Joe's Place is the haunting story of a reclusive billionaire, Elliott Graham, and the fledgling friendship that will unlock the secrets of his father's past. Set in the grand but empty house which Mr. Graham keeps immaculately maintained, the drama is seen through the eyes of young Joe, employed as a doorkeeper and errand boy. New life is breathed into the house as a cabinet minister and his beautiful mistress use it to conduct a passionate affair. Yet even as they escape from the responsibilities of their worlds, Elliot Graham is accompanied by Joe on a disturbing journey into the truth of his father's life and the origins of his fantastic wealth, a journey that will prove both shattering and redemptive.
Capturing Mary, set in the same grand house presided over by young Joe, is a dark exploration of its heyday, when society's most influential figures met to be entertained by Elliot Graham's father. When Mary returns to the house where as a successful and ambitious young woman she attended the glittering parties, she gradually reveals to Joe the chilling tale of life destroyed by the sinister attentions and lingering influence of the charming Greville White. In a compulsive story of lost youth within a class-ruled Britain of an earlier generation, Capturing Mary is a moving dramatisation of the power of the past to hold in thrall and damage the promise of young life.
Also included is A Real Summer, a companion drama to Capturing Mary, charting the development of an unexpected friendship between a young aristocratic woman and Mary before she enters the dangerous world of Mr. Graham's house and Greville White's sphere of influence.
Featuring two major screenplays made for the BBC and HBO Films, this work includes: "Joe's Palace" and "Capturing Mary".
Two major new screenplays by the award-winning Stephen Poliakoff
made for the BBC and HBO Films and due to be broadcast in November
2007. A stellar cast led by Michael Gambon and Dame Maggie Smith
feature in these exquisite, major new films that are linked by a grand
house and memories of the past.
In Joe's Palace, the first of two screenplays, Stephen
Poliakoff explores the relationship between a reclusive billionaire
(played by Michael Gambon), and the teenage boy he employs to take care
of a grand house. This is a lavishly shot contemporary film about
loneliness and loss. In Capturing Mary, the companion film for
BBC2 set in the same exquisite empty house, Poliakoff takes his
characters into a dark and terrifying exploration of the past and its
power to capture and destroy a person's life. Dame Maggie Smith plays
the lead role.
Included also is A Real Summer, a glorious companion drama to Capturing Mary
charting the development of an unexpected friendship between a young
aristocratic woman and Mary before she enters the dangerous world of Mr
Graham's house.
Two major new screenplays by the inimitable, award-winning Stephen Poliakoff made for the BBC and HBO Films and originally broadcast in autumn 2007. A stellar cast led by Michael Gambon and Dame Maggie Smith feature in these exquisite, major new films that are linked by a grand house and memories of the past.
Two major new screenplays by the inimitable, award-winning Stephen Poliakoff made for the BBC.
