In terms of independent breakouts last year, especially in the UK, few were of higher quality than Richard Ayoade‘s Submarine and Andrew Haigh‘s Weekend. Although they didn’t light up the box office in the US, the low-budget efforts have seemingly found success on platforms like Netflix Instant and now two of their respective leads have teamed for a new feature.
Screen Daily reports that Yasmin Paige and Chris New will join Scott Chambers in adaptation of the play Chicken, which original author Freddie Machin will also be scripting, along with New. Joe Stephenson is making his directorial debut after helming some UK TV series and one can check out the play’s synopsis below, where New and Chambers play the brothers and Paige stars as the daughter of the land owner. I also popped in a trailer made for the original play.
Richard and Polly are brothers. Holed up in a knackered caravan on someone else’s land, their chicken has stopped laying and Rickson, the new land owner, wants them gone.
Richard longs to put down roots but his restless and destructive brother needs to keep moving. A chance meeting with seventeen year old Annabel, Rickson’s daughter, leaves Richard besotted; whilst Polly befriends the guys who run a seedy travelling fair and decides to follow them to Nottingham. With or without Richard.
Torn between loyalty as companion to his destructive brother or the chance of stability and working on the farm, Richard must make his decision before the fair leaves following the Easter weekend.
Production kicks off early next year.