Fan fulfils boyhood pledge to Michael Morpurgo by turning book into film

‘My agent gets an email from someone saying, “my son is really keen on writing a screenplay of your book’”

A MICHAEL MORPURGO fan who at the age of 11 told the author that he would one day adapt one of his books for the big screen, has kept his promise.

Toby Torlesse, now 22, has written the screenplay for Waiting for Anya, which will be in cinemas later this year.

The adaptation follows the storyline of Sir Michael’s 1990 novel, which is set during the Second World War, when a young shepherd called Jo smuggles Jewish children from France through the Pyrenees into Spain with the help of a widow.

Mr Torlesse, a history undergraduate at Edinburgh University, is the son of Alan Latham, the managing director of Goldfinch Productions, the studio behind the film.

He was a child of 11 when he first met Sir Michael following a performance of the play War Horse, based on the author’s novel of the same name.

Sir Michael, the 75-year-old former Children’s Laureate, said: “Three or four years later, my agent gets an email from someone saying, ‘my son is really keen on writing a screenplay of your book, he loves the book, would that be all right?’

“We thought it was wonderful but, of course, we knew he wouldn’t do it. But he did do it.”

Sir Michael, who was speaking at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival, added: “We couldn’t tell them it was a terrible script, which is wasn’t, and in the end we said we would charge an awful lot of money for it, hoping they would go away, but they didn’t go away and a couple of years later, they were out making this film in France with a wonderful cast.

“Toby has done a smashing job.” Mr Torlesse, originally from York, said it was not until he read War Horse at the age of eight that he developed an interest in literature. He collaborated with Ben Cookson, the director, on the film and his father was a producer.