\n Dan Charles is an actor, director and producer from Barrow and was inspired to focus on the soft drink after conversations with those close to him.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It came from just chatting to old friends and family members and just people in Barrow,” said Mr Charles.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It just seems to be that this drink and everything around it always seems to pop up and the nice memories of it.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It always goes to ‘I wonder if anyone could ever bring it back’ or why it died out, or ‘what was in that secret recipe, why did it taste so good?’.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I just thought, well let’s go on a little mission and try to answer some of those questions.”\n<\/p>\n
\n As most people in Barrow and the Furness area are aware, Marsh’s Sass was a soft drink made and sold in Barrow that has since been discontinued.\n<\/p>\n
\n Now all that is left of the drink are fond memories from those who tasted it and memorabilia.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Charles has been interviewing Barrow residents for the documentary about Marsh’s Sass (Image: Dan Charles)\n<\/p>\n
\n The project was commissioned with a \u00a34,000 grant from Barrow Town Council and is Mr Charles’ first professional project in his hometown.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Charles said: “It’s amazing because I’m very proud to be from Barrow to be honest.\n<\/p>\n
\n “There’s a lot of negativity around the town sometimes, mainly from people who don’t know too much about it.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I want to show Barrow in the best possible light.\n<\/p>\n
\n “This story about the drink and the town – it’s an amazing story of entrepreneurship and growing something from nothing into a really famous brand.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Everybody loved it, everybody wanted it, everybody talked about it.\n<\/p>\n
\n “That little thing alone is something we should all be really proud of, that we can create things like that from Barrow and in Barrow.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It’s really great that I can this film for the town.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Charles has been out and about in Barrow these past few months interviewing residents for the documentary.\n<\/p>\n
\n Anyone with a story about Marsh’s Sass was invited to be a part of the film (Image: Dan Charles)\n<\/p>\n
\n “Going on this journey to speak to the people that created the drink and worked in the factory or just loved drinking it – everyone’s got the really beautiful memories of everything that comes with that,” said Mr Charles.\n<\/p>\n
\n “You never know what will come up when you have these conversations.\n<\/p>\n
\n “You think you’re going to find out one thing and you go in a totally different tangent about something else.\n<\/p>\n
\n “You find out all these great things and stories, I’ve loved that.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The film was commissioned by Barrow Town Council (Image: Dan Charles)\n<\/p>\n
\n The trailer for the documentary released in February and has since had more than 70,000 views.\n<\/p>\n
\n That is more than the entire population of Barrow itself.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Charles said: “I didn’t realise the response it was going to get online.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The first time I said I was going to do the film, I think it got about two or three hundred comments.\n<\/p>\n
\n “People really cared about this drink, so that really surprised me and I loved that.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The online response could indicate a wider interest from people who are not from Barrow.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The core point is that this is a Barrow memory, but it’s got a bigger purpose than that,” said Mr Charles.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I want people from outside of Barrow to say ‘what a great place it was when this drink was there’.”\n<\/p>\n
\n “It still is can can be – it’s about people at the end of the day and their connections with family and friends.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It’s a love letter to Barrow but I want people from everywhere to relate to that because I think everyone’s probably got that feeling about where they’re from.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The film is described by Mr Charles as a ‘love letter to Barrow’ (Image: Dan Charles)\n<\/p>\n
\n The documentary is in the final stages of filming and Mr Charles would like anyone who wants to get involved to get in touch with him.\n<\/p>\n
\n Marsh’s Sass: A Barrow Story will be screened in the summer and Mr Charles is hoping that the documentary will be screened in film festivals.\n<\/p>\n
\n The initial screening will be in Barrow though the exact location and time has not been finalised yet.\n<\/p>\n
\n The film will eventually be made available online.\n<\/p>\n
\n Conversations are ongoing about a temporary exhibit in Barrow where the film will be displayed alongside Marsh’s memorabilia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Charles is an actor, director and producer from Barrow and was inspired to focus on the soft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-464188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}