BBC3 drama to explore social services fallout

BBC3 is to air a 90-minute film about three brothers split up by social services, produced by Kindle Entertainment and directed by The Devil’s Whore director Marc Munden.

AWOL was ordered by BBC Learning and will launch next year in cinemas before moving to television, when it will be released in tandem with an online game which harnesses new technology to allow viewers to choose their own plot in real time.

Lin Coghlan (The Miracle, Kingfisher Blue, First Communion Day) wrote the drama, which stars newcomer Aaron Taylor as unemployed 18-year-old H and Thomas Sangster (Bright Star, Nowhere Boy, Love Actually) as Casey, a warm-hearted 15-year old with learning difficulties.

The story opens with the death of their mother, when the pair face being separated from their baby brother by social services, and Casey “takes the only action open to him” – snatching his brother and going on the run.

“Casey thinks that if he finds his dad everything will be alright. The police and social services think that Casey is a criminal. H thinks Casey is off his head but Casey thinks they should be a family,” Kindle said.

Munden said: “AWOL is a 21st century road movie [and] a film that can only have been made now – when adults are children and children are expected to be adults, when adults are no longer able to take on the burden of parenting, so infantilised have they become, so dependent on escaping through drugs and drink.  And children have to take on that burden instead.”

Sara Feilden (Off-Side) is the producer and Kindle founders Anne Brogan and Melanie Stokes are the executive producers. Brogan added: “AWOL is a film that gives a voice and humanity to those young people in Britain today who are often characterised as thugs or hoodies.”

The online game will enable viewers can find out what might have happened if the ending had been different, and will be invited to make “challenging moral choices” on behalf of H as he attempts to look after Casey and Severino.

“The result of an individual viewer’s choice is played out in real time in a continuously moving interactive drama. This technology, developed by the BBC has never been used before and offers a truly engaging and immersive viewing experience,” Kindle said.