An Awfully Big Adventure ★★ 1994 (R) Coming-ofage saga set in postwar Liverpool around a provincial reperatory company. Stagestruck 16-year-old Stella (Cates) gets work as a company apprentice, immediately getting a crush on arch, callous theatre manager Meredith Potter (a deliciously nasty Grant), who enjoys degrading everyone around him. The company's chance for success rests on a production of "Peter Pan," with visiting actor P.L. O'Hara (dashing Rickman), who immediately seduces Stella and has more than a few secrets of his own. Theatrically exaggerated; based on the novel by Beryl Bainbridge. 113m/C VHS. GB Georgina Cates, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Peter Firth, Alun Armstrong, Prunella Scales, Rita Tushingham, Alan Cox, Edward Petherbridge, Nicola Pagett, Carol Drinkwater, Clive Merrison, Gerard McSorley;
Director:
Mike Newell;
Writer:
Charles Wood;
Writer:
Dick Pope;
Cameo:
Richard Hartley.
