RE-INVENTING EDDIE

Year: 2002
UK: Guerilla Films
Cast: John Lynch, Geraldine Somerville, Lauren Cook, Ben Thompson, Judith Barker, Sidney Livingstone, Ian Mercer, John Thomson, Joan Oliver, John McCardle, Stefanie Button, Sam Aston, Georgina Lenton, Sally Sheridan, Daniel Crowder, Suzanne Nixon, Colin Culross, Andrew Pleavin, Justin Burrows, Diana Fairfax, Gwenno Hodgkins, Dewi Rhys, Brian Fearn, Steve Hillman, Nina De Mitri
Director: Jim Doyle
Countries: UK / Ireland
UK: 93 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains moderate sex references
UK Release Date: 7 May 2004 (Limited Release)

Synopsis

Eddie Harris (John Lynch) is a 'normal' dad, who loves his life, his job and most of all his family.

His philosophy is one of honesty and frankness and he agrees with his wife Jeanie (Geraldine Somerville) to be open and natural when answering their children's questions, no matter how embarrassing.

This backfires when their daughter Katie (Lauren Crook) stumbles in on them making love, and proceeds in all innocence to regale her school with her inside knowledge of the carnal pleasures.

Jeanie is asked to see the Head Mistress who is slightly concerned at the level of Katie's knowledge and at a picture Katie has drawn of Eddie dressed up as a 'rough old granny' - a bath-time game they play. Eddie soon finds he is being investigated and in an attempt to keep his family together he is forced to exile himself from the centre of his family until the matter is dealt with.

While in exile Eddie gets the benefit of some misguided advice from his best friend Cliff (John Thomson) and embarks on a quest to become a 'normal' dad again. Wickedly funny and extremely poignant, RE-INVENTING EDDIE is a journey of lost innocence and false accusations.

Directed and co-written by Jim Doyle, RE-INVENTING EDDIE is based on the critically acclaimed West End play 'One Fine Day' by Dennis Lumborg. 'One Fine Day' was nominated for the 1995 Writer's Guild Award for Best Regional Theatre Play, short listed for the 1996 Arts Council John Whiting Award. The film was set and shot in The North West of England (of which Jim Doyle is a native) and features a brief escape to the North Wales Riviera. The backdrops to the characters and events are the giant, incendiary chemical plants of the Wirral and the impotent sludge of the Manchester Ship Canal.