My Boy Jack | |
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DVD Cover
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Directed by | Brian Kirk |
Produced by | Michael Casey |
Written by | David Haig |
Based on |
My Boy Jack by David Haig |
Starring | David Haig Daniel Radcliffe Kim Cattrall Carey Mulligan Julian Wadham |
Music by | Adrian Johnston |
Cinematography | David Odd, B.S.C. |
Edited by | Tim Murrell |
Distributed by | ITV1 (UK) PBS (USA) |
Release date
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Running time
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93 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
My Boy Jack is a 2007 television drama based on David Haig's 1997 play of the same name. It was filmed in August 2007, with Haig as Rudyard Kipling and Daniel Radcliffe as John Kipling. It does not include act three of the play, which extended to the 1920s and 1930s: instead it ends with Kipling reciting the poem My Boy Jack. The American television premiere was on 20 April 2008 on PBS, with primetime rebroadcast on 27 March 2011. The film attracted about 5.7 million viewers on its original broadcast in the UK on Remembrance Day, 11 November 2007.
My Boy Jack is based on the 1997 play by English actor David Haig. It tells the story of Rudyard Kipling and his grief for his son, John, who died in the First World War. The title comes from Kipling's poem of the same name.
The theatre piece played at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, in 2004. It then toured Oxford, Richmond, Brighton, Norwich, Cardiff and Cambridge, with the newly formed Haig Lang Productions. In America, My Boy Jack has been performed under the title My Son Jack.
As the Great War (World War I) begins, 17-year-old Jack Kipling (Daniel Radcliffe), the only son of the famous English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling, declares his intention to join the Royal Navy to fight against the Germans. The elder Kipling (Haig), who encourages him in his ambition, arranges several appointments for him to enlist in both the Army and Navy. However, when Jack's poor eyesight prevents him from passing the medical examinations, both he and his father are devastated. Determined, Rudyard uses his influence with the military establishment to eventually secure Jack an officer's commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Irish Guards. Both Jack's mother Carrie (Cattrall) and his sister Elsie (Carey Mulligan) disapprove of this post, as they do not wish for him to be deployed to the front line.