http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5443866/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

LOGLINE

 The idyllic world of an American opera-singer-turned-trendy-priest is changed forever when the English woman he will marry reveals the cruel fate destined to overwhelm both their lives and that of his actress daughter.

I’ll Walk with God is an emotional musical drama about a fictitious former opera star from America for whom Tosca and My Fair Lady are not sufficient in themselves to feed the inherent sense of spirituality that drives him on. His father’s homeland, England, has taken him and his family to Coventry in the West Midlands…and to the priesthood. The Rev Jim Watson will always sing. This will never change. He can’t remember a time when he didn’t or indeed couldn’t express himself through the power of song. It is what he does best and is as natural to him as breathing. In and around his parish he is known as “The Singing Vicar”: he sings at charity events, church fetes and at am-dram concerts. Along the way, however, after meeting university lecturer Emma Crawford at the local allotment that is his distraction and her therapy, things will never be as they once were for either of them or for Jim’s actress daughter, Holly.

Musical numbers include “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel, Bach-Gounod’s Ave Maria, “Because (God Made Thee Mine)”, “On The Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady, “Only the Good Die Young”, the Neapolitan song “Come Prima” (Jim’s Italian mother is from Napoli), “Thank You For the Music”, Albert Hay Malotte’s magical “The Lord’s Prayer”, and the film’s title-song.

(Norman Bowman)

Jim Watson is an American-born country vicar in an English country parish. He is an ebullient, dynamo of a man who has always been propelled through life by a missionary fervour. His raison d’être is to follow his passions, try to do some good in the world, and – always, always – enjoy life to the full. He dwells little on what he can’t do but, rather, focuses on those things that he knows with God-given conviction he can do well and, along the way – because that’s just how it is – bring joy and enrichment both to himself and to the lives of others. In his native United States he quickly establishes himself as a rising opera star. But Tosca and La Bohème are not sufficient in themselves to feed the inherent sense of altruism that drives him on. His father’s homeland, England, takes him and his family to Coventry in the West Midlands…and to the priesthood. It was in England that his father had met and married his Italian mother, from Napoli, before the couple immigrated to America, where Jim was born. The Rev Jim Watson will always sing. This will never change. He can’t remember a time when he didn’t or indeed couldn’t express himself through the power of song. It is what he does best and is as natural to him as breathing. In and around his parish he is known as “The Singing Vicar”: he sings at charity events, church fetes and at am-dram concerts. Along the way, however, after meeting Emma Crawford at the local allotment that is his distraction and her therapy, things will never be as they once were for either of them or for Jim’s actress daughter, Holly.

(Virginia Byron)

Emma Crawford is well-spoken, warm and friendly, with a natural wit and an easy intelligence that is never “in your face”, someone who is comfortable in her skin. She is English. She studied for degrees in Music of the Italian Romantic Period (BA) and Music Theory (MA) at Manchester University. After graduation she took on a fill-in job as a private music tutor to the teenage daughter of an Italian textile industrialist in Tuscany. Later, for nine years, she was a music teacher at a private school near Coventry. And then for ten years (until a year before this film starts) she was a lecturer in and Music Theory and Aesthetics at Birmingham University. Two years into the job she married a professor of composition at the same university. She divorced him six years later (three years before this film starts) following his long affair with a female post-graduate music student. The couple relocated to Los Angeles during the same year as the divorce. Emma has no children. She, the only child of late parents who were each an only child, has no close relatives in the UK. She lives alone. A year after her divorce (two years before this film starts) she starts to feel unwell and is diagnosed with colon cancer. She undergoes surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. For a while she goes into remission. A year before the start of this film, in the summer, feeling weak and disoriented, she gives up lecturing. Her cancer treatment continues. A week before she meets the Rev Jim Watson (a former opera singer in his native Philadelphia) at her local allotment – a man who will change her life – she undergoes further tests. On the day she has tea with Jim at The Old Vicarage she is due to return to the hospital for the results of the tests. It is the start of an emotional, romantic and physically gruelling rollercoaster period for both Emma and Jim and his daughter Holly.

