A six-week location shoot will begin today in Limerick city on The Real Thing, a 1.5m Euro feature that marks the fifth low-budget feature to go into production in Ireland this year.

Being made as an Irish/German/UK co-production by Wide Eye Films in association with Peter Stockhaus Filmproduktion, Grosvenor Park Productions and Octagon Films, The Real Thing marks the feature debut of Limerick born writer/director David Gleeson

It is also the first feature film ever to shoot entirely in this southern Irish city that also served as the setting and partial location for Alan Parker's Angela's Ashes.

Michael Legge, who played the young emigrant lead in Parker's film, plays a hapless civil servant in The Real Thing. He moves into an apartment with a gay fashion student and finds himself on the catwalk. Other cast includes Alan Leech, Amy Shiels Frank Kelly, David Murray, Sean Power, Alvaro Lucchesi and Maeve McGrath.