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Exclusive: UK-based distribution company Alarm Pictures has acquired U.S. and UK rights to horror-comedy Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break.

The black comedy, directed by In The Earth DoP Nick Gillespie, made its world premiere at SXSW where it won a Special Jury Award, and also screened in competition at Fantasia and Toronto After Dark Film Festival where it won seven awards including Best Film, Audience Award, Best Comedy and Best Screenplay.

Starring are Tom Meeten (Paddington) as Paul Dood, Katherine Parkinson (The It Crowd), Kris Marshall (Love Actually), Alice Lowe (Hot Fuzz), Pippa Haywood (Bridgerton), Steve Oram (Paddington), Mandeep Dhillon (After Life), June Watson (Chernobyl), Johnny Vegas (Home From Home) and Kevin Bishop (The Kevin Bishop Show).

The film follows a weedy charity-shop worker who is set on winning the big national talent show. But when the actions of five selfish people cause him to miss his audition,...

A mother’s love can move mountains. It must in the case of Paul Dood (Tom Meeten) since he doesn’t really have anything else propelling him forward. Did he aspire to be a superstar? No. He merely asked his mom (June Watson’s Julie) if she thought he had what it took while watching an episode of Britain’s Got Talent. She of course said yes. She said he was “better than anyone else on that show.” Love is blind, though, and unwittingly creates lies—Paul is hardly a Susan Boyle with talent to spare if someone would simply give him a chance. He’s not even a William Hung earning views for second-hand embarrassment. He’s lucky to get three viewers per stream: Mum, Clemmie (Katherine Parkinson), and Bruce (Jarred Christmas).

Director Nick Gillespie and co-writers Matthew White and Brook Driver nevertheless introduce their lead with extreme confidence as...

There’s a pointed takedown of very-online living fighting to emerge from the many zany, bloody distractions of “Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break,” though even if it succeeded, it probably wouldn’t be all that fresh. Wringing bleak comedy from the psychological collapse of a naive middle-aged man chasing talent-show glory, this uneven sophomore feature from director Nick Gillespie most resembles a grindhouse marriage of “Joker” and “Ingrid Goes West,” with its makeup left to run in a gray British drizzle. The celebrity-forging cycle of reality TV and the false validation of social media likes aren’t exactly hard targets, so Gillespie’s film can’t help but hit them squarely here and there. Yet it’s hard to escape the queasy sense that such points are also being scored at the expense of a vulnerable protagonist’s mental frailty, at which stage the laughs rather dry up.

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Belstone Pictures has inked a worldwide sales deal with Concourse Media on hot SXSW title “Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break.”

Concourse will handle all international and domestic sales for the title, and Belstone Pictures will co-represent in the U.K. The black comedy, directed by Nick Gillespie (“Tank 432”), will have its world premiere at SXSW this week in the narrative spotlight section.

The film follows Paul, a charity shop worker who when his chances of winning a national talent competition are ruined and his dreams of fame are slashed, plans a deathly revenge mission. The cast includes a raft of British talent, including BAFTA nominee Tom Meeten (“The Ghoul”) as Paul Dood, alongside Katherine Parkinson (“Doc Martin”), Kris Marshall (“Love Actually”), Alice Lowe (“Prevenge”), Pippa Haywood (“Bridgerton”), Steve Oram (“The End of the F***ing World”), Mandeep Dhillon (“After Life”), June Watson (“Chernobyl”), Johnny Vegas (“Home From Home”) and Kevin Bishop...

The UK drama received its world premiere at Tokyo International Film Festival last month.

Signature Entertainment has secured UK and Ireland rights to Matt Chambers’ The Bike Thief, starring God’s Own Country actor Alec Secareanu, from Munich-based powerhouse Beta Cinema.

The UK drama received its world premiere at Tokyo International Film Festival last month and was being shopped by Beta at the virtual AFM. Signature had previously seen the film at a private screening in London and plan to release the feature in 2021.

The Bike Thief marks the feature directorial debut of Chambers and centres on a nameless pizza delivery...

Project is the directing debut of Matt Chambers.

Munich-based powerhouse Beta Cinema has boarded international sales on The Bike Thief, Matt Chambers’ feature directing debut starring God’s Own Country actor Alec Secareanu and 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days actress Anamaria Marinca.

UK producers Ellipsis Pictures and Ugly Duckling Films have also released a first look at Secareanu in the film, which sees the actor clad in motorcycle gear.

Based on an original idea by director Chambers, the screenplay, which was on the 2018 Brit List, follows a Romanian family living in London. The father (Secareanu) delivers pizzas for a living,...

