FARNWORTH Cricket Club will become a film studio as a movie is set to be shot there.
Filming will take place on Saturday and Sunday (April 2 and 3) for Disaster Dates, a comedy about two freshly single characters who wind up back in the world of online dating, only to find out a lot has changed since they were last single.
Things will be very busy at the cricket club over the two days, with a cast and crew of 30 people working their way through the scenes, some of which will be improvised for spontaneity.
The cast took part in a rehearsal session on Sunday (March 27) at the cricket club, which has already attracted a bit of local attention.
Creator and director of Disaster Dates, Chris Jackson, is originally from Melbourne, Australia but has since emigrated to the UK and has lived in Bolton for the last three years.
When asked why he decided to film in Farnworth, he said: “Why not Farnworth?”
On his inspiration for the show, he said: “I did have a couple of disaster dates of my own.”
Covid lockdowns prevented Mr Jackson from getting the project off the ground, but he admitted that the idea has been “fermenting for a while.”
The two main characters of the show, Mike and Suzy, end up on a Blind Dates-esque TV show where “people are picked at random. There’s no screening.”
Mr Jackson added: “Anything that can go wrong does go wrong.”
The film will be released in two different guises. Firstly, a short, 25-minute version will be submitted to various film festivals including Manchester, Bolton and St Kilda in Jackson’s native Australia. There will also be a “theatrical release” later this year.
Mr Jackson said: “We’re going to hire a cinema with an audience of about 50 people later in the year. All the cast will be there in character for a Q and A.”
There is a busy summer ahead for Chris, who is also planning to film a horror film across sites in Bolton, Farnworth and Heywood, as well as filming the third season of a show that aired on Australian TV called Creatives on the Couch.
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