Max Irons in The Runaway – on Sky One

The Runaway

Transmission: March 2011

Sky One: 6 x 60mins
Producer: Nick Goding. Series Producer: Willow Grylls
Director: David Richards
Executive Producers: Charles Pattinson, George Faber, Lavinia Warner, Helen Flint, Martina Cole
Co-Production: Warner Sisters
Adapted By: Allan Cubitt
Cast: Alan Cumming, Max Irons, Burn Gorman, Jack O’Connell, Jo Van Der Ham

Martina Cole’s The Runaway: New Drama on Sky One
By Steve Rogerson
Published Mar 25, 2011

Sky One brings Martina Cole’s novel The Runaway to life in a six-part drama due to start on Thursday 31 March and starring Alan Cumming and Joanna Vanderham

In her first professional acting role, Joanna Vanderham stars in the title role as runaway Cathy Conor in Martina Cole’s The Runaway, a six-part drama due to start on Sky One on Thursday 31 March 2011. Cathy Conor is the daughter of a prostitute who has been imprisoned for murder and so she is separated from her boyfriend Eamonn Docherty (played by Jack O’Connell) and put into care. She runs away to Soho where she meets Desrae (played by Alan Cumming), a transvestite who adopts Cathy.

Eamonn is also having a tough time as he becomes more involved with the criminal elements in London’s East End, notably gangster Danny Dixon (played by Keith Allen). He runs away to New York to try to build a better life. Eventually the two young lovers are drawn back together as the world moves on from the 1960s to the 1970s, but they find their pasts still haunt them both.

Joanna Vanderham was in her second year at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff when she was spotted by casting director Emma Style. She was granted time off college to film for the series but is now back studying and hopes to graduate in June.

Scottish actor Alan Cumming has not been seen on British television for fifteen years, after making his name on shows such as Bernard and the Genie and The High Life. Most of his career since then has been in the USA on programmes such as God, the Devil and Bob, Sex and the City, Shoebox Zoo and The L Word. His film roles include playing Nightcrawler in X-Men 2.

Jack O’Connell is best known for playing Ross Trescott in The Bill, Pukey Nicholls in This is England and Cook in Skins. Welsh actor Keith Allen has recently starred as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood TV series but his career dates back to the 1980s in shows such as The Young Ones, A Very British Coup and Making Out. In 1994, he played Jonas Cuzzlewit in Martin Chuzzlewit and in 1998 Slick Sloan in The Young Person’s Guide to Becoming a Rock Star. Other notable roles include Dexter in Roger Roger and Tony Whitman in Bodies.

Martina Cole’s The Runaway also features Ken Stott as gangster Joey Pasqualino, Max Irons as his son Tommy Pasqualino, Kierston Wareing as Cathy’s mother Madge and Burn Gorman as Detective Richard Gates.

The Team Behind Martina Cole’s The Runaway

The director of Martina Cole’s The Runaway was David Richards, the producer Nick Goding, series producer Willow Grylls and casting director Emma Style. Based on the novel by Martina Cole, it was adapted for television by Allan Cubitt and Tom Greaves. The executive producers were Lavinia Warner for Warner Sisters, Charlie Pattinson, George Faber and Helen Flint for Company Pictures, Elaine Pyke and Huw Kennair-Jones for Sky One, and Martina Cole.

The show was filmed in three months in South Africa on a specially built set that recreated London’s Soho and New York in the 1960s and 1970s.

Read more at Suite101: Martina Cole’s The Runaway: New Drama on Sky One http://www.suite101.com/content/martina-coles-the-runaway-new-drama-on-sky-one-a361728#ixzz1HcFHYPDD