Tameside filmmakers bring socially charged thriller GUM to the big screen

A bold new voice from Tameside’s independent film scene is making waves with the release of GUM, a darkly comic workplace thriller that takes aim at the pressures of modern employment.

The film, created by Tameside-based Prickle Productions, is set to begin its festival run in 2025 and is already being praised for its mix of surreal tension and social realism.

Written and directed by Carol Fitzgerald from nearby Chadderton and produced by Denton filmmaker Thomas Jackson, GUM was shot in Manchester in December 2024. The story follows Nate, played by Gwion Wyn, a desperate office worker racing to recover a lost file that could save his job. As the clock ticks down, he turns to an addictive chewing gum that transforms every sound into a ticking bomb, blurring the line between survival and self-destruction.

Thomas Jackson, founder of Prickle Productions, says the film reflects the anxieties faced by young workers across Greater Manchester. “GUM shows what happens when profit comes before people,” he explained. “That’s something a lot of people here in Tameside recognise. It’s about what it takes to survive in systems that treat workers as disposable.”

The film’s cinematographer is Max Macmillan, best known to many as Timothy Turner from the BBC’s Call the Midwife, who brings an uneasy intimacy to the story’s office setting. Together, the crew of local filmmakers have crafted a film that feels distinctly Northern: gritty, grounded, and unafraid to tackle uncomfortable truths.

Director Carol Fitzgerald, a graduate of the University of Salford’s MA Film Production programme, has built her reputation on character-driven stories exploring gender, identity, and the body. Her previous work includes production assistant on Autumn and art director on The Estrogen Gospel, which screened at the Soho Horror Festival and Final Girls Berlin. The idea for GUM, she says, was born while balancing studies with a part-time customer service job. “It came from that feeling of doing everything right but still falling apart,” Fitzgerald said. “The gum became a metaphor for burnout, you keep chewing, even when there’s nothing left.”

Founded in 2023 by Jackson alongside Martina Majcen and Ash Birks, Prickle Productions operates out of Tameside and is committed to amplifying working-class voices in British cinema. The collective’s projects focus on community storytelling and offer opportunities for emerging talent from the region.

With GUM, the team hopes to shine a national spotlight on the creativity thriving in Greater Manchester’s outer boroughs. “There’s so much talent in places like Tameside,” said Jackson. “We’re proving you don’t need to move to London to make powerful, professional cinema.”

GUM will begin its festival run in 2025.