Channel 4 (UK) Drama
Dreams of a Life (2013x1)
: 01, 2013
Zawe Ashton (C4's Fresh Meat) takes the lead role in this drama-documentary, director Carol Morley's quest to discover the truth about the life of a vivacious, intelligent woman, and how she came to be so tragically forgotten.
Nobody noticed when 38-year-old Joyce Vincent died in her bedsit above a shopping mall in north London in 2003. When her remains were discovered three years later, her heating and her television were still on. Newspaper reports offered few details of Joyce's life - not even a photograph.
Morley places adverts in newspapers, on the internet and on the side of a London taxi, and the responses lead her to Joyce's former friends, lovers and colleagues. Their testimonies, together with re-imagined scenes from Joyce's life form a multi-layered portrait of the deceased woman, and an insight into the world she inhabited.