Riddle Me This

Last week, while madly casting around for something Irish to write about for St. Patrick’s Day, I wish I would have realized that even though award-winning author/director/producer Brendan Foley now lives in London, he’s originally from Belfast. Which makes him Irish. Which would have made him fair fodder for my St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans. (And if he reads this, it’s possible he will cringe. No matter. On I forge.)

I mentioned Foley in this space last week when I reported the sad news of the death of New Avengers star Gareth Hunt. There was life for Hunt beyond The New Avengers and he enjoyed a rich career on stage, the big screen, and television. His final role was a cameo in the new Foley-written and -directed film, The Riddle.

Foley writes that, in The Riddle, Hunt plays Roy McBride, “a rather quirky pathologist,” and reports that Hunt was “a lovely, gentle, funny man who never took himself too seriously, but who was a great actor.” Adds Foley:

Gareth was quite ill when we were shooting The Riddle, and even though his scenes were all in the same location, we spread them out over a few days so he would not get too tired. He never grumbled and turned in a performance that turned a cameo into a delight. He was in good company, with Derek Jacobi, Vanessa Redgrave and his onscreen pal played by Vinnie Jones. He will be sorely missed.

As I said last week, The Riddle sounds like a winner. Foley reports that the movie is “a literary thriller that zips along. Derek Jacobi is wonderful in a double role as a present day tramp and as Dickens narrating his own long-lost novel.”

The Riddle just “had its first outing at the Berlin Film Market,” Foley says. With any luck, that means that those of us who don’t hang out at film markets will be able to get our mitts on The Riddle soon. In the meantime, an enthusiastic review of the film is here.