Dame Maggie Smith will reprise one of her best-known stage roles — as Miss Shepherd in “The Lady in the Van” — for the big screen, it was announced today.
Tom Rothman’s TriStar Productions has joined with BBC Films to greenlight the film version of Alan Bennett’s adaptation of his West End hit, based on his own bestselling memoir.
Nicholas Hytner will direct the true story of an eccentric woman of uncertain origins, who “temporarily” parked her broken-down van in Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for the next 15 years.
Alex Jennings (“The Queen”), who will play both Bennett and his alter ego, AB.
The film will be Hytner’s first directorial outing since ending a decade at the helm of the British National Theatre. He and Bennett previously collaborated on the films of Bennett’s “The Madness of King George” and “The History Boys.”
Principal photography is scheduled to begin in October in London, with the film’s release anticipated for the second half of 2015.
