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Chris Marshall Since breaking into the industry with a treatment commission following a verbal pitch for his first screenplay “Taking Angel”, Chris Marshall has been writing film and television screenplays alongside his work as an Assistant Director in the industry for a decade. Chris loves the intricacies of storytelling, creating characters and turning complex, imaginary worlds into places that readers and viewers can visualize through the clarity of his writing. Believing in the its artistic and commercial potential, Chris’s goal is to secure a commission for his 6 part children’s fantasy/horror “Granted”.
Whilst evacuated from London to a grand country house in rural North Yorkshire, Frannie Wheeler finds a magic lamp which harbors the power to grant the wishes of its master. He soon discovers that the lamp is just one of a collection of magical artifacts and that the Nazis are searching for them, aided in by the family Frannie is living with. Frannie must escape and evade the clutches of the nihilistic SS Colonel Jaeger, thereby ensuring that the powerful artifacts do not fall into Hitler's hands.
Synopsis: 1939, the start of World War 2. Frannie Wheeler (10) could not have imagined that the first day of his evacuation to the Sandars’ country house would end this way. Having succumbed to peer pressure, Frannie finds himself with three other boys on a midnight walk through the forest. Their goal is to investigate a mysterious hole that is being dug, under armed guard, in a large clearing. As they approach the hole, they are chased down by a vicious dog. Frannie falls into the hole and is impaled on a jagged scaffold-rod. The other boys leave him for dead as the dog continues to chase them. The dog tires and returns to the hole and begins digging beside Frannie. It unearths something and leaves hastily. Frannie manages to take up the object, it’s a lamp. To be stereotypical, it’s like Aladdin’s lamp. He opens it and unleashes the Qarin, a hideous monster made of black smoke. The Qarin seems likely to harm Frannie, but instead he finds himself back at home, in London with his mother and father. Frannie’s father explains that Frannie has been brought into the lamp by its guardian, the Qarin. Furthermore, because Frannie opened the lamp, he is now its master and whilst there all of his dreams can become reality if he so wishes. Frannie asks to return to the hole unharmed, concluding that he just wants his normal life. His wish is granted and he finds himself back in the hole, but only after encountering his coffin bound, dead-self. Frannie returns to the house and is shocked to discover that four months have passed. The other children have returned to London. Later, Frannie is awoken by the sound of a car. As he watches the arrival of the monstrous SS Colonel Jaeger, Frannie is accosted by one of the other evacuees, a boy named Sam. Sam has been held against his will since Frannie’s disappearance. Via a flashback, we recount Sam’s frightening ordeal at the hands of Jaeger, who possesses a powerful artifact of his own named the Staff of Asclepius. This staff gives the barer the power to read the mind, revealing even your most hidden secrets. Whilst held, Sam has discovered and used an intricate maze of hidden tunnels to move around the house and grounds unnoticed, gathering intelligence and planning their escape. Now, custodian of the lamp, Frannie and Sam flee into the forest and head for nearby Pickering, where they intend to inform the police. It’s there that they will begin to understand the seriousness of their task and learn that nothing is as it seems. They can trust nobody and will soon come to learn that being the master of the lamp is in fact the most poisoned of chalices..
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