Old pal's act 1 scene 2...
OLIVER Irving is one of those people who have kept the same group of pals since boyhood.
And those friendships have paid off.
He's worked with them in films and in bands.
Film director and drummer Oliver, who grew up in Sharrow and went to High Storrs School, has made a comedy cops and robbers series for the web.
So if there's nothing you fancy on the box over Christmas you could always log on and download Life Is Just A Game.
It's been released over the past few weeks as a series of episodes and the eighth is 'premiered' tomorrow.
Earlier this year Oliver made a bit of a stir with his film How To Be, which was premiered at the Showroom.
It starred Robert Pattinson, who made his name in Twilight, Anglo-American actress Rebecca Pigeon and comedian Jeremy Hardy.
It was while on tour in America promoting the movie that he came up with the idea of reviving a film he had made at film shool in Bournemouth.
That had finished up as a 55- minute film, also called Life Is Just A Game, which had a restricted release on DVD.
The new series is set in New York (with some of the filming also done in London).
He says: "I am completely obsessed with New York. It is truly the greatest city on earth and so completely entrenched in my pysche through movies that I knew we had to set the series there.
"It was great to film there. The place is so visually arresting it was like being on a huge studio back lot."
It stars Mike Pearce, a friend he made at film school, as Tommy Delniros, a delusional cop who cannot differentiate between Seventies New York and the present day.
It also involves a trio of Sheffielders Oliver has hung around with since a kid.
There's fellow musician, composer Joe Hastings, who arranged the music, and also plays a retired cop. He has known Oliver since he was 12.
Piano player Sam Butterworth first met Oliver and Joe when he joined their band, called Cemetery Road, when he was 15 and got his first taste of acting in the film they made together, Nuclear Zombie Overload.
These days the three play together in a jazz fusion band called Portrait.
And the third of Oliver's pals is Johnny White, who plays an English aristocrat called Earl Grey.
He says: "I met Oliver when I was a kid and he's been putting me in his films ever since."
Life Is Just A Game is a fast-paced slickly produced serial which is already getting a following.
Oliver also has a habit of meeting the right people.
Rebecca Pigeon, his female lead in How To Be, is the wife of director David Mamet and the two men have struck up a friendship.
"It's extraordinary. In the space of a year I've gone from being a complete schmuck to someone who can go to LA and lunch with David Mamet," he says.
Watch the film at www.lifeisjustagame.com
Got a view? Add your comment below.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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