(Claire Heverin)

Holly Watson was born in the United States. Her father, Jim Watson, was a star tenor in a famous opera company and, at nine, after moving with her parents to England, she had a distinctive American accent when she started at the local Church of England school in Coventry in the West Midlands. She quickly adapted, chameleon-like, to her new environment. Her American accent receded and eventually disappeared as she acquired a neutral, non-regional English accent. Naturally bright, she won an academic scholarship entitling her to attend, without cost to her parents, a top independent school 40 miles from Coventry. She became a boarder. After getting her A-levels she studied acting at the Birmingham School of Acting. Holly graduated a year before this film starts and has been cast in two small featured roles in productions at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. Holly is a fount of wisdom and a pillar of strength in the lives of her father and his gravely ill new wife, Emma. As Jim explains it: “Holly has been an angel since her mother, my wife, passed away. She takes good care of me. She’s just 22 but wise beyond her years.” She is currently living at home with her father and learning lines for her next stage role. She is single.

(Rev Jim Watson)

Marius in Les Miserables, Danny Zuko in Grease, Tony in West Side Story, Sam Carmichael in ABBA’s Mamma Mia!, Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls…Norman Bowman has played almost every leading song-and-dance man in London’s West End and, in Shakespeare, worked alongside Jude Law in Henry V, appeared as Ross in Kenneth Branagh’s highly-acclaimed 2014 production of Macbeth and played the Duke of Cornwall in King Lear at Manchester’s acclaimed Royal Exchange Theatre and later at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. His portrayal of the Hollywood director Mack Sennett in Mack & Mabel was hailed as “one of London’s outstanding male musical performances of the year”.

He tells people that he feels blessed, but there is much more behind this modest Scottish artist’s rise and rise than meets the eye – and ear. “My role in Guys and Dolls,” he says, “led to me appearing on stage with Ewan McGregor, who I became friends with. When Ewan moved on, I was given the lead role of Nathan Detroit and was privileged to play opposite Patrick Swayze.” Talent will out.

Combine all this with other stellar roles in the musicals Lady Be Good at the Open Air Theatre in London’s Regents Park, Munkustrap in Cats, and Billy Bigelow in Carousel at the Chichester Festival Theatre, and it becomes very clear why Norman Bowman’s name has become synonymous with musical theatre at its best.

And yet although the London-based Scots actor-singer from Arbroath may well be a West End superstar there is another side to him which he wishes to explore much, much more: his huge love of Shakespeare. This is why in recent years he’s appeared in productions such as A Midsummer’s Night Dream at the Manchester International Festival, again directed by Kenneth Branagh.

In the musical romance I’ll Walk with God, in which he plays American opera-star-turned-vicar Jim Watson, he combines both the stage-musical and the serious straight-acting side of his prodigious talent and charismatic personality. He says: “In the film my character is nicknamed ‘The Singing Vicar’ because, although he’s left America and the world of opera for a new life as a priest in England, he has never lost his love of singing – his need to sing. This is Heaven for me!”

(Emma Crawford)

Virginia Byron’s appearances at London’s prestigious Lost Theatre Company – a venue which introduced actors such as Ralph Fiennes and Mackenzie Crook to the drama stage – have won her much acclaim. In Proud, about a deeply troubled 18-year-old boxer named Lewis, one critic enthused: “Virginia Byron, as Lewis’ mother, stole the show, delivering an incredible number of witty lines with impeccable timing”. Another critic noted: “Virginia Byron is excellent as the family matriarch, switching from high drama to high comedy in seconds.”

This observation, in fact, might be describing Virginia’s own secure place in the world of acting for she seems to oscillate with consummate ease between comedy and drama. Be it playing Liz Essendine in Present Laughter or Ruth Condamine in Blithe Spirit, in two of Noel Coward’s best comic plays, she is at her comedic best. And she recently extended her talent to farce in the role of Jean Perkins in Ray Cooney’s classic Funny Money at The Dugdale Centre in North London (below).

