The South African Sun Times – Sunday 25th May, 2003

By Gillian Anstey

Actor Richard E Grant is set to star in a film of Olive Schreiner’s famous novel The Story of an African Farm.

Grant – who has found fame in Britain and Hollywood after growing up in Swaziland and studying at the University of Cape Town’s Drama School – is “committed to the project”, his agent, Harriet Robinson, confirmed from London on Friday .

The Story of an African Farm is about three childhood friends growing up on a Karoo farm in the mid-19th century. A TV series based on the novel was screened more than 20 years ago.

The film’s director, David Lister, whose credits include Leon Schuster’s Panic Mechanic and the TV drama Barney Barnato, said Grant was ideal for the role of the book’s charming but devious villain, Bonaparte Blenkins.

“Look at him in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park. He can do it in a look,” said Lister.

Scriptwriter and producer Bonnie Rodini, who studied the novel for matric, said the story was a South African classic which deserved to be brought to the big screen.

Filming begins in mid-September on a farm midway between the Karoo towns of Matjiesfontein and Laingsburg.

Rodini said casting was still in the initial stages.