RIDGEFIELD — A special screening later this month of Semolina Pilchard, a British crime-comedy set in Liverpool, will highlight a local creative connection for Newtown audiences.

The film follows Clara Reynolds (Sarah Louise Chadwick), the estranged daughter of Gerry (Joe McGann), a terminally ill gangster who summons his daughter home. Clara quickly becomes entangled in a complex inheritance conflict with her younger sister, a determined and jealous woman named Danika (Sophia Leanna Kelly) who is convinced Gerry plans to leave everything to Clara despite the older sibling trying to leave everything behind five years earlier.

Co-Writer and Co-Producer Daina Smith says Clara goes home “and there is a lot of drama, and a lot of cleaning up to do, and all sorts of things going on with the impending death of her dad.”

Smith and Director Mike Clarke will be among the special guests when The Ridgefield Playhouse hosts a screening of the film on Thursday, July 16.

Semolina Pilchard was released in April in the UK. Writing for Screen Critix, Carl Burgess called the film “a loud, chaotic, hilarious, heartfelt love letter to Liverpool that firmly establishes [Mike] Clarke as one of the most exciting independent filmmakers currently working in the UK.”

Smith calls the film “a fun, crazy, wild movie. It is a very classic dark British comedy-slash-gangster film,” she said June 11.

The film is a departure from Smith’s usual forays into straight comedy and romance.

“Comedy is really my thing,” she said. A previous film, a comedy called Student Loans, was optioned by several producers. Smith said she met the award-winning director Mike Clarke about four years ago after the option on Student Loans ran out.

The native New Yorker and Fordham University graduate is a three-time Writers Guild of America-optioned screenwriter. Smith, who lives on Newtown’s historic Main Street with her husband and their two children, currently spends much of her time as a script writer and creative strategist for individuals and companies. She writes scripts for YouTubers, brands, and a few clients including “the biggest name in lacrosse,” she shared during a recent visit.

It was while Smith and a writing partner were exploring the idea of making Student Loans themselves, she said, that they met the multiple award-winning British filmmaker Clarke a few years ago.

After collaborating on a few projects, Clarke had the initial idea for Semolina Pilchard, Smith said. The project launched with seven pages of script from Clarke. Smith read his work, would make her own notes and edits, and the two went back and forth, building the screenplay.

“I’d be editing as I was reading, then I’d add a few pages, we’d talk about what would happen next, we’d be on the same page and then whoever felt more amped up at the time would write the next few pages,” she said. Blending dark humor with emotional drama, the story explores themes of family, legacy, and loyalty.

In his review, Burgess credits Clarke and Smith with filling their screenplay “with jokes, witty exchanges, and colourful Scouse humour. Importantly though, the comedy never overwhelms the emotional side of the story.”

The film’s name comes from the nonsense lyrics found within the Beatles song “I Am the Walrus.” Smith promises fans of that band and particularly that song will enjoy finding all the Easter eggs hidden in the movie.

“For every line of that song, there’s a certain scene that corresponds to it,” she said.

She also said the film is a comedic homage to Liverpool by its director. In a January 21, 2026 Instagram post, in fact, Clarke called the work “a fun film filled to the brim with Liverpool humor.”

Semolina Pilchard has a run time of two hours, four minutes. Burgess’s review notes the film is “packed with eccentric characters, sharp dialogue, criminal mishaps, emotional undercurrents, and enough jokes to keep the two hour runtime flying by. And that runtime genuinely does fly. There is always something happening, always another character entering the madness, another subplot colliding with another, another ridiculous plan going disastrously wrong.”

Tickets for the July 16 screening of Semolina Pilchard at The Ridgefield Playhouse are $38 and available through ridgefieldplayhouse.org. Doors will open at 5:30 pm, with bar and concessions available. The screening will begin at 6:30. A post-screening Q&A will feature Smith, Clarke, and members of the cast.

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.