A Visit from a Famous Friend

A Visit from a Famous Friend.

Last week, my lovely friend, the fantastic actor Leonard Fenton came to visit baby Alexander. We ate at my parent’s fabulous Greek restaurant The Olive Tree and Len entertained my toddler, Oliver with his animal impressions and imaginative stories. It was such a fun filled day, I want to bottle it up and treasure it forever.

Len is most famous for his role as Dr Legg in Eastenders and we were lucky enough to work together on a series of moving short films I directed a few years back, for Social Care TV/ The Department of Health that are available online.

The series was created with other well known actors and friends of mine including Michelle Collins, John Altman and Rupert Hill amongst others, who got involved because they wanted to help medical practitioners and front of line health workers to understand the complexities of the Mental Capacity Act in relation to dementia and disability.

It was truly rewarding to direct these social dramas, inspired by the fact they would hopefully empower carers and hugely affect the people under their care.

In Len’s film ‘Raymond’ he plays a man in his 80s who is recently diagnosed with early dementia but is keen to remain as independent as possible and spend £50 on lottery tickets.

The context of the drama is whether Raymond has the capacity to make this decision and how best his care worker Wendy (played by Angela Dixon, above) deals with it. It hopefully assists others in that position to make the right decision.  An emotional film, so powerfully written by screenwriter Phil Hughes, Len is mesmerising in it. You can watch the film here.

I have always been drawn to social drama and documentary, wanting my work to help make a difference so I’m really proud of these films,especially as I was 4 months pregnant with Oliver, shooting them.

Please do share with anyone you think might find the film of interest. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Len will soon be on The Matt Lucas’ Awards TV Show.

Photographs ©Vicki Psarias-Broadbent.