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I came away from the Ian Dury biopic , , finding that , nine years after his death, I'm not sure if I like Ian Dury. I still like the records, but it turns out he wasn't that nice a man. Self centred and not a good father were two of the impressions I got at the screening last night. The film itself is great, from the opening titles, designed by Peter 'I only got £200 for Sgt Pepper" Blake to the performance of Andy Serkis as the adult Ian. I would use the term 'impressionistic' to describe the film but I'm not sure what that means and I've already used 'impression' two sentences ago. It's not a straight run through the man's life, is what I mean. Flashbacks, animation, scenes which are set on a theatre stage, all combine to paint a picture of the man who gave us Billericay Dickie, Clever Trevor and the razor blade as an earring. There's one scene, slightly clunky to my ears but let's give it the benefit of the doubt and say it actually happened, where Dury is listening to the radio where someone's talking about the Sex Pistols and the Grundy incident. 'Johnny Rotten's nicked my razor blade idea' was the gist of the comment from Ian.
I can see no sign of when the film will be more widely available - I think the Foyle Film Festival got a (very) advance copy but see it if you ever get the chance. One more thing - I've said Andy Serkis does a great job, a brilliant job, in fact, but he's also the one to hire if there's ever a film to be made about Charlie Harper from the UK Subs. He was the spitting image of him, during the scenes set when Ian Dury grew out the shaven head and let his locks go luscious. Keep that curly wig handy, Andy.