A big-screen adaptation of Jo Brand”s novel The More You Ignore Me is heading for a Blackpool-based shoot next week.

The project comes from producer Debbie Gray of Genesius Pictures, makers of Northern Soul in 2013 and the critically acclaimed Starfish, starring Joanne Froggatt and Tom Riley, which was filmed last year in Rutland.

The More You Ignore Me marks Brand”s first screenplay; she has written several comedies for television including Damned, Going Forward and Getting On.

Set in the 1980s, Brand”s story about mental health centres on five-year-old Alice, who is convinced she needs several personalities to cope with her unusual family. Her mother, Gina, is fixated with the local TV weatherman and ends up naked on the roof clasping a guinea pig. Alice seeks solace in the music of Morrissey, but soon her mother also turns her attention to the lead singer of The Smiths.

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Jo Brand photo via Getty Images Ent/Jeff Spicer.