WHO said cinema was only for the beautiful?

Critically acclaimed director Mike Leigh is looking for miserable looking northern types for his last film Peterloo Massacre.

The film, which stars Maxine Peake, commemorates the 1819 massacre of demonstrators calling for electoral reform in Manchester.

To replicate the world-weary faces of the protestors, producers of the film – slated for release next year – are looking for ‘authentic northern faces’.

Alexandra Pickford, a director at Piece of Cake Casting, said: “For Peterloo, we want them to look pretty hard done by. Times were hard in 1819.”

Ms Pickford added: “We are looking for gentlemen with longer, collar-length hair. They should ruffle their hair and bring it forward for the photo, and look really miserable, pretty down-trodden.”

Mike Leigh is known for his gritty, poignant dramas which include Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake.

Fifteen people died and up to 700 were injured in the Peterloo massacre when government cavalry charged the crowd.

At the time just two MPs represented the whole of Lancashire and following the expensive Napoleonic Wars the country was suffering an economic downturn.

National revulsion towards the massacre led to the start of social and electoral reform in England.