THE COLOUR ROOM

The film’s director, Claire McCarthy, said its title, The Colour Room, reflects Cliff’s artistic achievement in making colour and beauty accessible to everybody [...] With the support of other women in the factory and Shorter, she went on to design her art deco Bizarre range, with abstract, geometric and figural forms. During the Great Depression, she ensured the factory’s survival and her future as one of the greatest art deco designers, becoming one of the first women to launch a line under her own name.

According to legend, in spite of constant resistance, Cliff insisted on putting forward her ideas while working on the floor of various Midlands potteries – to the occasional chagrin of her widowed mother (Kerry Fox) and sister (Darci Shaw). Ultimately, however, factory owner Colley Shorter – played by Matthew Goode in the adaptation – recognised her talent, apprenticing her to designer Fred Ridgeway (David Morrissey), sending her to the Royal College of Art and finally helping her establish her own studio.

Your first ever feature film – and it stars Phoebe Dynevor and Matthew Goode and premieres on Sky. Not bad! How does it feel?

It’s amazing, I’m so thrilled! The Colour Room has been about five years in development and it takes such a long time to get things moving – getting the script into shape, then the casting and so on. But weirdly the pandemic seemed to just accelerate everything and we actually shot the film in the pandemic, during total lockdown. It was crazy.