‘CAST OFFS’ MAROONED ON CHANNEL 4 IN NOVEMBER
Cast Offs is an ambitious and darkly comic drama series written by Jack Thorne who is back at Channel 4 after his first feature film, The Scouting Book for Boys, premiered at the London Film festival this month. Jack has teamed up with writers Tony Roche (The Thick Of It) and Alex Bulmer (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, R4) to create a six part comedy-drama ‘mocumentary’ that tells the story of six disabled characters who have been sent to a remote British island for a fictional reality TV show.
The series, to be broadcast in an 11pm slot on Channel 4 in November, begins when the disabled Cast Offs are marooned. But as the camera crew follows their struggle with island life - from learning to build their own homes and grow their own food, to fights, births and falling in love - flashbacks reveal more about each of them and the year leading up to the moment they are left stranded.
Satirical, poignant and unashamedly honest, Cast Offs blows preconceptions of disability out of the water.
The mini series stars disabled actors; Victoria Wright as April (cherubism), Kiruna Stamell as Carrie (dwarfism), Peter Mitchell as Dan (paraplegic), Sophie Woolley as Gabriella (deaf), Tim Gebbels as Tom (blind) and Mat Fraser as Will (thalidomide affected).
Each episode focuses on one character’s story, offering a fresh and humorous insight into their lives. The series also features cameos from Thomas Turgoose (This Is England, Somers Town), Mark Heap (Green Wing), Vicky McClure (This Is England) and William Gaunt (King Lear).
Alison Walsh, Editorial Manager, Disability said, ”Channel 4 has made huge strides in casting disabled people across a range of our shows from Shameless and Hollyoaks to Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word. We’ve brought on disabled directing talent in documentary series like New Shoots and The Shooting Party. The next big challenge was to find an imaginative, brave and ambitious way to cover disability in drama. We wanted innovation in form as well as content – to really test the outer limits of disability on TV. When Eleven Film brought us Jack Thorne and Cast Offs I knew we’d found it.”
Camilla Campbell, Commissioning Editor Drama Series said, “I’m enormously excited to be working on a show that feels as ground breaking as Cast Offs. With the fantastic talent behind and in front of the camera, this confirms Channel 4’s commitment to bold and distinctive programming.”
The six part drama series is made by Eleven Film for Channel 4. Joel Wilson produced the series; the executive producer is Judy Counihan. The series is directed by Miranda Bowen and Amanda Boyle, who have previously made short films for the channel’s new talent strand, Coming Up.
Topic Author
