David Thompson

Movie - 1993, 2h 15m • as Byron

An uplifting family drama about the danger of drug addiction, DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN stars Meredith Baxter (TV's FAMILY TIES). Baxter plays Mary Ann, a nurse at a methadone clinic who falls in love with one of her patients, Guy (Stephen Lang). While helping him overcome his drug addiction, she still manages to hide her own dalliances with narcotics--so well, in fact, that no one suspects at all. The pair marry and have a child, but soon Mary Ann's troubled past and hidden addiction threaten the stability of the happy life that she and Guy finally have for themselves. DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN illustrates the power of family love and how it can overcome even the greatest personal problems.

Movie - 1994, 2h 15m • as Anthony

Alan Bleasdale's touching yet frank drama for Channel 4 about the struggles of a group of young adults leaving school in a deprived area of Liverpool. Starring Stephen Walters, Suzanne Maddock and Amanda Mealing. Based on the acclaimed play by Jim Morris, voted Most Promising Playwright by the Financial Times and Morning Star in 1981. Blood on the Dole shows the lives of four teenagers, two boys and two girls, struggling to cope after being thrust into the real world for the first time after leaving school. Living in deprived Merseyside, the four youths' bright-eyed optimism for their futures and new-found freedom is soon crushed by the realities of unemployment, poverty, and the brutal reality of living and trying to find work in a city in decline. They all soon find themselves in the hopeless situation of facing complete dependence on state handouts, "the dole". The four teenagers instead find themselves turning to each other to find the strength to survive.