The Unfinished Portrait

July 2017 | Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, UK

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In 2017, The National Trust, in collaboration with the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester,  developed an ambitious National Public Programme, ‘Prejudice and Pride’ to celebrate and tell stories of properties and places with a strong LGBTQ link in the year that marked 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. 

I was a researcher, writer and creative director on ‘The Unfinished Portrait’; a short film narrated by Stephen Fry, telling the story of Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, Squire of Felbrigg Hall and his beautiful Jacobean property in north Norfolk, now managed by the National Trust.

Extensive rigorous research and careful planning led to a film that told the story of Robert’s loves, his his scholarship, literature, his family home and estate, An intensely private man, the film lauds his talents as a passionate poet, writer, businessman, estate manager and man of great social standing whilst acknowledging his homosexuality as part of his experience at a time when, under British law, he could have been imprisoned for same sex desires.