David Tennant’s Obscure Short Films: Sweetnightgoodheart (2001)

.....and its time traveling release date(s)!

Heya all you David Tennant fans! I’m back with a small thread about a 2001 short film David starred in called Sweetnightgoodheart (hereafter called SNGH).

SNGH was 9:16 in length. It was written and directed by Dan Zeff and produced by Litmus Productions in association with Bliss.com films for BBC Films. Its original title was Sweetnight Goodheart (with the two words separated) but somewhere along the way, the words were connected.

More about the title, this time from the BFI: “This entertaining short film takes a lighthearted look at the anxiety of modern relationships. The mix up of the title - a play on the familiar WWII song ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ - highlights the confusion and miscommunication that is the film’s premise.”

Now, although I just said it was released in 2001…..if you look at the IMDb entry above very closely, I’m sure you’ve noticed it says 2005.

This, my friends, is wrong. And I’m about to prove it.

According to the British Film Institute, SNGH was one of the short films which made its premiere in August of 2001 at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It was a nominee for Short Films. It also screened at the 45th Regus London Film Festival as part of their Urbania Shorts slot in November of 2001, and was a nominee for Short Cuts & Animation.

Sooooo…..unless David and everyone involved with the project are all time travelers and they somehow filmed the short in 2005 but took it back to 2001 to show at the festivals?….well, you get the picture.

After SNGH’s premiere at the two festivals, it was sold to HBO and Cinemax. It was broadcast in the USA (and yes, you read that right!) on Cinemax beginning in August of 2002. It was shown every couple of months or so until July of 2004. It was first aired on HBO beginning in March of 2003 and was broadcast intermittently until June of 2004. Judging by the broadcast listings, it appears both networks used it as short “filler” material in between their full-length movie offerings. And after those two stopped airing it, PBS in the USA then aired it as part of its Imagemakers series in September of 2005. Here are some newspaper blurbs (with the newpaper titles and dates above them) to prove these broadcasts occurred:

Further proof? On Valentine’s Day of 2009, the BFI screened SNGH with its other main features. That screening’s entry for the short also says it was released in 2001.

I wanted to find out why IMDb would say 2005, so I poked around a bit. Oddly, its release date information specifies “Hungary” (okaaay?), while sources elsewhere have the 2005 date noted as the date of its “world premiere”. The Hungary release date might well be accurate, but I’m not sure exactly what world premiere means…besides, it’s obviously an error (since we’ve already shown it aired in the US in 2002 through 2004). So I think we can safely cross out 2005, don’t you?

But ohhhh, we’re not yet done on the dates, because some sources also give a release date of 2003! This date, however, is much easier to explain. The 2003 date originates from its initial broadcast on BBC2. It aired as a part of a 50-minute program called Ways To Leave Your Lover (hereafter called WTLYL) at 11:20 pm on 25 March 2003. WTLYL featured five 10-minute short films with a common thread - the end of love. in addition to SNGH, the other four films were Stag, Dog, Unscrew, and Dumping Elaine.

So…now that we’ve taken care of the date mix-up, let’s get into the short itself!

SNGH starred David as Pete, and Kate Ashfield - who he would also go on to star with in a 2002 audio drama called The Island and in 2005’s Secret Smile - as Juliet. It also starred Diana Hardcastle as Anthea, Cliff Parisi as Colman, and Thusitha Jayasundera as Yasmin. Here is the archived BBC press release for WTLYL before it was aired.

And the plot? Well, if you haven’t yet seen SNGH here’s a great plot synopsis which might intrigue you enough to chase it down. It’s from the 23 March 2003 edition of the Sunday Times: “Dan Zeff’s cautionary tale Sweetnightgoodheart observes [how] David Tennant’s attempts to ditch his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) spiral out of control.” And from the

Here are also a couple of photos!

And while we’re at it, here are a number of short summaries - and one longer article from the Evening Standard which includes a photo! - which appeared in various newspapers when WTLYL aired in 2003:

During my research into the origins of SNGH, I’ve seen the BBC series it featured in variably titled as Ways To Leave Your Lover, and Eight Ways To Leave Your Lover. This discrepancy appears both in print and on the CVs of various actors and crew involved with the project (here’s an example). While not confirmed, my belief is Eight Ways to Leave Your Lover was a working title. Five films aired on the program, but I’ve found an additional two which didn’t (which makes me think there was a third whose title I have not been able to ascertain). I believe that at some point in the process, a decision was made to remove three of the films originally scheduled to air, and the name was changed accordingly.

in addition to SNGH, the other four films aired during WTLYL were Stag, Dog, Unscrew, and Dumping Elaine. Most of the films don’t seem to be online, but you can see Dog and Dumping Elaine at the links I’ve provided. Here’s what I know about them:

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Stag - written by Ian Iqbal Rashid and starring Stuart Laing and Nitin Ganatra: a bridegroom wakes up on the morning of his wedding in bed with the best man.

Dog - written by Andrea Arnold and starring Joanne Hill, Freddie Cunliffe and Veronica Valentine: a fifteen year-old girl finds the will to stand up for herself when she witnesses a disturbing and violent incident.

Unscrew - written by Clara Glynn and starring Douglas Henshall and Emma Fielding: a surreal short about a guy whose girlfriend unscrews his penis and takes it with her when they begin separating their belongings after their breakup.

Dumping Elaine - written by Peter Lydon and starring Susan Lynch, Matthew Delamere and Dido Miles: waitresses play Cupid.

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SNGH is archived at the BFI on VHS and Beta, and in two master forms (16mm/35mm). You can see it there, but I’ll save you a trip: while a 4.35G digital copy was made off the master, there’s no public access to it. The viewing copy MP4 is only 305MB.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering how you can see it. There are plenty of ways! If you are a registered BFI Screenonline user - and registration is free for users in UK libraries, colleges and universities - you can watch it here (and perhaps download it, though I’m given to understand it’s only available for download during certain times). It’s also floating around the webs in various forms and qualities on Vimeo, Dailymotion, FilmNow, etc. All of these aren’t the greatest of quality, but it’s the best we’ve got. Ah, for a better quality video file taken off the master copy!

But I’d recommend watching it at Dan Zeff’s own website.

Work — DAN ZEFF

And that’s it for Sweetnightgoodheart. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it as much as I have writing and researching it!