'It'll be serious, with some laughs'

Steve Coogan has revealed details of his next screenplay.

The Alan Partridge star has reunited with his Philomena co-writer, Jeff Pope, to pen a film about a ten-year-old boy living in Haworth in Yorkshire in 1976.

Speaking to Stuart Maconie and Mark Radcliffe on their BBC 6 radio show, Coogan described the script as 'serious but with some laughs'.

'Like Philomena, it's quite a heavy subject but you make people laugh, because there's nothing worse than seeing a very heavy and maudlin, self-righteous film,' he said. 'You've got to put a few laughs in there.'

Philomena marked a departure for Coogan into scripting non-comedy features, winning him and Pope best adapted screenplay at the Baftas and garnering an Oscar nomination in the same category, one of four Academy Award nods.

Pope, who is also head of factual drama at ITV and executive producer for Cradle To Grave, has also written Stan & Ollie, the forthcoming Laurel and Hardy biopic starring Coogan and John C. Reilly in which they portray the comedy legends on their 1953 variety hall tour of Britain.

Coogan currently has a number of other, varied films in the works, including playing an Apartheid-era lawyer in the South African movie Shepherds and Butchers; co-starring with Richard Gere in the tense drama, The Dinner, based on Herman Koch's bestselling novel; and portraying a gay couple with Paul Rudd in An Ideal Home.

He has also voiced Satan in the adult animation, The Adventures of Drunky and lent his vocal talents to this summer's The Secret Life of Pets, alongside Louis CK, Kevin Hart, Hannibal Buress and Albert Brooks.

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 17 Apr 2016