Your Argus
TEXT your pictures, videos and messages to 80360. Start your message with SUPIC or email your tip-offs »
Walters makes assisted suicide film
4:04pm Friday 18th July 2008
Julie Walters is to take on the factually-inspired story of a woman who plans an assisted suicide.
The Mamma Mia! The Movie actress will star in A Short Stay In Switzerland for BBC1, a drama inspired by the true story of Dr Anne Turner.
The drama sees Dr Turner (Walters) diagnosed with a near identical illness to that of her husband Jack, who died from an incurable neurological disease.
With determined rationality, her answer is that once her illness has reached a critical point, she will take her own life.
She needs her children's support, but the more her son and two daughters struggle to gain consensus over their mother's desire to die, the further they pull apart.
The magnitude of the situation threatens to tear the family to pieces.
Award-winning writer Frank McGuinness said: "As a doctor Anne Turner lived and worked by her principles, and she chose to die by them. This film recognises that rare courage."
Dr Turner, a retired physician from Bath, died at Dignitas in Switzerland in January 2006, the day before her 67th birthday.
Filming in London from next month for transmission in winter 2009, A Short Stay In Switzerland is a BBC Drama Production.
McGuinness's credits include Observe The Sons Of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, which won a host of awards including London Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright; Henhouse; Carthaginians; A Doll's House and a film adaptation of Dancing At Lughnasa - which featured Walters' Mamma Mia! co-star Meryl Streep.
Editor's Choice
Eco-dilemmas solved
All the top tip columns make being green sound so easy: just change your light bulbs, walk to the shops and do your recycling, but it never really works out like that. SARAH LEWIS turns agony aunt and answers some of your pressing eco-questions.
Comment: Sign up to an NHS dentist to beat decay
When the new NHS dental contract was introduced, large numbers of dentists left the NHS and focused on private patients.
Woe of Woolies
Woolworths, one of the best-known names on the British high street, has been put into administration with £385 million of debt. As company bosses and administrators Deloitte wrestle with the task of rescuing the business, RICHARD GURNER takes a look back at the company’s history in Sussex and asks business leaders what needs to be done to revive its fortunes.
This week's walk: Horsted Keynes and Furner's Green
From the village of Horsted Keynes, this walk heads eastwards to encircle the nearby settlement of Danehill, crossing and recrossing two well-wooded valleys before returning along part of the Sussex Border Path, a longdistance walking route which sticks fairly closely to the boundary between East and West Sussex.
Julie Walters is to make a drama on assisted suicide
In this section
- Skull dropped after secret revealed
- Younger choice 'a slap in the face'
- Britney mimes during 'tribute' show
- Defiant Swayze 'is beating cancer'
- Take That 'wanted to re-name album'
- Star's relative accused of murders
- Des O'Connor collects CBE at palace
- Celebs turn out for Capital Rocks!
- I won't give evidence - Boy George
Sponsored Links
Local Services
Local Information
Enter your postcode, town or place name
