Dave Johns film wins the Palme D'Or

Ken Loach movie scoops top prize at Cannes

Comedian Dave Johns’s film I Daniel Blake has won the Palme d’Or – the top award at the Cannes film festival

Directed by Ken Loach, Johns plays the title role of a carpenter and widower who can’t get work or benefits after a near-fatal heart attack. He forms a friendship with a single mother Kaye, played by Hayley Squires.

Johns tweeted: ‘Omg we've won the Palme D'or our film I Daniel Blake ..I'm blown away'

Collecting the award, Loach said: 'We must give a message of hope, we must say another world is possible.'

Both stars received glowing reviews, with The Guardian praising their ‘good unactorly’ performance and the Daily Telegraph singling him out for bringing a welcome comic touch to the Kafkaesque slobbery – the script is struck through with Geordie humour like mica in rock’.

And Hollywood trade paper Variety said: 'Johns, in a powerful performance, gives Daniel a plucky decency but a lonely anger underneath that simmers until it needs to explode.'

Johns’s previous acting credits include the comedian-led productions of Twelve Angry Men, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and The Odd Couple in Edinburgh. He also wrote a stage adaptation of The Shawshank Redemption with Owen O'Neill, which played the West End in 2009.

And it is not the first time Loach has worked with comedians. John Bishop starred in Route Irish in 2010 and Justin Moorhouse, Mick Ferry, Des Sharples and Smug Roberts appeared in Looking For Eric the previous year.

Filmed in Newcastle, I Daniel Blake is 79-year-old Loach’s second Palme d’Or, following The Wind That Shakes The Barley a decade ago. That was the last time the award was won by a British film.

The prestigious annual accolade is awarded by a jury comprised largely of film-makers and actors.