Gwendoline Christie, Harry Enfield join 'Swallows and Amazons'

Cast and crew have set sail for the big-screen adaptation of the film update of Arthur Ransome classic Swallows and Amazons.

Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), Jessica Hynes (Shaun of the Dead) and Harry Enfield (Kevin and Perry Go Large) have joined Rafe Spall and Kelly Macdonald in Philippa Lowthorpe’s (Call the Midwife) feature debut, adapted by Andrea Gibb (Dear Frankie).

The Walker and Blackett children will be played by Dane Hughes, Orla Hill, Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen, Bobby McCulloch, Seren Hawkes and Hannah Jayne Thorp.

Principal photography got underway in the Lake District on June 21.

Nick Barton of Harbour Pictures Productions, Nick O’Hagan, and BBC Films’ Joe Oppenheimer, are producers.

Swallows and Amazons follows four children dreaming of an escape from the tedium of a summer holiday with their mother. When finally given permission to camp on their own on a remote island in the middle of a vast lake, they are overjoyed.

But when they get there they discover they may not be alone…As they battle for ownership of the island, they learn the skills of survival and the value of friendship, which helps prepare them for the real danger they must face from the adult world.

BBC Films and the BFI developed the project with Harbour Pictures and are also supporting production. Finance also comes from Screen Yorkshire, The Electric Shadow Company and Maiden Investments with HanWay Films handling sales. StudioCanal has UK rights.

Executive producers are Christine Langan of BBC Films, the BFI’s Natascha Wharton, StudioCanal’s Danny Perkins and Jenny Borgars, Screen Yorkshire’s Hugo Heppell, Alexa Seligman and John Jencks of Electric Shadow, Peter Watson of HanWay Films, Steve Milne, and Ian Maiden.