Joe's Palace' and 'Capturing Mary'

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.

Author Biography

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.