My Book the Movie - The Almanack

To celebrate the launch of The Almanack My Book, The Movie Blogspot invited me to 'dreamcast' an adaptation of my novel. It doesn't mean it's actually going to be filmed - I just get the chance to imagine it.

Edwaert Collier: Vanitas with Books, Manuscripts and a Skull

My heroine Tabitha was a courtesan in London, and is sharp-witted, light-fingered  and bold, a shrewd handler of people, and charming when she wants to be. To play her I had in mind Crystal Laity’s performance as harlot Margaret Vosper in Poldark, a mix of intelligence and physical allure.

Crystal Laity, who plays Margaret Vosper in Poldark

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​Tabitha’s love interest is rakeish poet Nat Starling, a Cambridge University drop-out, obsessed with time. His creativity mixes with bouts of stupidity and drunkenness. No apologies for casting Aidan Turner (Ross Poldark) as the intense, long-haired writer. 

No apologies for yet another dreamcasting of Aidian Turner

​Joshua Saxton is Tabitha’s devoted old flame, now a widower and the dogged village constable. Rugged Alex O’Loughlin would be ideal (convict Will Bryant in mini-series Mary Bryant).

Alex O'Loughlin at Joshua Saxton

​Joshua’s daughter Jennet represents the younger generation: still girlish at 15, her pursuit of romance and superstition leads her into danger. I’d love a young Christina Ricci, circa Sleepy Hollow to play her.

Christina Ricci circa Sleepy Hollow

Youngest of all is Bess Hart, the infant left in the care of murdered Widow Hart. Precocious and beautiful at 3-years old, she walks in her sleep and some claim she has second sight. I picture her as Sally Jane Bruce, the child actor who played Pearl in the classic noir, The Night of the Hunter.

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​The Almanack is located in Cheshire and the county town of Chester, a 2,000 year old walled city in England famed for its distinctive black and white high-gabled buildings. Tabitha’s home village of Netherlea is scattered around a manor house, where country customs are celebrated, from a blood-stained harvest through autumn bonfires and a snowbound Christmas.

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​I would love to see a director capture the mix of fairy story and murder mystery, so someone with the talent of The Night of the Hunter’s Charles Laughton springs to mind as a dream come true. I’ll never forget the magical escape of the children along the benighted river with a soundtrack of Pearl’s eerily sung lullaby. 
 
I’m sure Laughton (and his wizard of a cinematographer, Stanley Cortez) would do justice to the stars and moon reflected in watermeadows, the snowbound castle, and flickering candlelight as Tabitha and Nat study the almanack for the next riddle and revelation.

Images from The Night of the Hunter (1955)