TV airing and short cinema run for Happy New Year, Colin Burstead

The BBC is making a one-off comedy movie with Sightseers director Ben Wheatley.

Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, will star Humans actor Neil Maskell as a man who hires a country manor for his extended family to celebrate New Year. 

But his plans are undermined by the arrival of his estranged brother David, played by Sam Riley (who was Diaval in the 2014 film Maleficent).

The movie will get its premiere at the  BFI London Film Festival in October before being shown around the UK in a limited run of Q&A sessions with Wheatley and the cast.

It will then be broadcast on BBC Two around the new year, and put onto iPlayer for a year.

Wheatley is also writing an extended TV series featuring the same characters for future broadcast.

The ensemble cast also includes Hayley Squires, Richard Glover, Bill Paterson, Peter Ferdinando, Neil Maskell, Mark Monero and Sam Riley along with Asim Chaudhry, Joe Cole, Charles Dance, Alexandra Maria Lara, Doon Mackichan, Sinead Matthews.

Producer Andy Starke said: ‘It was an amazing experience making the film with such a talented cast and crew and we are extremely pleased to be able to release the film in a way that makes sense of a very complicated releasing landscape - the BBC is the perfect home for Ben’s state-of-the-nation drama.’

Rose Garnett, head of BBC Films, added: ‘When Andy and Ben showed Happy New Year, Colin Burstead to me and Shane Allen [controller of BBC Comedy] we both fell for it. Funny, acute and very human, it’s a film about families at their worst and best, and a perfect bit of alternative Christmas television. We love that its home is the BBC.’

Published: 9 Sep 2018