Daniel Radcliffe came out for the curtain call at the Broadway premiere of The Cripple of Innishmaan over the weekend, taking a bow as the audience applauded his performance.

Daniel Radcliffe In 'Cripple Of Innishmaan'

Radcliffe, 24, is taking his third turn on the theater stage following his performances in Equus and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. In The Cripple of Innishmaan, he plays 17-year-old “Cripple Billy,” the butt of jokes for the people in his small island community off the west coast of Ireland. He spends the majority of his days with his nose in the pages of books or staring off at the cows – until he acquires an interest in the idea of being an actor in Hollywood.

Thus far, Radcliffe has received glowing reviews from theater critics for his performance. “The star in question, Daniel Radcliffe, isn’t here just to flex his charisma for fans,...

Daniel Radcliffe is currently prepping for his third stint on Broadway, this time in a quirky play called The Cripple of Inishmaan, a dark 1996 comedy from Martin McDonagh. Radcliffe stars as Billy, a disabled Irish boy who has big dreams of making it in Hollywood when a documentary crew shows up to film on a nearby Irish island.

This production originally premiered in London last year at the Noel Coward Theater. The upcoming Broadway outing reunites Radcliffe with his West End cast mates, including Ingrid Craigie, Padraic Delaney, Sarah Greene, Gillian Hanna, Gary Lilburn, Conor MacNeill, Pat Shortt, and June Watson.

After making a bold Broadway debut in the powerful equine drama Equus and following up with a singing, dancing stint in the glossy 1960s musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the always astonishing Daniel Radcliffe is back for round three on the Broadway stage — in something completely, totally different.

Radcliffe willreprise his role as Billy in playwright Martin McDonagh’s 1996 black comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan, which follows a handicapped Irish boy (Radcliffe) who dreams of appearing in a documentary being filmed by a Hollywood crew on a nearby island (the real-life 1934 film Man of Aran). The...

If you didn’t get a chance to see Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe in 2008′s Equus or the 2011 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, you’ve got another opportunity to catch the Boy Who Acted on the Great White Way.

Radcliffe will star in the title role in a Broadway mounting of Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan, reprising his role from last year’s West End revival at the Noel Coward Theater. The entire cast from the Michael Grandage-directed revival will transfer to Broadway, where it will follow Patrick Stewart...

Hollywood legends. Scary French mysteries. Typically British seaside comedies. We're trotting across the globe for this week's edition of Must-See TV, and the best bit is you don't even have to leave your sofa!

And with the sun shining brightly, we imagine many of your minds will be drifting back to the glorious summer of 2012 and the majesty of the London Olympics.

Luckily for those feeling nostalgic, the Beeb will be screening the London Anniversary Games, which marks one year since the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Coverage from the Olympic Stadium kicks off Friday, July 26 at 7.30pm on BBC Two.

Burton and Taylor: Monday (July 22) at 9pm on BBC Four

Helena Bonham Carter is out to smother all painful memories of Lindsay Lohan in Liz & Dick, as she gives surely a far more accomplished performance of the late, great Elizabeth Taylor in this new feature-length BBC Four drama.

Dominic West stars as Richard Burton,...

Noel Coward, London

Imagine a dramatic hero who stands no chance of being kissed "unless it was by a blind girl" and of whom it is said, by an adoptive aunt, "you'd see nicer eyes on a goat". Daniel Radcliffe is not the first name that would leap to mind in the casting of such a role. But he is the undoubted star of Michael Grandage's revival of Martin McDonagh's 1997 play and proves, as he did in Equus, that he is a fine stage actor with a gift for playing social outsiders.

Radcliffe is the eponymous hero, a disabled 17-year-old orphan named Billy Claven, of McDonagh's ingenious play. Dejected and generally derided, the bookish Billy is brought up by his "aunties" on the isle of Inishmaan. But the dullness of daily life is suddenly relieved when in 1934 Hollywood film-maker Robert Flaherty descends on a neighbouring isle to make...

Royle Family duo Craig Cash and Ralf Little have reunited for new Sky1 sitcom The Cafe. Cash has directed the series, which is based around a family business in Weston-super-Mare, run by a mother, grandmother and daughter on the seafront. June Watson, Ellie Haddington and Michelle Terry take on the lead roles of Mary, Carol and Sarah. Little, who has written the script with Michelle Terry (Reunited), plays Sarah's ex-boyfriend Richard who is a musician by night and care home worker by day. Daniel Ings is cast as successful events manager and former love rival John, who returns to Weston and ruffles some feathers. David Troughton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Jack Roth, Kevin Trainor and Seeta Indrani are also among the cast. Cash's previous award-winning TV credits include The Royle Family, Early (more)...