Kids young and old will probably have a dusty copy of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows And Amazons somewhere to hand. The childhood classic is wending its way to the big screen in a production that has just added Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie, Jessica Hynes, Rafe Spall, Kelly Macdonald and, more surprisingly, Harry Enfield to its ranks.
Ransome’s 1930 tome is set in the summer of 1929, and finds the Walker children (John, Susan, Titty and Roger) staying at a farm in the Lake District, during the school holidays. They sail a borrowed dinghy named Swallow and meet the Blackett children (Nancy and Peggy), who sail a dinghy named Amazon. The Walkers camp on an island in the lake while the Blacketts live in their house nearby.
But there’s menace at large. A dark presence on the island - the Blacketts’ mean uncle James Turner, AKA 'Captain Flint’ - tests their skills of survival and the value of friendship, and prepare them for the dangers of the adult world. Think Bear Grylls: The Island only for the under–15s.
The Walker and Blackett children will be played by Dane Hughes, Orla Hill, Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen, Bobby McCulloch, Seren Hawkes and Hannah Jayne Thorp.
""Watching the young actors learn to sail so brilliantly in our Swallow and Amazon, as we prepared for the shoot, has been a great thrill,” said director Philippa Lowthorpe. "I can’t wait to bring this world of pure adventure to life."
The adaptation has been floating about in pre-production for a while, at one point boasting Dan Stevens and The Uninvited’s directors Charles and Thomas Guard, but it’s finally underway in the Lake District with first-timer Lowthorpe behind the camera. Pray for sunshine.