The Boat That Rocked – made by Working Title Films for Universal Pictures
Opening today at the box office is The Boat That Rocked, the new hilarious comedy from Richard Curtis, who gave us Four Weddings & a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones, Love Actually, and the Vicar of Dibley.
Set in 1966, The Boat That Rocked tells the story of pirate radio station, Radio Rock, broadcasting music from a ship out in international waters in the North Sea off the coast of England. The British Government controls everything put on BBC radio stations and would only allow two hours of popular music a day – the rest played is jazz and classical music. Radio Rock is therefore put on air by the station’s boss, Quentin (Bill Nighy) to broadcast rock n roll and pop music to the nation
Over half of the country (25 million people) are listening to these pirates stations. Of course the government is not happy at all with this and so ensues the hilarity of how a man called Twatt (Jack Davenport – Pirates of the Caribbean, Coupling) and his superior British Minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets) try bring about the Marine Offences Act in an attempt to shut down the pirate stations and bring an end to the drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll on the high seas.
Although fictional, the film does have hints of the history of commercial radio stations and the ship used in the film is similar to that used by Radio Caroline in the UK in 1980s.
The second storyline is centred around Carl (Tom Sturridge – Like Minds, Vanity Fair), who is sent aboard Radio Rock by his mother to ‘straighten him out’ after being expelled from school for smoking and drinking. As is pointed out, sending a young man aboard a 24-hour party boat, filled with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and the occasional sex-filled Saturdays, is not the most logical of things and therefore the ulterior motive comes to light. It is a great coming of age story though with many laughs along the way.
The Boat That Rocked has a fantastic British cast including Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill, The 51st State) as the star DJ Gavin, Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Black Books) as DJ Dr Dave, Tom Wisdom (Coronation Street, Mile High) as DJ ‘Midnight’ Mark, Emma Thompson (Love Actually, Sense & Sensibility) as Charlotte (Carl’s mother), Katherine Parkinson (Easy Virtue, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People), and Ralph Brown (Mean Machine, The Crying Game) as DJ ‘small hours’ Bob.
There are a few foreigners though in the form of American, Philip Seymour Hoffman (won an OSCAR & BAFTA for his role as Truman Copote) as The Count, a ‘big, brash, American god of the airwaves’. Olegar Fedoro from the Ukraine plays Radio Rock’s captain of the ship, and New Zealand’s own comedian Rhys Darby who plays DJ Angus Knutsford, the apparently most annoying man in Britain who has a passion for the back catalogues of ‘rather boring music’.
The soundtrack is awesome however, and I’m definitely heading to buy the CD. It’s a fantastic mix of old classics guaranteed to have a few singing along in their seats.
The Boat That Rocked is hilarious and I spent most of it chuckling away to myself. No, it’s not a true historical account of what happened with radio in the UK in the 60’s but I’m guessing not many people will be 100% aware of that anyway. The film is definitely fun, although at times a little muddled with the various storylines going on at once. I would definitely recommended going to see it though if you love British comedy and are not easily offended with the F word, sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll!!
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