The Ballad Of Wallis Island

Bluesky

McGwyer and Mortimer haven't played together in about a decade. McGwyer's moved on, he's got a solo career, but there's a request for the older material as part of an intimate gig at Wallis Island. How far the organiser is prepared to go to recapture the old days is part of the film's bittersweet charm. The consequences of that are the source of its comedy.

As it screened as the Glasgow Film Festival's 'Surprise Film', I heard the couple behind me say that The Ballad Of Wallis Island wasn't the kind of film they'd normally go to see. That's one of the joys of the Surprise Film, which has given audiences fare like War Pony, Spring Breakers, Calvary and more. I didn't note any walkouts but as is traditional for film festivals I was near the front. I did note that those who seemed to enjoy it most were the sort that seemed to be listeners to the even-numbered BBC stations. Your Radios Two, for nostalgia, 6music, for folk who have taxonomies for t-shirts, and of course Four.

Tim Key is Charles, his frequent collaborator and co-'star' on Key's eponymous Radio 4 Poetry Programme. Tom Basden is Herb. Charles is arranging the gig, Herb is playing it. Herb has, as stated, moved on, but perhaps not as far as he'd hoped. The two, with director James Griffiths in a feature début, worked together on an earlier version of this, short The One And Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island. Among the expansions are more than those two in the cast. Carey Mulligan's Nell and her husband Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen) are going to complicate matters for Herb, while Sian Clifford's Amanda will do the same for Charles.

Not that they can't complicate things for themselves. It starts with a landing on the Welsh coast that compares with Saving Private Ryan and Dunkirk in the same way that Amanda's corner shop competes with ASDA. Herb and Charles (much like Brian And Charles) are solving problems in the only way they know how.

I laughed, and was not alone in doing so, out loud, and repeatedly. A particular cocktail of awkwardness and earnestness, the kind of somewhat ironic remove that'd allow a chuckle at "hello pregnant, I'm dad" which, to be clear, does not appear in the script, an unremarked but nonetheless amusing consequence of actually using a variation of the phrase 'roll out the barrel'. Tim Key's work has amused me for years and that includes his turn in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. Coogan's Baby Cow is among this film's production credits and that to should serve as a seal of approval.

There's a bit where 'auks' is misheard as 'orcs'. I assume the Tolkeinesque rather than Games Workshop, which spells them with a K in certain context. If you recognise any of that then the sensibilities of conversations that as often stray towards the 'awks' are likely to appeal. It won't to everyone, but that doesn't matter. Comedy is in the eye of the beholder and perspective is important. Charles is operating at a couple of removes, but Herb's cut himself off from what used to give his work flavour, become salty as a consequence.

There's a whole album of original songs, and Mulligan and Basden's harmonies are one of several places where the film hits just the right notes. There's a shot of a cloud's shadow rolling across the coastal escarpment that's as haunting as the sunbleached equivalents in the (far more Westerly) The Power Of The Dog. Sky-lanterns after sunset might be slightly clumsy special effects but the mixture of Blue Peter-level compositing and ecological responsibility is as warming as the candles within. They carry a wish, and if I had one it's that you'd give this a shot.

It suffers a little from the melancholy, there's a tendency to temper comedy with tragedy but that's a complaint that Homer would recognise. That's either one, but the smuggling and duels and deceptions here are of a different scale. What could Odysseus have done with a blue plastic carrier bag? Pembrokeshire is a ways off the Mediterranean but it's no less ruled by the fates. If you looked the right way you could see Norn island.

There are struggles with artistic authenticity within the film but as a fan of Key and Basden's work I think this is a fair reflection of their styles. Mulligan's a big name. In other circumstances had another cast been dealt they'd be hard pressed to draw better on a second attempt. She's not done much comedy on film but she's more than able to keep up with Key. He's been nominated for awards at Edinburgh's fringe, the original short won at the 2007 Film Festival, and an appearance at Glasgow's film festival entertained a sold out crowd. I'd hope it would entertain you, but the test is a simple one. If you head over to BBC Sounds right now you can (depending on what it thinks your IP address is) give his work a listen. If it grabs you, this will too. If it doesn't, well, that's your loss. The Ballad Of Wallis Island is worth the reprise.