EXCLUSIVE by TOM JACKSON AN actor nominated eight times for an Academy Award will be in Wisbech later this month to shoot his latest film. Filming will take from November 12 for Peter O Toole s movie Dean Spanley, set to be released next year. Mr O Toole

EXCLUSIVE by TOM JACKSON

AN actor nominated eight times for an Academy Award will be in Wisbech later this month to shoot his latest film.

Filming will take from November 12 for Peter O'Toole's movie Dean Spanley, set to be released next year.

Mr O'Toole, star of films such as Venus, Troy, The Last Emperor and Lawrence of Arabia, has also won three Golden Globes, an Emmy award and was honoured with a special Oscar in 2003 for his lifetime contribution to film.

He will be playing a character called Fisk Senior who has little time or affection for his son, Dean Spanley.

The film will be set in Edwardian London, where upper lips are always stiff and men from the colonies are not entirely to be trusted.

The lead role of Dean will be played by Australian actor Sam Neill, who has previously starred in Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park 3 and Bicentennial Man.

Peckover House, the Georgian mansion on Wisbech's North Brink, will be used for the filming and it is understood Mr O'Toole will be staying at an address in North Brink.

Dean Spanley will be a joint production by the Atlantic Film Group and General Film Corporation. The two companies previously combined to produce the horror film The Ferryman last year.

Dean Spanley will be directed by Toa Fraser, from New Zealand, whose debut feature No.2 won the Audience Prize (World Cinema) at the Sundance Film Festival last year.

Executive producers will be David Parfitt, who has previously worked on Shakespeare in Love, and Finola Dwyer, a producer on the 1990s film Backbeat which chronicled the early days of the Beatles.

The film is to be financed by Aramid Capital Partners, the New Zealand Film Commission, Lipsync Productions and Screen East's content investment fund.