In his second feature, Girls' Night, director Nick Hurran deals with the difficult subject of cancer, yet manages to combine the sadness with comedy. Nick Roddick hears how he achieved this feat

Having a cold, like having a hangover, is something you don't get much
sympathy for. And, three days before the Festival screening of Girls' Night, his second feature film (and the first to receive so prestigious a European launch) director Nick Hurran sounds to be submerged in the mother of all colds.

Somehow, however, the glottal stops and the snufflings set the tone for what Hurran is talking about: serious points made in an unserious way; a film which is also about illness, but an illness never denied sympathy and never joked about - cancer; a film which, Hurran insists, is a celebration of life rather than a wake, "about losing someone you love and making the most of them while you still have them".

Very briefly, Girls' Night is about two friends from the North of England - Jackie, played by Julie Walters, and Dawn, played by Brenda Blethyn, both Oscar-nominated, albeit nearly 20 years apart, Walters for Educating Rita, Blethyn for Secrets and Lies - who work for minimal wages and frequently go out together to have whatever fun their drab provincial town has to offer (Girls' Night was shot in Rawtenstall, which may help some readers understand what I'm
talking about).
Both are married, but that makes very little difference to Jackie, who is always having affairs. Then, one night, while Jackie is having it off with the manager of the local bingo hall, Dawn - good, gentle, faithful-to-her-husband Dawn, who plays bingo while her friend plays around - wins the national jackpot, a huge prize of 100,000.
Just as she is about to start a new life, however, Dawn discovers that the breast cancer she thought she had beaten has re-emerged in her brain. And, accepting that she has little hope of beating it, she decides to die with some grace rather than spend her final days in painful but hopeless treatment.

"It's a film that speaks about the unspeakable," says Hurran, "about the horrible emotions you go through - the hope, and then the reality of the disease. It's a subject that was treated with great respect by all of us. I have lost three people to cancer personally. I know that Julie has experienced it. And I know that Brenda has experienced it. There were particular scenes where I knew we had to use three cameras, because the emotions involved meant we were only going to get one hit at it."

But still and all, much of Girls' Night plays as a comedy. Jackie's reaction to Dawn's news is to spend her share of the hundred grand (her friend having always promised that, if she won, they would split the winnings) on two tickets to Las Vegas, for which the two factory girls duly set off, without even bothering to pack a bag. Once in Vegas, they have the girls' night out to end 'em all. Eventually, however, Dawn is ready to go home to die, and says goodbye to Jackie (the first of the three-camera scenes). Some time later, Jackie goes home too, to deliver the funeral eulogy (the second three-camera scene).

"I was very keen for the film to be a celebration," says Hurran. "I know it is a harrowing subject, but I didn't want it to descend into sadness. The area I usually work in is romantic comedy, so this was really a challenge for me, but also something I was overjoyed to be asked to do. The important thing in a film like this is to treat comedy and tragedy exactly the same - to look for the truth in the situation. So often in English comedy, truth isn't the first choice."

And truth is what Girls' Night is all about. The writer, Kay Mellor - with whom the film's producer, Bill Boyes, had worked on the award-winning TV play Some Kind of Life - had experienced much of the story more closely than anyone would like to have done.

"Her best friend died of cancer," says Hurran almost matter of factly. "She used to visit her every day in hospital and they would play 'Fantasy Holidays', imagining the holidays they would have when she 'got better'. For Kay, Girls' Night is the holiday they never had. Not surprisingly, she finds it almost impossible to watch any of the film without becoming very emotional."

Equally unsurprisingly, Girls' Night turns out to be one of those scripts
that just sucked everybody in. To start with, Walters and Blethyn were top of everyone's wish-list. "It's just such an utter dream cast," says Hurran, sounding almost cold-free with enthusiasm. "I'd worked with Brenda a couple of times before. Brenda hadn't worked with Julie but had always wanted to. And Kris Kristofferson" - who plays a straight-talking Nevada cowboy they meet up with in Vegas - "I always had in mind. My belief is, you always ask. So we sent it out to him, and he came back very quickly and said yes."

Berlin will not be the first Festival at which Girls' Night has screened, although it is - as it has to be - the first competitive 'A' event. The film, though, received its premiere at the admirable Leeds Film Festival, a gem among UK regional events, where it was the opening film last October. Then it went on to Birmingham, then Sundance.
The Sundance audience, says Hurran, the cold forgotten as the memory warms his heart and unblocks his nostrils, "laughed louder than I'd ever heard any audience and wept uncontrollably. Then, as the credits rolled, there was a silence like I've never heard from any audience."
How, one wonders, will a Berlin audience cope with such swings of emotion. Is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? Do they need to know? Should we tell them?
"The comedy and the tragedy are both there," says Hurran, finally. "You don't need to work it.'