Eddie to star in festive family film

Eddie Izzard is to star in a feature-length Christmas family drama for the BBC.

In the 90-minute film The Lost Christmas, Izzard plays the ‘enigmatic’ Anthony who wakes up inexplicably in a Manchester street on Christmas Eve, and proceeds to help five troubled families though the festivities.

He has the ability to ‘recover the lost’, and comes to the aid of a boy who lost his parents in a car crash and a father who lost the book he used to read to his daughter.

Richard Deverell, the controller of BBC children's programming, said: 'The Lost Christmas promises to be a magical and feel-good family film, but which is built around the ordinary hardships and hurdles many families face.'

Jason Flemyng , who also has a starring role, said: 'The story came off the page for me, somehow uplifting and very poignant at the same time. It just reminded me of all those Christmas films I used to sit down in front of a fire and watch as a kid."'

Writer John Hay added: ‘It’s going to be a very emotional piece and he [Izzard] is not going to do “funny Eddie”.

‘It is structured like Crash, in that a string of apparently unconnected episodes piece together at the end, and has the feelgood factor of It’s A Wonderful Life.’

The film was commissioned for CBBC, but will not be ready to air until 2011 or 2012. It is being made by Impact Film & Television, the Los Angeles company behind the Resident Evil movies.

Published: 27 Aug 2009