After Steve McQueen (Hunger [trailer, film focus]) and Sam Taylor-Wood (Nowhere Boy [trailer]), it is the turn of yet another British artist to make the leap into film. Artist/author Harland Miller is adapting his acclaimed novel Slow Down Arthur, Stick To Thirty into a screenplay for London-based Riley Productions with development funding from the UK Film Council.

It is 1980 and the charismatic but lost Kid Glover has been away in Scotland on doctors orders after ‘a bit of a breakdown’. Back in his hometown of York – where the Yorkshire Ripper has emptied the street and New Wave has exploded onto the music scene – he no longer fits in with his old friends listening to Northern Soul, having sex and fighting at the weekend. But when Kid spots Ziggy Hero, a David Bowie impersonator from Halifax, he thinks he may well have found his salvation.
Steve Barron (Mike Bassett-England Manager, Merlin, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Choking Man) who is also renowned for his music videos for Michael Jackson, Dire Straits and Bryan Adams is to direct.

Barron said, “Harland has always been playful with words in his art, often unashamedly witty. In ‘Slow Down’ he shows an incredible knack of shining a light on what it was like to be a teenager in the early 80’s. At that time more than almost any other your choice in music informed who you were and how you would survive. Harland has created a vivid, funny and exciting drama. It’ll be a wonderful challenge to translate it to the screen.”

Rose Garnett is supervising producer for Riley Productions.