In Capturing Mary, acclaimed writer-director Stephen Poliakoff enters new territory by creating a terrifying and compulsive story of lost youth.
Starring some of Britain's most talented actors, including Dame Maggie Smith, David Walliams, Ruth Wilson and newcomer Danny Lee Wynter, Capturing Mary introduces caretaker Joe Dix (Danny Lee Wynter) to Mary Gilbert (Maggie Smith), a past luminary of the grand mansion he now tends. When Joe welcomes Mary into the dormant house, he coaxes her in to sharing her memories of it with him.
Once inside, Mary wanders the corridors of the splendid mansion in which, as a brilliant young writer and critic (played in her youth by Ruth Wilson), she attended glamorous soirées during the late Fifties. As she does so, she recounts to Joe the tale of woe that befell her within the gilded walls.
Reflecting on her heyday, remembering parties and functions with the cultural élite, she is haunted by the memory of a subtly evil man, Greville White (David Walliams), who feigned friendship but actually brought about her destruction.
Now, in later life, Mary can't escape the fact that revisiting the past is not always a happy, nostalgic journey but it does help her understand where her despair and disappointment began.
Cast
Dame Maggie Smith............................................... Mary
David Walliams...................................................... Greville
Danny Lee Wynter.................................................. Joe
Ruth Wilson............................................................ Young Mary
