Film

Synopsis

Based on real life experience, Tea Shop Asylum tells the story of Vlad, a lugubrious ex-soldier and asylum seeker from the Balkans, awaiting a new start in life, whose past catches up with him leading to a bizarre and chaotic chain of events.

He and his brother and father pass tedious days in a sleepy English seaside town as they await naturalisation. It would seem obvious that, to speed this process, Vlad should keep his head down, avoid trouble and do nothing to draw attention to himself. But then he got that call…

Admittedly the call concerned a serious matter of honour, but even so it’s reasonable to conclude that it was ill advised of him to then take the illegal job in the psychiatric hospital where he met Dorothy, the therapist, even if he then fell in love with her.

Given this blossoming relationship, it was sheer madness to then agree to kill her patient, the depressed professor and multiple failed suicide, Trevor. Blowing up the seagulls was a blunder, no matter how irritating they were, and any fool knows that an American Bison doesn’t make a good lawnmower.

The mock execution to blackmail Baz, the builder, into smuggling Vlad’s dead grandfather back to Bosnia, economy class, was another unforced lapse of good sense.

But the greatest gaffe of all was building the two-ton statue of Pontius Pilate out of dental amalgam, in order to win a modest prize and ?nance a debt of honour with the greatest pastry chef in Easter Europe.

He should have known better than to do any of these things. He risked being pitched back into the nightmare he’d only recently escaped. But the life force is strong, the need to love is irresistible, and the requirement to ?nd a place and acceptance in the world is overwhelming.

 

The script is acclaimed by actors Joanna Lumley and John Hannah, it is also highly regarded and has been supported by the UK Film Council Premiere Fund and a growing body of highly professional opinion agrees that Tea Shop Asylum is an exceptional, original and inspired piece of writing that requires to be realised.

Professional Script Commentary

Sally Caplan – Ex Head of Premiere Fund, UK Film Council

I really liked the premise of Tea Shop Asylum and at times it works very well. I particularly liked the character of Vlad who evokes a lot of sympathy, but equally draws our admiration too. Some of his dialogue is excellent and very amusing.

Phil Parker – Development Executive & Director – Not Your Average Company

This romantic comedy with its dark side creates a wonderfully eccentric world as a group of displaced Serb men, a suicidal professor and a love torn builder embark on a series of adventures that change their lives and bring them true love – even the one who does not deserve it! Here nothing ever ultimately goes wrong and love will ultimately win out against all the odds.

Development Executive/Associate Producer

I really enjoyed this script and it only got better on second reading. It is wonderfully touching and comic; and peppered with quirky, interesting, likeable and well rounded characters and interactions.

It is rare that a script has me chuckling out loud but this one did consistently, I loved the offbeat world that is created. The dialogue is smart as well as funny. The characters elicit genuine concern for their fate. The pacing and structure flow, the plot twists and turns and never loses momentum, as you go on an adventure with these characters to achieve a seemingly ridiculous goal for an end which you can’t yet fathom, but yet trust the protagonists in their assessment that it is important.

I think the writing in this script is a cut above and the film has genuine potential as a character comedy with a fun story in a worthwhile setting. There is plenty of fodder here for a hilarious and touching trailer, and I think audiences will respond to it as a refreshing alternative to studio fare, a genuine comedy with a British and eastern European feel, and a lot of substance.

VLAD is a wonderful multilayered character. Damaged but unruffled, kind and thoughtful but hard as well, an un-clichéd romantic. His flirtation with Dorothy is wonderful from the start when he asks her out in the most thick-skinned way, to his sweet note to her - ‘I am mortified to have left you in the abandoned..’. Females in the audience will be drawn in by his charm in the same way that Dorothy is. His dialogue is wonderful, his use of English is charming but things he says have great insight.

TREVOR is a wonder, great character of comedy and pathos. I enjoyed the fact that Vlad’s crazy scheme happened to save Trevor’s life as a bi-product.

I genuinely look forward to seeing these characters brought to life on the screen.

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