Alex Stobbs, a Royal Papworth patient and Cambridge University student, is set to be made the subject of a new film.
Alex, 29, was diagnosed with the incurable disease cystic fibrosis when he was a baby and is currently awaiting a double-lung transplant.
Walker George Films are currently in development with Film4 and leading British film company DNA Films (Far from the Madding Crowd, 28 Days Later) to direct a dramatised movie based on Alex’s incredible story, written by Tom Edge (The Crown).
The film is inspired by a documentary that Walker George Films produced about Alex when he was 16 years-old and a music scholar at Eton College. The documentary was called ‘A Boy Called Alex’ and was nominated for three BAFTAS (Best Documentary, Best Director and Best Editing) and a Royal Television Society Award (Best Documentary).
The sequel, ‘A Passion for Life’¸ then followed Alex when he was studying for a music degree at King’s College, Cambridge, and singing in the famous King’s College Choir.
Alex went on to study at the Royal College of Music after his degree at Cambridge and is now returning to King’s College this October to start an MPhil in Composition.
On Friday 16 August, from 14:00 – 16:00, Alex will be playing a piece of Liszt on a piano in Royal Papworth Hospital’s main atrium. The piano has been generously donated by Millers Music in Cambridge.
There will be an actor playing Alex in the film, but the filming taking place on Friday will form the end credits sequence, where Alex himself will be introduced to the audience for the first time.