91Èȱ¬

A darkly comic drama by BAFTA award-winning dramatist Neil McKay, with a title inspired by Ford Madox Brown’s painting. Three 60-something friends argue passionately over the course of a ferry journey from Portsmouth to Santander, returning to their expat life in Spain after attending the UK funeral of their friend Ken, who went home for a visit and would never come back.

Hywel, a loquacious Welshman, Irishman Jim from Lurgan and pugnacious ex-MP Malcolm from Glasgow are unlikely allies (and enforced drinking pals) in the small Spanish town they now call home. Fuelled by some indifferent Rioja and cheap Spanish brandy, through the course of a night they try - and fail - to come to terms with life, death, truth and Brexit.

Also on the ferry are Ken’s daughter Gemma and her partner Rashid, carrying the ashes of Ken, to scatter beneath an almond tree in his favourite spot near the village. But Gemma is furious with her father for abandoning his English family and falling for a bartender more than half his age. She’s furious with her father’s so-called friends for encouraging him. And she’s quite cross with Rashid.

As the ferry heads for Spain and the sea gets rougher, secrets and motivations are revealed, showing nothing is quite as anyone believed and nobody is quite what they seem. Is home where you live, or where your heart is?

Neil McKay - The Moorside, Appropriate Adult, Mo, See No Evil, The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper - is one of our foremost television dramatists, specialising in factually-based drama. He has written many comic pieces including: Hot Money, about female Bank of England employees who robbed the bank of disused notes; Planespotting about British plane-spotters arrested for spying in Greece, starring Lesley Sharp; and, most recently, feature film Dream Horse for Film4/ Warner Bros about a female cleaner in a South Wales village who bred a champion racehorse - starring Toni Collette and Damian Lewis.

Cast
Hywel – Anthony O’Donnell
Malcolm – Gary Lewis
Jim – Dan Gordon
Rashid – George Bukhari
Gemma – Faye McKeever

Writer – Neil McKay
Director – Melanie Harris
Executive Producer – Jeremy Mortimer
Production Co-ordinator - Darren Spruce
Sound Recordist - Louis Blatherwick
Sound Designer – Eloise Whitmore

A Sparklab production for 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4