Heads turned in Dalston yesterday, as none other than comedian and actress Ruby Wax turned out to the Rio Cinema with the High Commissioner of Barbados in tow for a film screening with a difference.

Hackney Gazette: Ed Bye, Marina Bye and Ruby Wax. Photo Emma BartholomewEd Bye, Marina Bye and Ruby Wax. Photo Emma Bartholomew (Image: Archant)

Wax came to the independent cinema in Kingsland Road to see the first ever film her 22-year-old daughter Marina Bye has starred in, Caribbean Dream - a Barbadian take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Marina, who is playing Hermia in the Shakespeare adaptation, flew out to Barbados for filming the day after she graduated from the Guildhall six months ago.

The private screening of the film, written and directed by Shakira Bourne and produced by London Fields resident Melissa Simmonds and Lynette Eastmond, was held to get feedback from local primary school children who were in the audience, so the film can be re-edited before release.

Wax told the Gazette: “It was wonderful, they shot so well and they speak Shakespeare brilliantly.

“You completely get the story, people are funny and everyone was riveted and it looks so magical, it’s mystical.

“I’m glad she (Marina) looks good on screen, because sometimes people are attractive but then it’s not, so I’m proud.

“Only if she’s good, If she wasn’t good I’d tell her to stop it,” she added.

Marina is following in her mother’s footsteps, whose first job was playing Audrey in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Wax continued: “If you can do Shakespeare you can do anything. I wasn’t good, she’s good.”

Marina, who lives in Notting Hill, was thrilled with the film - the first time she has seen it.

She said: “It was weird to watch myself for the first time on a big screen, but it’s done really well, every shot is so beautiful.

“There were a bunch of really young kids in, I know when I was their age I lost my concentration within five minutes, but everyone was focused and children are the best critics.

“Going straight from drama school into a film was pretty daunting, now there’s not so much work, but that’s ok, there are always going to be dry spells.”

Marina, whose older brother Max, 27, works in quantum physics and sister, Madeleine, 25 is at clown school in Paris, added: “I love acting because it’s fun and because it’s a really nice way to free yourself, and you have to research your characters.

“Playing Hermia, she’s younger, she’s royalty, she’s spoiled, you have to bring yourself to it and I think that’s fun because it’s like putting a giant sock on. It’s about the brain and how she would respond differently to how I would respond.”

Wax was there with her husband and Marina’s father, television producer and director Ed Bye, and the Barbadian High Commissioner Guy Hewitt, was there to the mark the twinning of Barbados and Hackney with Cllr Rosemary Sales.