Fanny lye real person

A pair of druggy, licentious agitators invade a 17th-century Shropshire homestead in this eerie period melodrama from Brit indie director Thomas Clay. T homas Clay is a British film-making talent who has been off the radar for a while, fanny lye real person, and cinema has been the duller for it. There had been nothing since his troubling and shocking debut The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael in and the Bangkok-set followup Soi Cowboy in Now Clay has returned with a stark, bleak horror-melodrama of the English Revolution: a 17th-century period piece with eerie echoes of other genres: fanny lye real person invasion thriller, spaghetti western, folk horror, post-apocalyptic survivalist drama.

Then I had this eureka moment and decided to make it a Western set in that time period. I wanted to boil it down and create key conflicts of the time period in this microcosm: The Purist, the Ranters, the Cavaliers, and eventually the Quaker. They were key players of the period. Fanny Lye is a character of enormous strength, resilience, and survival who gradually is released from her repression. How difficult was it to write her as such, giving a voice to the women of the time?

Fanny lye real person

But her simple world is shaken to its core by the surprise arrival of a mysterious young couple, Thomas and Rebecca. And so it was something I lived with for years. And once I had that idea it started to build from there and coalesce quite quickly. You have the invention of the portable printing press and the collapse in government control. Suddenly you have this explosion of pamphlets essentially voicing philosophical ideas, religious ideas, political ideas, or even just people publishing cookbooks! But in a way, it was a technological transformation — kind of like a 17 th Century version of the internet. So suddenly you hear the voices of all the common people. So much of history is kings and queens and key events, but suddenly for this brief period before the Commonwealth started to reestablish control in the early s, we suddenly hear these other voices. And some of those ideas have carried on and transformed the world, transformed the way we see the world. You had the feudal king, which was just a dictatorship really. Then you have the puritans who were briefly in control. I guess [the character of] John represents the puritans.

You had the feudal king, which was just a dictatorship really.

By Nikki Baughan. A casualty of war herself — sexual assault being commonplace as the country was torn asunder — Fanny is now resigned to her downtrodden life on a Shropshire farm with her dominant puritanical husband John Charles Dance and young son. When couple Thomas Ashbury Freddie Fox and Rebecca Henshaw newcomer Tanya Reynolds barge naked into their lives, on the run from the law, Fanny convinces her sceptical husband to give them sanctuary. It soon transpires that the pair are followers of a new, more free-thinking religion, and Fanny has her mind opened to fresh possibilities. Her awakening, when it comes, is seismic. I also wanted to make a western. I guess the eureka moment was realising I could combine the two things.

Directed and written by Thomas Clay , it tells the story of the eponymous Fanny Lye Maxine Peake who, along with her husband, gives shelter to a pair of strangers, played by Freddie Fox and Tanya Reynolds. Freddie Fox talks to us about what the film has to say to contemporary audiences and the challenges that went with shooting on location in a cold and muddy Shropshire, especially when it came to his first — naked — appearance. He also reflects on his on-screen confrontations with Dance, a friend for some years. Congratulations on the film. A film I think that is really quite hard to categorise. I know [director] Thomas Clay has described it as a puritan western. How would you describe it? A sort of hallucinogenic puritan western, perhaps?

Fanny lye real person

A powerful drama set in the aftermath of the English Civil War, it focuses on Fanny Maxine Peake , a modest housewife living on a farm with her husband John Charles Dance and young son Arthur Zak Adams whose life is turned upside down by the arrival of two strangers. Thomas Freddie Fox and Rebecca Tanya Reynolds are members of a recently formed religious sect with very different attitudes to faith and sexuality, and they bring trouble in their wake — but Fanny is made of steelier stuff than anyone suspects. The director has spoken at length about his passion for this period in history, so I ask him for his thoughts on why so few films to date have been set in it. The eureka moment was thinking that I could maybe combine that with a western of sorts and have this single location with Fanny in the middle and each character in the film representing a different ideological position within society at that time. I spoke to researchers and historical experts. The script came together in a bit over a year. Some were sent to prison. One or two were even executed for their beliefs.

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Sarah has established herself as a keen reporter, both on junkets and on red-carpets, interviewing celebrities from Florence Pugh to Minnie Driver. It was as if I was there. Lots of them went to prison for their views. Initially, it was an experiment. It was nice to do that. Thank you! So I guess it took a little longer than it usually would to write a script! William was born in Denton, TX and currently resides in Austin. But I was always thinking when we were shooting the film. And so Thomas and Rebecca begin their revolutionary campaign of sensuality in the Lye household, starting with a glimmer of recognition in Fanny. We know Tanya McDonald best for her role in Sex Education, but this film was her first filming experience. Towards the end of the film, Fanny begins to move towards a Quaker idea. Despite her young age, Fanny shows remarkable resilience and determination, making her an inspiring figure for readers of all ages. In the process of writing it and recording it with Tanya Reynolds I fell in love with it.

By Tom Grater. Clay, whose previous two feature-length films played at Cannes The Great Ecstasy Of Robert Carmichael in and Soi Cowboy in , has spent the best part of a decade working on this feature.

They have such an amazing amount of knowledge in those communities. Originally it was supposed to be set in the snow and we were looking for an alternative. The film follows the story of Fanny Lye, a puritan wife and mother who is trapped in an oppressive marriage. Learn how your comment data is processed. Suddenly you have this explosion of pamphlets essentially voicing philosophical ideas, religious ideas, political ideas, or even just people publishing cookbooks! She has learned to suppress her natural intelligence and inquiring mind through marriage to brutal Puritan ex-soldier John Lye, gloweringly and effectively played by Charles Dance. T homas Clay is a British film-making talent who has been off the radar for a while, and cinema has been the duller for it. We know Tanya McDonald best for her role in Sex Education, but this film was her first filming experience. Then you have the puritans who were briefly in control. Comment Reblog Subscribe Subscribed. It can be read in so many different ways. The acting had to be good. Then doing a draft and adjusting it based on comments and the language. The family is astonished one Sunday when a naked man and woman appear, bruised and dishevelled, begging for shelter and claiming to have been robbed: Thomas Freddie Fox and Rebecca Tanya Reynolds. They are friends in real life which made it funny because Thomas had to do such horrible things to John which I guess made it more bearable for Charles Dance as John.