It is a tale of a feisty young maid and the tribulations of a Cornish tin mine. Yet this is not Poldark, but a new micro-budget movie starring Jenny Agutter.
The Call The Midwife star will walk the red carpet at the Empire, Leicester Square, tonight to launch Tin, the movie she agreed to make because of her passion for the county — only to find that seven million others are now fans too thanks to the BBC’s revival of the Winston Graham romances.
“The timing couldn’t be better but I think it’s just synchronicity. Poldark has certainly made Cornwall look as wild and beautiful as it is. It’s a magical place,” she said.
Agutter, 62, who lives in London but also has a home in Cornwall, got involved in the film after seeing a Miracle Theatre play inspired by a tin mine shares swindle in the late 19th century at Botallack in the west of the county. The company then created the film which was partly shot — as was Poldark — at the former mine for £100,000 using pioneering digital technology.
Poldark
She said: “They’re an extraordinarily inventive and hard-working theatre company. The play was rather wonderful in a tent on the top of the mines at Botallack. It was very Poldark with these old ruined buildings. I just thought it was delightful and said yes.”
She plays the manager of a travelling opera company, which also includes real-life opera singer Benjamin Luxon. It arrives to perform in the mining town and gets tangled up in the scandal.
Tin is released in cinemas on Friday.
