smith the moral welfare worker with progressive ideas on women and their rights.

The audience will empathise with Dorothy and her story, it is historical yet  contemporary and relevant. It is a drama for all ages as adoption touches so many in countless different ways.

[ VIEW SCRIPT (PDF) ]

 

NO PETS PLEASE

 A 30 min comedy screenplay adaptation

Adapted from FINBAR’S HOTEL edited by Dermot Bolger

Set in a Dublin Hotel which has stood on the quays since the 1920s.  Decrepit but still with a hint of its glory days.  No Pets Please is about a cat-napper who is simply trying to find a meal for his yowling victim prior to silencing it forever in the river Liffey. Cats however, have many lives.

[ VIEW SCRIPT (PDF) ]

 

TEARS FOR DELANEY

 An original  feature screenplay

“What happens when you build and life and find you no longer live there?” 

SYNOPSIS:  

Tom, a macho, self-reliant and successful businessman wakes up one day in his carefully constructed world to find it blown apart by the untimely and unexpected death of his wife.   Unable to face the pain of this wake-up call to life Tom abandons everything and disappears.

His son, left to run his father’s ever-expanding business, furious at his father’s disappearance, determines to take control and grab the success he feels he has always deserved.

Tom tips up in a small Scottish island community, determined to outwork his torment in a plan that makes sense only to him!   There he falls for a feisty young Australian traveller, equally lost in her unhappy world.

Without warning, his estranged youngest son, down and out, desperate and angry, turns up and once again, Tom’s world is turned upside down.

The community – eccentric and close knit watch the unfolding drama with delight and disbelief, embracing the repercussions with wit and wisdom.

Tom is forced to face the consequences of his mistakes, his hatred of himself, and the fact that loving others is a skill that can only be learnt through brutal self-discovery and heart-rending honesty.   If you destroy your present without reconciling your past then you can have no future.

Road to Somewhere is an emotional and often humorous film drama, an evocative story which take you on an unusual and often surprising journey – both moving and magical. 

[ VIEW SCRIPT (PDF) ]

 

 

 

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