Last updated at 17:25, Tuesday, 25 September 2012

AFTER decades of fascination, years of planning and 10 months of filming and editing, finally the big night arrived for the very first public showing of a film directed by a Laurel and Hardy fanatic.

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The cast of Stan’s Childhood arrived in limousines for the big screen debut of the film about Stan Laurel’s early life in Ulverston, where he was born and brought up by his grandparents.

Director Brian Worthington had dreamed of making the film since he first visited Ulverston in 1989 and learned of the comic legend’s connections to the town.

With wife Julie, he started writing the script in 2009 and the final scenes were filmed in Gillam’s Tearoom in Market Street, Ulverston, in January. In the film, tearoom owner Doug Gillam plays the part of Mr Gillam the grocer, his great, great, great grandfather who regularly served Stan and his grandmother during the late 1890s in the store on the corner of Market Street and Union Street. Much of the shooting took place at Clayton Hall in Manchester, but filming was also carried out at Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway, 3 Argyle Street in Ulverston, where Stan lived, and the Hoad, where he went egg rolling at Easter.

The glitzy premiere was held at the Empire Cinema in Mr Worthington’s hometown of Wigan last week.

Mr Worthington and Mr Gillam plan to hold a public showing of the film in Ulverston in the near future.

First published at 17:24, Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk