Anthony Boyle has gone from strength to strength in recent years.
From his humble beginnings in Derry Girls, to leading Disney+’s Say Nothing and Netflix’s House of Guinness, his star power is certainly on the rise.
Now he will lead another TV show based on Michael Magee’s novel, Close to Home.
Channel 4 confirmed the news this week that the best novel would be adapted into a mini-series.
Element Pictures, the company behind Normal People, will be producing it.
Anthony will star as Sean, alongside his House of Guinness co-star, Seamus O’Hara as Anthony. The series also will see Jessica Reynolds take on the role of Mairéad and Oisín Thompson as Ryan.
Author Michael Magee will adapt it for the small screen.
Close to Home tells the story of Sean, a young man who finds himself back in Belfast. Back from university and back into old habits.
Back on the mad all-nighters, the borrowed tenners and missing rent, the casual jobs that always fall through. Back with his brother, his ma and all the things they never talk about.
Back where the promised prosperity of peacetime has yet to arrive and every street has a story to tell. One night, Sean assaults a stranger at a party and everything is tipped into chaos.
Michael Magee, Novelist and Writer, says: “Developing Close to Home for television has been an intensely fulfilling creative experience, a dream come true, really, and I’m incredibly grateful to Michael Dawson and Clare Dwyer Hogg for all the work they’ve done with me on the scripts, and to Diarmuid Goggins and Gemma Boswell and the whole team at Element and Channel 4 for the passion and creative energy they’ve put into bringing this story to life.”
Filming for the series kicks off in Belfast this month.