Peter O'Toole: Along the Sky Road to Aqaba

Jim Sheridan's documentary on Peter O'Toole. Sheridan met O'Toole fifty years ago and stayed his friend; he took the film on at the request of producer Brian O'Flaherty. It is built in four acts, each opening with something said about O'Toole. The acts follow, in turn, his unshakeable self-belief, his alcoholism, his relationships with women, his socialism and his selective embrace of Irishness. Kenneth Branagh, Brian Cox, Anthony Hopkins, Derek Jacobi and Stephen Fry speak, along with his former wife Siân Phillips and his daughter Kate O'Toole. The Aqaba of the title is the desert crossing in Lawrence of Arabia, and the film treats that part as the thing that both made O'Toole and never let go of him. BritBox took North American rights and it went up on the service on 9 May 2023. Who it is for: viewers curious about O'Toole or the British acting generation of the 1960s. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a critical portrait. This is made by a friend; it is a loving remembrance, and it moves past the damage O'Toole did to those around him rather quickly.