As a follow-up to our post last week about BBC remaking The Lady Vanishes, the network has now released (via a press release) a synopsis and more details about casting.
It is 1931. Beautiful and wealthy young socialite Iris Carr (played by Tuppence Middleton) is the heart of her social circle. Whilst holidaying with her friends in the Balkans their raucous behaviour escalates and Iris resolves to seek out some tranquillity and travel home alone.
Iris's expectations of peace are short lived when she faints on the platform of the railway station in the scorching heat. She wakes in time to be rushed on to the train but with a pounding head and a feeling of being almost in a dream.
Whilst in this malaise she is comforted by Miss Froy (Selina Cadell), whose tweed suit and bookish looks belie a jovial and adventurous spirit. Miss Froy talks at length about her desperation to return home to her family; but when Iris falls asleep she awakes to find Miss Froy has vanished and her fellow passengers denying she ever existed.
With only the allegiance of handsome English traveller Max Hare (Tom Hughes) for support, Iris maintains her conviction that Miss Froy has somehow been abducted.
As fellow passengers refute Iris's story her conviction appears increasingly to be madness. Iris will have to rely on a strength of character she never knew she had to battle doubt and overcome danger as she strives to solve the mystery of why the lady vanished.
Fiona Seres — who is adapting the screenplay from its original source material, The Wheel Spins by Ethel White (see below) — said: "I am very excited to have such a brilliant cast for The Lady Vanishes not just the key characters played by Tuppence Middleton and Tom Hughes but also a dynamic supporting cast that includes Danish actors Benedikte Hansen and Jesper Christensen."
Production begins on the 90-minute made-for-television movie in Budapest this month. It is scheduled to air on Christmas Day on BBC One.
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The Wheel Spins
Ethel White
The protagonist of the story is Iris Carr, who suffers a blackout just before boarding a train that is traveling across Europe to London. On board the train, the still-woozy Iris befriends a certain Mrs. Froy, a fellow Englishwoman who is perhaps a bit eccentric but seems to be for the most part agreeable and benign. Mrs. Froy is the "vanishing lady" of Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation, and it is Mrs. Froy who mysteriously disappears while Iris is napping. Her inexplicable departure throws Iris into a mind-bending mystery that will make her alternately question her sanity and the designs of the people around her. When Iris asks about Mrs. Froy, everyone on board the train denies ever having seen the old woman. Although Iris could perhaps be swayed due to the knock on her head that Mrs. Froy was merely a vivid hallucination, a few stray details suggest that something more sinister is happening, and Iris resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery.
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