A FIFTEEN-year-old schoolboy hired the Tivoli theatre and managed to tempt many professional actors to audition to be in his film.

Canford School pupil Richard Booth, now 16, wrote, directed and produced Live for the Moment which will be screened in Wimborne next month.

The film deals with loss, grief, mourning, hope and redemption, telling the story of a drunken doctor who accidentally kills the woman he loves.

Richard also managed to write in a sub-plot about Tourette's Syndrome - a serious condition involving involuntary tics and speech, from which his friend Nick Tatham suffers.

Singer-songwriter Nick, 21, who lives in Tarrant Gunville, was the only non-professional actor in the movie.

Noel Patrick, who has appeared in Heartbeat, London's Burning and The Bill, stars in Live for the Moment.

The actors knew Richard was a young film maker but did not realise quite how young.

"I think they thought I was about 20," he said.

The script and conversations with Richard convinced them to go ahead with the project.

"It was all filmed in Dorset in July. We shot it in nine days and I edited it," said Richard, who worked on a shoestring budget with help from his mum.

"We hope to break even or even make a small profit.

"I want a career in film as a writer/director and I have done it for the experience."

His mother and Nick's mother were at Canford School together and Richard has seen Nick's struggle to cope with Tourette's. He was also impressed with Nick's songs and musical performances and wrote him into the film when Nick expressed an interest.

Nick's music also features heavily.

"He was absolutely brilliant - the actors were singing his praises," Richard said.

"Noel said 'Nick has really got something special, he should go to acting school'."

Nick said: "It was an amazing experience. I had never acted before.

"You're crying and getting into the character and you forget the camera's there."

Live for the Moment, which is dedicated to Richard's father Bill, who died in May, will be screened at The Tivoli on October 25 and 26.

First published: October 1