'Onward and Sideways' Courtesy of BBC/Hilltop Screen A first-look picture for the star-studded British film Onward and Sideways has been released. Emmy and Golden Globe winner Laura Linney (Ozark, Love Actually, John Adams) and BAFTA winner Rhys Ifans (Inheritance, Venom: The Last Dance, House of the Dragon) star in the feature drama, a story about two people with lots in common – a great sense of humor, a love of dance, and Parkinson’s. The movie, coming to U.K. cinemas, the BBC One network and streamer BBC iPlayer from John Gore Studios and Hilltop Screen, also features Monica Dolan (Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Sherwood, Black Mirror), Rory Kinnear (The Diplomat, The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, Bank of Dave) and Paul Mayhew-Archer, among others. Written by Mayhew-Archer (The Vicar of Dibley, Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot and co-host of Parkinson’s podcast Movers and Shakers), it is directed by Oscar nominee John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, Operation Mincemeat, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel). Kaleidoscope Film Distribution is representing worldwide sales. Set and filmed in North Norfolk, Ifans plays Tony Evans, the deputy head of a local primary school. Linney stars as Emma Dretzin, a pianist, composer and single mother of two daughters. “Neither knows the other until a startling encounter changes the course of their lives: on the same morning, they are both confronted with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s,” reads a synopsis. Onward and Sideways was produced by Hilary Bevan Jones and John Gore. The executive producers are Madden, Mayhew-Archer, Ifans, Hilary Strong, Francis Hopkinson, Ellie Wood, Helen Flint, and Lucy Richer.
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Mayhew-Archer previously shared about the personal experience he brings to the film: “In 2011, when I was 58 years old, I was told I had Parkinson’s. It’s incurable, and it makes many of the things I do – walking, talking, smiling – increasingly difficult. But though I have reasons to hate Parkinson’s, it has also brought me opportunities I wouldn’t have missed for the world.”
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