Dog House is a new short film by Joz Norris and Miranda Holms, directed by Holms, written by and starring Norris and co-starring Anna Leong Brophy, Nat Luurtsema and Tom Bell.
Frank (Norris) has finally found a solution to his problem finding somewhere to live. He’s moved in with Linda (Luurtsema) and Brian (Bell). There’s just one small catch - he has to behave. Frank’s friend Sarah (Brophy) is concerned about his new arrangement, but it’s more than just his friends he might lose if he’s not careful. It might just be his entire identity.
Dog House is an absurd comedy about the rental crisis, homelessness, friendship and loneliness. It was shot by Matt Riley (The Operator; Poppy) and has an original score by Andy Russell. It also features appearances from Nick Elleray, Lulu Popplewell and Christian Brighty.
Holms and Norris previously collaborated on the multi-critics’-choice Radio 4 sitcom The Dream Factory, which they wrote together, and Norris’s 2022 Edinburgh Fringe show Blink, chosen as one of the Evening Standard’s Top 20 Comedy Shows of the Year. Norris won the Comedians’ Choice Award for Best Show in 2019 and has been nominated for the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality and the Chortle Award for Best Music & Variety Act. Holms is one of the winners of the BBC’s Comedy Collective Bursary 2023, and was shortlisted for the Funny Women Writing Award.
Joz Norris, writer and star, said: “Miranda and I were exploring a surreal idea about a guy who has to pretend to be a dog because if he ever gets found out, he’ll be kicked out of the family unit. At the same time, we’d recently moved house and as anyone who’s had to deal with the London rental market recently will know, it was a nightmare. We tied both ideas together into an absurdist exploration of how it feels to not belong anywhere. I’m so proud of the strange, sad, ridiculous short we’ve made, and of the incredible team - cast and crew - who came together to make it. They’re all legends.”
Miranda Holms, director, said: “I felt there was room to explore the premise of Dog House beyond the ridiculous nature of a man dressing up as a dog in order to beat the rental market. I wanted to make sure the performances where kept grounded, so that it felt like we were part of Frank’s lived experience, whilst embracing the darker themes of the loss of identity and how easy it can be to fall through the gaps of society when something goes wrong in your life and you don’t have a safety net. My aim was to introduce an uneasy feeling in the audience beneath the silliness, so that after laughing at the more ridiculous elements of Frank’s predicament they were left with a feeling of genuine concern.”
Watch Dog House below
