26 September, London: UK- Last Night, the cast, directors and crew of the heart-warming coming of age comedy, Dusty & Me, gathered at the Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Square for the film’s premiere.
Cast that walked the carpet included Ian Hart, Ben Batt, Luke Newberry, Genevieve Gaunt and Game of Thrones legend, Iain Glen. Newberry wears bespoke Paul Smith and Gaunt wows sporting a 70’s look to pay homage to the period setting of the film.
Dusty & Me will be released in selected UK cinemas this Friday (28th) and will be available on digital download from Monday (1st October).
Synopsis
Dusty & Me, directed by award winning director Betsan Evans Morris, boasts an impressive cast of Iain Glen (Game of Thrones), Ian Hart (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone & Finding Neverland) and Lesley Sharp (The Full Monty & Common As Muck). Rising star, Genevieve Gaunt, plays the female lead in her second appearance since Harry Potter and BAFTA nominee Luke Newberry puts in a stunning performance as Dusty.
Autumn 1977. Derek ‘Dusty’ Springfield (Luke Newberry) is an 18-year-old misfit, who five years earlier was plucked from his home in the industrial outskirts of Leeds to attend Public School on a scholarship. He has just returned home at the end of his studies to wait for his Oxbridge results that he’s hoping will result in his permanent escape. Life at home is awkward for the brainy lad and embarrassing for his working class family who can’t relate: his feckless dad, no-nonsense mum and two older brothers; one a football hopeful and the other a distinctly dodgy acquirer of flash consumer goods.
In the wait for his university exam results, Dusty befriends a lightning fast Greyhound, comically named Slapper by his older brother and the two become inseparable. When two bumbling thieves attempt to kidnap Slapper, Dusty must do all he can to protect him, whilst trying to earn the respect of his family again. Dusty can’t believe his luck when his crush from afar, the out-of-his-league Chrissie (Genevieve Gaunt), agrees to help him find Slapper. All the while, his results day is looming over him, and his future lies sealed within an envelope.
Cast Information:
Luke Newberry- Derek (Dusty)
Luke Newberry is a BAFTA nominated British actor, who is best known for his role as Kieren Walker, the protagonist in the critically acclaimed BBC Three drama In The Flesh. Luke was nominated for Best Leading Actor for the role.
He has featured recently as DS Anthony Boyce in the BBC One drama From Darkness with Anne Marie Duff, and as George Smith in Sally Wainwrights To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters. His film credits include Dustin Hoffman’s Quartet and Anna Karenina directed by Joe Wright.
2018 sees Luke feature as the lead role of Derek (Dusty) in British indie Dusty & Me, with Genevieve Gaunt, Iain Glen, and Lesley Sharp, in UK cinemas September 28th. In October, he will play Malcolm in the RSC’s Macbeth at the Barbican, directed by Polly Findlay.
Genevieve Gaunt- Chrissie
Gaunt started her career at the age of 14 in the Harry Potter franchise, she played Pansy Parkinson in The Prisoner of Azkaban. She then focused on her studies and graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge, with a double first in English. 2013 Gaunt was cast as Jessica Fuller in Michael Winterbottom’s The Face of an Angel and has been heralded for big things over the next few years.
Iain Glen- Mickey the Bubble
Iain Glen is a Scottish actor who started his career onstage appearing as Macbeth (Tron Theatre), Henry V (Royal Shakespeare Company) and then moved into feature films. In 1990, Glen won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Silent Scream. In the same year he was cast as Hamlet, Prince of Denmark in Tom Stoppard’s film adaptation of his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Most recently Glen is known for his role as Ser Jorah Mormont in the hugely successful HBO series Game of Thrones.
Lesley Sharp- Lil
Although Sharp has appeared in a variety of films throughout her career, she is probably best known by television audiences. In the late 1990s, she was being offered lead role in Common As Muck, which was followed by Playing the Field, which ran for five series. Sharp had supporting parts in Great Expectations, as Mrs Joe, and in Nature Boy, as Martha Tyler, before landing the role of Trudy Graham in Paul Abbott’s BAFTA-award-winning Clocking Off. Russell T. Davies then cast her opposite Alan Davies in Bob & Rose, which resulted in a BAFTA nomination for Sharp. Further film roles include The Fully Monty, From Hell, and Cheeky.
Ian Hart – Big Eddie
Ian Hart has had a prolific career across theatre, television and feature films from the early 90s. Most notable are his performances in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as Professor Quirrel; an unemployed Liverpool shipyard worker in Liam and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the film Finding Neverland in 2004. Most recently Hart has appeared in two hugely successful Television series: HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and the US remake of the Scandi crime hit The Bridge.
Betsan Evans Morris- Producer/ Director
Betsan is a British freelance drama director/ producer. Her work as a Director includes many prestigious and “awarded” feature length single drama’s (Spoonface Steinberg, Suffer the Little Children, Lady Audley’s Secret, Witness Against Hitler etc), flagship episodes of prime time series (Waking the Dead, Band of Gold, Preston Front etc) and three feature films including “Dad Savage” and the soon to be released Dusty & Me. Betsan was BBC trained and has a background in production and script editing.
She is also a prolific commercials director, with campaigns for L’Oreal, Aldi, McDornalds, Ariel etc. Recently Betsan has produced adaptations of “NW” (Zadie Smith), “The City and the City” (China Mieville) and the upcoming Christmas special “War of the Worlds” (H G Wells) , all for the BBC.