But she is equally known for her London appearances in the works of Samuel Beckett. In fact, she has played most of the Irish avant-garde playwright’s female characters including Mouth in Not I for a No1 tour of Ireland, the mistress in Play, the assistant director in Catastrophe at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, and May in both Footfalls and Rockaby.

To cap it all, she is an accomplished Shakespearean actress with such roles behind her as Gertrude, Queen of Denmark and the Danish prince’s mother, in a UK tour of Hamlet. She’s also toured as Olivia in Twelfth Night and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Along the way, she’s played Elizabeth Woodville, Queen consort of England (whose children included the Princes in the Tower) – as the spouse of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483 – in the hit BBC2 series The Real White Queen and Her Rivals.

Although a native Northerner, she spent several childhood years in France and has a base in the Alps where she loves to ski. She also enjoys target shooting with 2.2 rifles.

And now, more recently, she has relished the chance to portray Emma Crawford, a university music lecturer with terminal illness, in the film-musical drama I’ll Walk with God. “During pre-filming rehearsals, even though my character didn’t get to sing, I found myself being sucked in by the glorious music that I’ve heard swirling around the set. But, for those who haven’t seen the film, be warned: this is a weepy, so have plenty of tissues ready!”

(Holly Watson)

Claire Heverin has packed much into her short career. She starred as the Athenian girl Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and as Snail in Karel Čapek’s stage satire The Insect Play (both at London’s Courtyard Theatre), and played Emmott in Don Taylor’s historical drama about the Great Plague that swept Britain in the 17th century, The Roses of Eyam.

Claire, who comes from a dance background and has training in stage combat, has also won critical plaudits for her playing of the spiteful and bitter daughter, Magdalena, in Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba. Two weeks before starting rehearsals for I’ll Walk with God she completed a London run in Neighbourhood Watch, Alan Ayckbourn’s hilarious cautionary tale of the dangers of taking the law into your own hands.

“When I first read the script of I’ll Walk with God, and the screenwriter’s description of Holly Watson, it quickly dawned on me just how much I had in common with her,” she recalls. “Like Holly, I too had part of my early education at a local Church of England school. And, like her, I went on to get a degree in acting.

“I love this quality in Holly where she’s ‘older’ in personality than her years might suggest and yet she still retains her innocence. It’s not often you get the chance to polar a character with such a similar history. I just knew when I auditioned for the role that I could bring a lot of my own experiences, and a lot of my own dedication, to this role.”

(Organist & Choir Vocal Coach)

Natalie Anne Owen returned to England in 2015 after living in Australia for the previous six years. The singer-pianist’s high-pitched, soulful vocal melodies and harmonies are influenced by a wide range of musical genres. Her stage name is Natalyan. In addition to being the vocal coach of The Encore Films Choir on I’ll Walk with God, as well as the organist, she also doubled up as a production assistant. She is currently working on a self-written album. She began playing the piano at the age of four, which she quickly followed with singing, and found herself instantly under the spell of music in general and the keyboard in particular. “I’ve continued my love affair with the piano throughout my life,” says Natalie, “and use it as my main tool when composing.” Natalie, who has a BA (Hons) degree in Performing Arts from Northampton University, has sung with many kinds of talent and performed at venues such as the London Palladium (Sunday Night Live at the London Palladium) and collaborative soul-blues-opera shows at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She is a member of both the Blues Kitchen Vocal Group, who perform in London every Sunday evening, and the renowned London International Gospel Choir.

THE FILM’S FIRST “BEST MOVIE” AWARDS

PROGRAMME OF THE BIG-SCREEN PREMIERE

THE VYNE THEATRE
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire – Sunday, 24 January 2016, 12:45

Ian Woodward’s

starring NORMAN BOWMAN and VIRGINIA BYRON
with CLAIRE HEVERIN & THE ENCORE FILMS CHOIR
The idyllic world of an American opera-singer-turned-priest – known
to his parishioners as “The Singing Vicar” – is changed forever when
the English woman he will marry reveals the cruel fate destined to
overwhelm both their lives and that of the vicar’s actress daughter, Holly.
The film unites West End star Norman Bowman of Mamma Mia! and
Les Miserables fame with acclaimed comedy and classical stage star
Virginia Byron, along with brilliant young actress Claire Heverin

