the ballad of wallis island…

I went along to the Watershed again yesterday afternoon (note: I’m now one of their ‘Club Shed’ members!) to see director James Griffiths’ ‘The Ballad of Wallis Island’… about a lottery-winning eccentric widower, Charles (Tim Key), living on the island off the coast of Wales (his wife Marie had died 5 years ago). He also happens to be a ‘superfan’ of a renown folk pairing McGwyer Mortimer (Herb and Nell - played by Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan) from around 2009 (they’d played Glastonbury; graced some NME covers etc)… and has all their records, memorabilia, scrapbooks etc.
Being a lottery-winner (twice, in fact), he invited them to play a gig on the island (for £500,000 fee, in cash, for each of them)… McGwyer and Mortimer had been lovers back in the day, but had broken up somewhat bitterly (as far as McGwyer was concerned). Herb had pursued a somewhat unsuccessful solo career (he had no idea that Nell had also been invited along) and Nell had married and was selling chutney for a living.
McGwyer was clearly under the impression that he was one of a group of musicians/bands playing at the gig… and was shocked to discover that a) there was no auditorium, just a beach, b) that Nell had also been invited along to perform and c) the only two scheduled performers were him and Nell.
The film is a romantically-tinged comedy of regrets, memories, music and beautiful scenery… it’s all rather silly, and yet, it’s all rather lovely too.
I think we’d all love to invite our favourite musician(s) to play a concert for us in a beautiful island location (provided that the sun shone etc!).
When there’s so much disaster and rubbish happening in the world, it was good to be conveyed to better place… of laughter, music, beauty and silliness.
I really enjoyed it.
PS: So who would you invite to your island gig? Joni Mitchell in her prime? Leonard Cohen? Nick Drake? Simon+Garfunkel? Perhaps, of current musicians (for me): Karine Polwart? Ricky Ross? Pete Judge?
PPS: In the film, there’s a sequence when Charles, Herb and Nell light lanterns and launch them from the beach into the evening sky… which reminded me of our own family version of this from 2009 in St Ives (although we now acknowledge the problems that they can injure or kill wildlife and livestock through ingestion or entanglement, cause fires, contribute to litter etc!!). It was a joint 60^th birthday celebration for Moira and me (I was already 60, she would be 60 in a few months’ time) and we were staying at the wonderful Upper Saltings on Porthmeor Beach. We’d had evening drinks on the beach (on a stunningly beautiful evening) and Ru, Hannah and Alice etc gave us two paper sky lanterns… which we ‘launched’ and watched as they slowly disappeared out to sea. Very special memories.