Dublin’s Screen Scene is currently in post production with Company Pictures’ ‘The Silence’, an atmospheric drama for BBC directed by Emmy Award winning Irish director Dearbhla Walsh (The Tudors) and starring IFTA winning actress Dervla Kirwan (Ondine) that examines the witnessing of a murder by a deaf girl.
Eighteen-year-old Amelia Edwards, played by deaf actress Genevieve Barr in her acting debut has, at the start of the four part drama, recently been fitted with a cochlear implant, enabling her to hear, but she struggles to accept that she has a place in the hearing world. Breaking free from her over-protective parents, played by Gina McKee (In The Loop) and Hugh Bonneville (Lost In Austen), she goes to stay with her party-loving cousins, homicide detective uncle Jim, played by Douglas Henshall (Collision) and Dervla Kirwan’s warm-hearted aunt Maggie. Amelia witnesses the audacious murder of a policewoman, and is reluctantly propelled further into a loud and frightening world.
Jim is assigned the case, and when she identifies a police officer on the drugs squad as one of the killers, he urgently needs to protect his niece. If his colleagues find out what she has witnessed, she will be in extreme danger from the very people he works with. However by keeping Amelia’s secret, Jim will jeopardise his own position in the force and put his whole family at risk.
‘The Silence’ is written by Fiona Seres (Love My Way, The Surgeon) and produced by Eleanor Greene (Party Animals) who says of the series: "The Silence began as a gem of an idea in a café in Berwick Street Market and our transatlantic script development ended up with Fiona upping sticks and moving her family and life to the UK.”
Eleanor continues with a testament to her Irish director: "That we have ended up with such a stellar cast is testament to the quality of writing and we are very proud to have the fantastic Emmy Award winning director, Dearbhla Walsh, at the helm.”
‘The Silence’ executive producers are Charles Pattinson (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers) and George Faber (Persuasion) for Company Pictures and Polly Hill (Inspector George Hill) for BBC One. Screen Scene's Peter Tighe (Cherrybomb) is currently carrying out the series' post production work. ‘The Silence’ will broadcast on BBC One on Monday, May 10th.
