Films celebrating Lancashire ladies' football star and Lytham Hall history given Blackpool premiere

The short features are Granny, which celebrates the life of Lizzy Ashcroft, a star of the Preston-based Dick Kerr Ladies football in the early 20th century, and Flyte ofFancy, which was filmed at Lytham Hall last summer is set in the late 1930’s.

It builds of the suggestion that Lytham squire Harry Clifton had been a friend and inspiration to Evelyn Waugh for the character of Sebastian Flyte in his book Brideshead Revisited. Waugh himself visited Lytham Hall on more than one occasion.Granny is set in Preston in the 1970s and looks at Lizzy’s life after her football career and explores how some of the stories from her playing days were rediscovered by family members in later life.

The film also looks at Lizzy’s relationship with her grandson, Steve Bolton, who is also one of the film's producers.

Lizzy formed part of the pioneering Dick, Kerr Ladies side after joining in 1923 and represented the team for more than a decade.

Despite the Dick, Kerr Ladies’ huge popularity, success and significant charity work, the FA banned women’s football in December 1921, a ban not lifted for almost 50 years.

The film was written and produced by Blackpool-based Michelle Crane, who was inspired by an article penned by Steve about his grandmother’s life.In Flyte of Fancy, a mysterious man claiming to be author Evelyn Waugh's butler visits Lytham Hall, the home of Waugh's friend from Oxford, Harry Clifton.

The lead is played by former Emmerdale actor Mathew Bose, who played Paul Lambert in the soap, supported by Lytham-born Martyn Coyne as Lomax and Anne Bouget as Violet Clifton.

The screenplay was written by local playwright David Slattery-Christy, with significant research having been carried out through Oxford University. It was filmed and directed by local filmmaker Gillian Wood.

Sunday’s premiere screenings will be at The Pavilion in Blackpool’s Winter Gardens on Sunday, February 12 between 5.30pm and 6.45pm and Flyte of Fancy director Gillian Wood and Granny writer Michelle Crane, who is Blackpool-based, will be available afterwards for a question and answer session.

It’s a Pay What You Can screening, with seats available for whatever you can afford to give. Details here.