A screwball comedy about a a middle-aged governess in pre-war London who accidentally finds herself working for a fun-loving actress and nightclub singer, it is based on a novel written in 1938 by Winifred Watson.

The name may not be familiar. After the last of her six novels was published in 1943, the Newcastle housewife gave up writing and was largely forgotten until Miss Pettigrew, her most successful book, was republished in 2000 and found a new generation of readers.

It also attracted the attention of a Hollywood producer who bought the film rights and eventually signed up Bharat Nalluri as director.

With a background in TV on series such as Life on Mars, Hustle and Tsunami: The Aftermath, he was not the obvious choice for a period romcom.

But then, as he points out, Winifred Watson was hardly the sort you would have expected to pen a story of bawdy bed-hopping, cocaine and champagne for breakfast.

"Winifred Watson had never been to London, she made it all up out of magazines," he says.

Indeed the author, who died aged 94 in 2002, was once quoted as saying: "I didn't know anyone like Miss Pettigrew. I just made it all up. I haven't the faintest idea what governesses really do. I've never been to a nightclub and I certainly didn't know anyone who took cocaine."

Her writing ended at the age of 37 after she had a young son and the Blitz in Newcastle forced a move into her in-laws' house where she found it impossible to write.

Before that Universal Studios had plans to turn Miss Pettigrew into a musical starring Billie Burke (later the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz) but the advent of the Second World War brought a demand for different and more serious movies.

It was also optioned in 1953. "She was a wily old woman who managed to sell it three times," observes the director.

By the time Nalluri joined the project there was already a script by an American writer and the Full Monty screenwriter Simon Beaufoy had been brought in as co-writer. "As soon as the script arrived I read the book, says Nalluri. "Simon and I re-worked the script because it was about the central characters rather than the milieu of the whole world."

They decided to move the action of the story from 1935 to the outbreak of the Second World War which put the characters into an uncertain world – "the idea of people dining on the Titanic and not knowing an iceberg was coming."

Miss Pettifer is played by Oscar-winning American actress Frances McDormand. "When I went over to the States to get her on board we spent the whole time talking about Evil Dead. She said, 'you are just like Joel, you are a geek'." – referring to her husband, one half of the Coen brothers.

Nalluri assumed that was a compliment because she agreed to do the film.

"As soon as you say, 'I have got Frances McDormand,' everyone is ringing up wanting to appear in the film."

Another Hollywood star, Amy Adams, plays Miss Pettifer's employer, aspiring actress Delysia Lafosse.

"When I got the script Delysia was American, although in the book she's English, but it felt very right," says the director.

"I had seen Amy in Junebug and Enchanted. It's a very hard character to play because you might want to slap her after 20 minutes."

Nevertheless it was all filmed in England, either on location in London or interior scenes at Ealing Studios. "That was most exciting – to do a real Ealing Comedy."

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