Southcliffe

24 July 2013

TX: AUGUST

Southcliffe is a stunning new four part drama from Warp Films (This is England, The Stone Roses: Made of Stone) for Channel 4 penned by award-winning writer Tony Grisoni (Red Riding, The Unloved) and directed by Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene – winner of Sundance Film Festival Directing Award) in his British television debut.

Starring a wealth of British talent from stage and screen including Rory Kinnear (Black Mirror), Eddie Marsan (Tyrannosaur), Shirley Henderson (Anna Karenina) and Sean Harris (Prometheus) Southcliffe tells the story of a fictional English market town devastated by a spate of shootings which take place over a single day; a tragedy that has ripped apart the community. The inexplicable chain of events at the dark heart of this four-part mini-series shatters time and space for Southcliffe’s inhabitants.

Further names include rising stars Kaya Scodelario (Wuthering Heights), Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones), Anatol Yusef (Boardwalk Empire) and Nichola Burley (Wuthering Heights).

Commissioned by Channel 4’s Head of Drama, Piers Wenger, the drama explores tragedy, grief, responsibility and redemption seen through the eyes of a journalist (Kinnear) returning to the small town of his childhood, and those closest to the victims of the tragedy. Violence and sudden bereavement confronts the residents of Southcliffe with emotions they are unequipped to understand or deal with; testing their resilience as individuals and as a community.

Writer Tony Grisoni says; “Southcliffe is a fictional market town inhabited by fictional characters, but with similarities to many actual people and places in Britain today. Invisible people, anonymous places. Rather than analyse or moralise about our characters’ actions, we share in them. Southcliffe is an anthem to ordinary people’s ability to reinvent themselves in the face of ultimate darkness.”

Piers Wenger adds; "Tony Grisoni's unique ability to convey the darkness and subtleties of human behaviour is in full evidence in these four brilliant scripts and I'm delighted that Warp Films and Tony found a world class director like Sean Durkin to bring them to life."

Directed by Sean Durkin in his British television drama debut, produced by Peter Carlton and Derrin Schlesinger for Warp Films and Sophie Gardiner for Channel 4.  Southcliffe was filmed in the UK and broadcast on Channel 4 in 2013.