Emeritus Professor Chris Stephens OBE, last seen in the BDJ explaining his passion for dry stone walling,1 continues to stay busy in his retirement with an appearance in a professional film now on general release: Hannah More.

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Chris in an earlier acting role, playing Edward Dummer, the Captain of the Royal Artillery, at Axbridge Pageant in 2010

Chris wrote to the BDJ explaining how his moment of fame came about.

A member of the Woodland Trust, shortly after he retired the Trust, asked Chris if he could organise a group to rebuild a 400 metre collapsed dry stone wall bordering a Mendip bridleway in Somerset on the edge of the Trust's Mendip Lodge Wood.

Chris explained: 'During the course of this work I discovered the ruins of a Georgian mansion adjacent to the wood which I later learnt had been built as the country residence of the would-be playwright Rev Dr Thomas Sedgwick Whalley of Royal Crescent Bath. Thomas was a son of a Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and a descendant of Wyamarus Whalley who had been knighted by William the Conqueror in 1067 for services at the Battle of Hastings.

'The Reverend Whalley's life in Bath, and that of his vivacious and headstrong niece and ward Frances Sage, reads like one of the novels of his contemporary and one-time neighbour Jane Austen (her uncle the Rev Edward Cooper lived four doors away from Whalley). For many years during the late eighteenth century, Whalley's house in Royal Crescent had been a centre of social life in Bath. Here he entertained many influential visitors and became a close friend of the actress Sarah Siddons, the romantic poet Anna Seward, the abolitionist William Wilberforce, the polymath Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) and the playwright, philanthropist and social reformer Hannah More.'

Chris published a book on Whalley's life in 2014, The Reverend Dr Thomas Sedgwick Whalley and the Queen of Bath.2He was then asked to talk about Whalley's life on local radio and through that met Anthea Page, a producer of Redcliffe Films, who was about to shoot a film of Hannah More's life.

Chris said: 'I suggested to [Anthea] that this would be incomplete without mentioning the important role Thomas Whalley had played during their 40-year friendship. Much to my surprise she agreed and then asked if I had done any acting'.

With experience taking part in the Axbridge Pageant (see photo), Chris was signed up to play the role of Whalley.

He reflects: 'It was a wonderful experience to be working among professionals, many of them future stars no older than final-year dental students'.

Filming completed, the film was eventually released in 2018 (https://redcliffefilms.co.uk/hannah-more-film-production/). Since then, it has been a finalist in seven international film festivals. As a result, Redcliffe Films applied for a British Board of Film Classification and Hannah More received a PG classification in 2021.

The film was first screened in May this year and was due to be shown in Bristol on 9 June at the Orpheus Cinema.

Chris believes himself to be the first Emeritus Professor of Dentistry to appear in the credits of a film available on general release and says 'one can have a lot of fun in retirement'.