Station Zero

  Poster by Sarah McIntyre I didn’t really approach Gwenevere as a writing project. It was the practical side that appealed to me - finding the costumes and locations, making props, and actually shooting the thing. But before any of that can happen there needed to be a screenplay, and nobody else was going to write one for me, so I set to work.  I’d decided to go for an Arthurian story while watching loads of Arthurian films and TV shows for this blog a few years ago. Historical but not demanding historical accuracy, often silly yet still deeply serious, they felt like something we might be able to achieve on our pocket-money budget. Once that decision was made, the writing process went something like this: 1. I can’t adapt an actual Arthurian tale because I can’t afford loads of knights and battles and a round table… 2. So what if it’s a film about women? That would be a bit different, and frocks are cheaper than armour… 3. Who’s the first female character who springs to mind when

Poster by Sarah McIntyre  The time has come to unleash Gwenevere upon an unsuspecting world (though the bit of the world that reads this blog won’t be that unsuspecting, because I’ve been banging on about it for ages). You can find it here on the Bonehill Films YouTube channel . Christmas feels like a good time for Arthurian tales - it’s how Gawain and the Green Knight begins, with Arthur and his knights telling stories around the Round Table while the snow piles up outside. So I’ve decided to release Gwenevere on Christmas Eve, in the hope that people will find time to watch it over the holiday period.  Ever since Sarah Reeve and I started this project, people have been asking what it’s for . Well, it’s for the same reason I act in the local panto or Sarah sings with her choir: because it’s nice to get together with other people and make something - hopefully something that’s entertaining. We’re not trying to break into the movie business, or even the independent short film scene.

Illustration by Sarah McIntyre I thought my Third Arthurian Phase was at end with the completion of Gwenevere , which we’ll be releasing on YouTube at Christmas… but NO! By a strange coincidence, this year’s Moorland Merrymakers panto at Leusdon Memorial Hall was Camelot .  So various props and costumes from Gwenevere got another outing (a bit like how, in the early ‘80s, Adam and the Ants and Tenpole Tudor used to turn up in suits of armour from Excalibur ). And I got to play Merlin… It me. Obviously it wouldn’t be on for me to review a show I was in, but I thought it might be worth blogging about the script, in case anyone out there is looking for a good panto to produce. Written by Ben Crocker , Camelot comes in at a neat 2 hours 20 minutes including interval, and although at first glance the jokes are mostly fairly lame, that doesn’t seem to matter in panto - when I wrote some for the Merrymakers a few years back I think I put in too many gags, thinking they had to work like com