TOO MANY GHOSTS

starring PETROS KOUKOULOMATIS
with MANDY CARR and DAVID SUTHERLAND
Fictionalised commentary on the folly of war set in Europe between the last five days of the Second World War and a few days after the end of hostilities. Joe Franklin, a young corporal in Britain’s illustrious 350-year-old East Yorkshire Regiment, is reminiscing about the horrors of war and the mental scars it inflicts on the physically and mentally injured. Too Many Ghosts has been screened in 26 countries, spanning  the United States, Canada and South Korea, Australia and Russia and all across Europe, East and West, including 13 showings over four weeks at the 400-seat London cinema of the Imperial War Museum and, simultaneously, at the Nazi death-camp Auschwitz. Recipient of the Best Director award at The International Historical Film Festival 2012, Bulgaria

INTERVIEWS WITH CAST AND CREW

Filmed & Conducted by DAVE BLISSETT
Produced & Edited by IAN WOODWARD

LOVE SONG

THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF TCHAIKOVSKY

starring SIMON ALEXANDER and LEE FARRELL
with AIMEE CRAFT, VICKY ALBUM, JOE SHEFER, ANNIKA ÁLOFTI,
ALEX MOTT, VÉRONIQUE SEVEGRAND, JENNIFER OLIVER, JED PEREZ,
VILIUS TUMALAVIČIUS, STEPHEN CARROLL, MARCUS PAYNE,
COURTNEY HARRISON, JAMES McCLELLAND, SIMON WILLSHIRE
THE WATFORD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
(leader REBECCA BOYLE, conductor EDWARD KAY)
Commissioned Love Song ballet sequence (not in today’s screening)
featuring LLOYD PETCHEY (Serbian National Ballet) and ROWAN SHONE
The Espinosa Chute Dancers
Dance Sequence Director  CORINNA CHUTE
(Director of The Vyne Performing Arts Centre)
Choreographer  YAT-SEN CHANG
(former principal dancer English National Ballet)
Based on ground-breaking research by Tchaikovsky aficionado Ian Woodward whose film reveals for the first time the sensational heart-breaking true story behind the creation of the Russian composer’s fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet which gave the world one of the most famous love themes ever written. The biopic drama, which has rocked the classical-music establishment, shows why Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Love Theme is not in fact about a teenage boy and girl in love…not even about a girl. Tchaikovsky based the music on his love for music student Eduard Zak, seeing himself as Romeo and Zak as Juliet. The film received the prestigious (and very heavy) Award of Excellence trophy at The Canada International Film Festival 2015 held at Vancouver’s awesome Edgewater Casino.
“This movie is a masterpiece” – Dr Mario Kraiger, Deputy Festival Director,
The Golden Diana International Film Festival, Austria

 Film
Ian Woodward’s

starring NORMAN BOWMAN and VIRGINIA BYRON
with CLAIRE HEVERIN
and THE ENCORE FILMS CHOIR
JOYCE AGBONSON, LARA COOPER-CHADWICK, ANASTASIA DREW,
AUDE FLORENTIN, ELISA HAYRAPETYAN, DARIA KING,
FRANCESCA MORAN, GEORGINA ROBERTS, LAIA MARTINEZ RUBIR
Organist & Vocal Coach NATALIE ANNE OWEN
The idyllic world of an American opera-singer-turned-priest – known
to his parishioners as “The Singing Vicar” – is changed forever when
the English woman he will marry reveals the cruel fate destined to
overwhelm both their lives and that of the vicar’s actress daughter, Holly.
The film unites West End star Norman Bowman of Mamma Mia! and
Les Miserables fame and acclaimed comedy and classical actress
Virginia Byron, along with brilliant young actress Claire Heverin

From the Facebook page of The Christian Film Festival, Virginia, USA

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“BECAUSE” MUSICAL NUMBER

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