Comedy names in movie about Channel-swimming hero

Several familiar comedy actors have landed roles in a new film about Captain Matthew Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel.

Steve Oram from Sightseers, Terry Mynott, aka Channel 4’s The Mimic, Hannah Tointon, who played Simon's girlfriend Tara in The Inbetweeners and Tom Stourton, from Totally Tom and forthcoming BBC Three sitcom Siblings all have roles in The Greatest Englishman. Warren Brown who played DS Ripley in Luther, takes the role of Webb.

In 1875 – just two years after the front crawl had been introduced to the UK – Captain Matthew Webb, a retired merchant seaman, survived fierce winds, treacherous currents and multiple jellyfish stings to swim from Dover to France in almost 22 hours.

His coach was a self-proclaimed ‘swimming professor' Frederick Beckwith – to be played by Oram – whose star turn was 'smoking underwater'. Webb died eight years later attempting to swim through the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls.

Mynott plays Captain Paul Boyton, a Coney Island daredevil known as the Fearless Frogman who crossed the Channel in a novel rubber suit that worked like a kayak, while Stourton plays J.B Johnson, who made an earlier failed attempt to swim the Channel.

The film is expected to hit cinema screens in late 2014, with Mercury Prize nominees British Sea Power providing the soundtrack.

Director Justin Hardy said: ‘Captain Webb is a largely forgotten British hero. He attempted to swim the English Channel when the very idea was seen as beyond impossible, equipped only with his moustache, doses of brandy and a wire wool swimsuit. We want to tell the story of a classic underdog who fought against all odds to make it to the other side.’

The film is executive produced by James Salter for Marathon Films, who himself has swum the English Channel.

Published: 11 Dec 2013