Caterham’s acting legend Bill Nighy and Gravesend's Gemma Arterton have begun filming a new romantic comedy movie alongside a dazzling cast.

This is the first image released from the set of Their Finest Hour and a Half, a romantic comedy with a difference set in the early 1940s.

Sixty-five-year-old Nighy, who attended John Fisher School in Purley, and former Gravesend Grammar School for Girls pupil Arterton, 29, will star alongside Eddie Marsan, Sam Claflin, Richard E Grant and Jack Huston.

Filming began last week on the feature which is based on Lissa Evans’s comic and heartbreaking novel about a British film crew attempting to make a morale boosting propaganda film during the Second World War.

It has been described by publicists as combining ‘the quick-fire repartee of a screwball battle of the sexes infused with the reality of filmmaking under threat of invasion and London in the Blitz.’

Veteran actor Nighy, whose credits include Love Actually, is presumable well-versed in the 1940s by now – he’s just finished shooting the big budget remake of Dad’s Army, in which he plays Sergeant Wilson.

That movie is due for release on February 5.