RICHARD MARK and CHARLOTTE FROST, two of Britain’s most outstanding young actors, are poised to be seen by worldwide onscreen audiences with the imminent film-festival release of their first film together. Their chemistry opposite each other is palpable.

“It’s been a real joy working with Richard – he’s an absolute babe!” beams Charlotte. “And whenever there was a piano to hand, he’d entertain us all with his amazing keyboard playing.”

“Charlotte is so full of life and such a sparky person,” adds recently-married Richard, “that she made each day’s filming something to really look forward to. There was never a dull moment!”

Their new film, I Love You Truly, based on a screenplay by Ian Woodward, explores the on-off relationship of a Young Woman and a Young Man as they slowly begin to discover more things about each other and experience, they believe, true love for the first time.

Charlotte Frost plays the Young Woman, an American actress from Boston, Massachusetts, now living near London. She is vibrant and fun-loving on the surface but beneath the bright exterior lurks a more serious, deeper person who constantly questions her very existence. She wonders if she will ever find true love.

Richard Mark plays the Young Man, a rising star at a London advertising agency who has a penchant for penning melancholic verse in the style of his Romantic poet heroes. When he first meets the Young Woman he has not been in a serious relationship for five years. He wonders if he will ever find true love.

They both wonder, in fact, if the day will ever come when they will be able to say to someone in a believable, romantic context, “I love you truly!”

For I Love You Truly”, filmed in some of the most exquisitely beautiful county settings around Hertfordshire, just outside London, is essentially a story of two people discovering and building trust and finding a soul mate who they hope will be with them forever.

The busy, much-in-demand actor Steve Carroll makes a welcome return to Encore Films as the priest. He played, to great acclaim, the charismatic Tsar Alexander III (seen below opposite the newly-married Tchaikovsky in the St Petersburg Winter Palace scene) in Ian Woodward’s multi-award-winning 19th-century biopic Love Song: The Triumph and Tragedy of Tchaikovsky.

“One day I got a call out of the blue from Ian asking if I’d like to play the priest in a film called I Love You Truly that he was casting,” recalls Steve. “I jumped at the opportunity because I’d never played a clergyman before – and I’d always wanted to!”

I Love You Truly will have its World Premiere in the United States at the end of February 2017. More news to follow. After that it will be shown at film festivals around the world until the early part of 2018 – and beyond. We wish it well!

PHOTOS BY I LOVE YOU TRULY UNIT PHOTOGRAPHER ISABELLE THOMAS