Holly Would

Granny Comes To Town

As part of his documentary, ‘Granny’s Gone Wild The Lynn Ruth Miller Movie’ based on the book Starving Hearts; Bill Smith transformed his living room into a 1950s style dining room.
With Ant Carpendale as the cameraman and drama editor, Bill directed the actresses as they re-enacted scenes from the book based on Lynn Ruth Miller’s early life.
Lala Maria Redin played the main character Susan Talberg, who struggled with anorexia and bulimia, no thanks to her verbally abusive mother, played by Julie Watson. Both actresses had spent that morning scouring Brighton’s vintage shops to find the perfect outfit for their characters. I was the costume advisor and general assistant to Ant; helping with the lighting or sound.

The first scene that we shot was a series of gritty moments that showed the effects verbal abuse can have on children. Susan’s mother psychologically tormented her to such an extent that she developed an addiction to food.
Lala demonstrated this addiction perfectly by eating as many cakes and spoonfuls of cream/custard as she could as fast as possible. She then went on to highlight Susan’s eating disorder by pretending to throw it all up again. Even with cream all over her face, hair and blouse she managed to stay serious and portray the pain that her character felt in between mouthfuls of food.
Once the camera had stopped rolling and Julie had finished saying nasty things to her on-screen-daughter, both actresses fell about laughing.
A few weeks later we shot some more scenes, this time with the addition of Jacob Fulton playing Susan’s first husband and Rose Grover as the lady he had an affair with.

Dressed up in ‘50s wedding attire the actors and actresses performed some scenes outside St Georges Road Church, Brighton. Ant expertly dodged any sign of modern day life from his shots, including all of the cars that were parked right behind the actors. Having seen some of the footage I can already tell that this documentary is going to be brilliant because the acting was so special. Who said Hollywood can’t start in your living room?