Joe's Palace' and 'Capturing Mary'

Description

Two major new screenplays by the award-winning Stephen Poliakoff made for the BBC and HBO Films and due to be broadcast in November 2007. A stellar cast led by Michael Gambon and Dame Maggie Smith feature in these exquisite, major new films that are linked by a grand house and memories of the past. In Joe's Palace, the first of two screenplays, Stephen Poliakoff explores the relationship between a reclusive billionaire (played by Michael Gambon), and the teenage boy he employs to take care of a grand house. This is a lavishly shot contemporary film about loneliness and loss. In Capturing Mary, the companion film for BBC2 set in the same exquisite empty house, Poliakoff takes his characters into a dark and terrifying exploration of the past and its power to capture and destroy a person's life. Dame Maggie Smith plays the lead role. Included also is A Real Summer, a glorious companion drama to Capturing Mary charting the development of an unexpected friendship between a young aristocratic woman and Mary before she enters the dangerous world of Mr Graham's house.

Stephen Poliakoff, born in 1952, was appointed writer in residence at the National Theatre for 1976 and the same year won the Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright award for Hitting Town and City Sugar. His most recent work includes The Lost Prince (BBC, 2003) winner of three Emmy Awards, Friends & Crocodiles (BBC, 2005) and Gideon's Daughter (BBC, 2006) winner of two Golden Globes and a Peabody Award.