| Comedian Graham Fellows and photographer
Martin Parr, both brilliant observers of Middle England, have made a film
about Northern niceness. It's a bit of a shambles, frankly - and utterly inspired.
On the face of it, it's an unlikely alliance. Never before in the landscape
of British culture have the paths of photography and stand-up comedy crossed
- least of all in the Shetland Islands.
And yet, when you think about it, the groundbreaking collaboration of internationally
renowned photographer Martin Parr and gifted "character" comedian
Graham Fellows on a film called It's Nice Up North isn't quite as surprising
as it first seems.
Directed by and starring Fellows - in the guise of his sublimely hilarious
creation John Shuttleworth - and shot by Parr, It's Nice Up North is a quasi-documentary
inspired by a premise as shaky as the camerawork - that the further north
you go in Britain, the nicer people are.
Shuttleworth is a bumbling, cheerily optimistic denizen of deepest suburbia
with a penchant for writing endearingly naff songs (Pigeons in Flight, for
example, and a paean to his beloved Y-reg Austin Ambassador). He also has
a relentless fascination for the minutest details of everyday life.
And, coming ostensibly from John's over-literal mind, the idea for the film
takes this intrepid if vaguely baffled odd couple on an adventure to the most
northerly of the British Isles, where they test the theory by pottering about
between cafés and gift shops, the post office and an old folks' home,
engaging the locals in joyously inconsequential chit-chat. It's very funny.
Not that it'll win any Oscars for technical achievement. Although the video
camera is in the hands of one of the world's best-known photographers, it
often slips out of them. We get, for instance, long, unintended close-ups
of the upholstery covering the back seat of John's car. Which makes it even
funnier.
The reason the project makes so much sense is that, for all their artistic
dissimilarities, Parr and Fellows are both brilliant observers of middle England
in all its quirky, eccentric glory.
Seagulls scoffing chips on the promenade, dozing matrons squeezed into groaning
garden chairs, the greasy delights of a hot dog stand - Parr's wryly affectionate
images capture a world, a way of life which millions of people in this country
would recognise instantly, but which is rarely celebrated. And John Shuttleworth's
idea of heaven would be a quiet afternoon ambling around his local garden
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