If you know Neil Maskell as an actor, you might fancy you’d know him as a film-maker, too. And you’d be right. But you’d also be very wrong. “I think if you see Klokkenluider it’s not really the work of … ” Maskell pauses to determine where his directorial film debut diverges from his onscreen persona. “I was gonna say a ‘tough guy’, but that’s not very fair, because I know some very intelligent tough guys. But it’s not the work of, like, a thug.”
In fact, the title alone – a Dutch word meaning “whistleblower” – sets Klokkenluider above the violent Brit-flicks Maskell once starred in. He is calling today from Antwerp, where he lives with Belgian actor Sura Dohnke, his partner of nearly 12 years, and his family when he’s not in London, and it’s here in Belgium that he’s opted to set his first film as writer-director. It’s about a couple, Ewan (Happy Valley’s Amit Shah) and Silke (played by Dohnke), who are hiding out in an isolated holiday rental, having stumbled on some potentially world-shaking government secret. There they are joined by two shifty security professionals, Chris (Tom Burke of Strike and The Souvenir) and Glynn (well-loved actor’s actor Roger Evans) to await further instruction from an unseen authority. The group pass the time with bickering, drinking and charades, and at one point Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who, Victoria) turns up for a sweary tour de force that will thoroughly scandalise her period drama fans.
