Projects in categories: Fiction

Synopsis

The mayor of a surreal suburban town invents stories to boost the town's moral and local standing, while Otto and Sissi Cross try to deal with lies, eyes, and the waltz of life.  

Synopsis

Double-crossing Rich is abducted in the middle of the night by Tommy. He's taken to a deserted scrap yard and locked in the boot of a car destined to be crushed. Rescued by Ol' Duke, the two share a drink, then Rich slowly realises that something is horribly wrong.

Synopsis

Five students fall in with a murderer while hill trekking. Isla, a university undergraduate, escapes to the hills for a few days before her finals. Meeting up with fellow students Pearl, Stephan, Tamara and Rory at a hillside bothy, they encounter loner Brendan crossing the hills on his mountain bike. Isla senses that there is something strange about Brendan, but the others dismiss her fears. The following morning, Stephan, Tamara and Rory go on ahead. Pearl, recovering from a hangover, is lectured by Isla about her lifestyle while Brendan stalks them, then bikes on ahead to stalk the other three. When Rory injures his ankle, Brendan offers to take him back to the main road on the back of his bike. Rory accepts, and when Brendan coldly murders him a little later, we know that the others are destined to suffer the same fate. A story about how a group of students, living in an academic bubble, can be so trusting that they make murder easy for a psychopath.

Synopsis

Do you remember being 15? Hanging out with your mates, stealing from shops - Dad giving you Es instead of pocket money - chasing through the cars with your baby son in his pushchair? Having him taken away from you? Ryan does.

Synopsis

On his way home from work, Daddy phones home and gets the shock of his life, quickly followed by the surprise of a lifetime.

Synopsis

Dallas plays with the eponymous nature of this TV series, broadcast in many countries, it became a short hand for both American glamour and corruption, and indeed both repelled and seduced audiences in its relentless drama of power play and cliché. Here, in Dallas, the entire viewing-year of 1980 - a total of 18 episodes – is compressed into a 50-min, all-at-once experience. As text is layered over text, the compression and corruption here is spatial and temporal. The ghostly figures loom in a milky underworld, moving around a familiar scape of Texas with its skyscrapers and vast landscapes. In a way, what we are presented with promises to be in some way an ‘essence’, an undiluted version of the ‘original’ and to an extent this is true. Yet there is also a haunting quality to this work, where iconic faces loom, notorious events referenced and lines delivered; yet there is a disjunction at the heart of Dallas. It is a culture that is at once familiar and disorientating, Dallas appears to be a dreamscape of different order, more nightmare than escapist.

Synopsis

Eleven-year-old Daniel is feeling abandoned. His mother died a few months ago and his father Mark, still reeling from the shock, has buried himself in his work. That doesn't leave much time for Daniel and a rift of mutual incomprehension grows between son and father. Happily, Daniel can count on his best friends Colin and William, with whom he hangs around regularly and with whose help he is training an abandoned dog for the Superdog show! His relationship with April, a girl his age whose mother runs a dog pound, isn't nearly as happy. When all is said and done, however, after a story full of twists and turns, he wins April's affections and he leads his dog Gypsy to victory at the Superdog show.

Synopsis

Two young children wake one bright morning. To the audible and visual backdrop of a city slowly coming to life after its slumber, they discover their mother asleep, arms around a stranger. They quietly switch off her alarm and embark on a morning full of freedom, exhilaration and innocence.

Synopsis

Ben Jones is a tired, worn-out, depressed, fed-up, Welsh lawyer who lives in the shadow of his bigger, larger than life, over the top, promiscuous, TV celebrity brother Harry. Ben hankers after his lost love, the fiery red-headed Sinead, but in a fit of pique decides to accept the marriage proposal from his brow-beating, ball-bustin' girlfriend Ceri Sian. So Harry decides that he must do something 'good' for his brother. In fact he must bring him back to Ireland where the boys had a great time in their youth. This act of 'generosity', combined with a recce for a future television programme, begins a series of events that will change their lives forever but 'in a good way', where everyone gets a second chance, sort of.

Synopsis

Former boxer Tom is on the ropes. His promising fight career is long over, thanks to an eye injury, his marriage is on the rocks and he's broke. When a chance encounter at the gym leads to the offer of work as a doorman at a run-down nightclub, the jury is out on whether he has taken a step on the road to redemption or has finally hit the self-destruct button. The volatile head doorman Paul (knuckle-duster ever at the ready) is a battle-hardened veteran from the old school. Recognising Tom for the fighter that he once was, Paul takes him under his wing and guides him through the ins and outs of life as a club land 'peacekeeper'. Tom does his best to fit in and play the hard man, but soon strikes up a friendship with Mary, the world-weary head barmaid, who recognises something more than the norm in the down-on-his-luck fighter. Unfortunately for them, dealing with a smack on the nose and a drunk with a broken bottle is nothing for Tom compared to his inadequacy at dealing with a broken heart. The personal baggage of losing his wife due to his impotency is a secret he will keep bottled up at all costs. Tom soon finds out he has entered a world of trouble when Chongi, the head of the biggest, most ambitious security firm, has a score to settle with Paul, and stakes an interest in the down-at-heel club. As the tension escalates, Tom is soon forced to question his new loyalties, and whether he really has lost the bottle for a fight.

Synopsis

Deadpan Valentine is a black comedy that follows the adventures of two very different flatmates during one grim Valentine's Day. In essence, it's an Anti Rom-Com. Two young men, Scott and Jamie, share a grubby London council flat. Scott seems to think he’s got it made; he’s got a lovely head of hair, a beautiful new girlfriend and a bit on the side. If one man wasn’t blessed enough, he’s also the natural successor to Marlon Brando and a fringe theatre play appears to the ideal vehicle for his talent. However, today is the perfect day for a few lessons in love and acting. Jamie is severely depressed. Valentine’s Day is an insult too far and suicide seems like the only way out. But he doesn’t have much luck completing the task. In his befuddled state of mind, he answers the door to a gun-toting stranger, Bruce, who mistakes him for Scott. Bruce takes Jamie captive and is surprised to discover that his 'hard man' routine does little to unnerve his straight-faced hostage.  

Synopsis

Dear Wendy is a story about the young loner Dick who lives in the poor mining town of Estherslope. When he happens upon a small handgun one day, he finds himself strangely drawn to it, despite his fervent pacifist views. Together with his newfound partner he soon convinces the other young outcasts in the town to join him in a secret club he calls The Dandies. A club based on the principals of pacifism and guns. Despite their firm belief in the most important Dandy rule of all - never draw your weapons - they soon find themselves in a predicament where they realise that rules are made to be broken.