ld authoritarian Communist glob, figures of over two million escape attempts from the USSR seems quite natural. Yet, when a British family unsatisfied with its life in the capitalist West packs up its bags and heads on over the iron curtain to Soviet East Germany looking to live a dream of equality and fulfillment, we find it an occasion to film a dark comedy.
Literature teacher and charismatic Communist Frank Ratcliffe (Iain Glen, from Resident Evil) "democratically" coaxes his attention-starved housewife Dorothy (Catherine Tate, of the acclaimed UK Catherine Tate Show) and two girls Alex (Brittany Ashworth) and Mary (Jessica Barden), along with their Uncle Philip (Nigel Betts) to give up a life of selfishness and join the big socialist family of the Soviet Union.
The move East is seen by all around them as one straight backwards, yet more strange than their decision to defect from the "free world" is that only after surviving the stifling Communist lifestyle do each of the characters find their own way to trust and invest in themselves and their family. One can only guess from the hints bread crumbed through their introduction in England at what kind of miserable existence they would have lived in the West. Still, if you think that's a funny business and you're shaking your head in disbelief; it may come as something of a shock that the whole thing is true. Well, "based" on truth.
"Mrs Ratcliffe" first came to the attention of film-makers when flesh-and-blood youngest daughter of the family, theatre director Maggie Norris, suggested the story, which followed the real experience of her family, with some changes.¨
"I realized our family had survived a real adventure," says Norris. "Although, bizarrely, we had never really talked about it."
