Diary of A Bad Lad

 

Disgraced film lecturer and would-be documentary filmmaker Barry Lick has a project he believes will be the making of him: a no-holds barred documentary investigation into the alleged criminal activities of dodgy local businessman “Ray Topham”. Recruiting a team of his own former students, Barry’s quest leads him to “Topham’s” “Security Consultant”, Tommy Morghen, who offers all of the access the filmmakers could wish for. But Tommy is a smarter player than Barry and his callow crew could possibly imagine, and is exploiting them for his own ruthless ends…

 

Blurring the boundaries between the real and the reconstructed, the film offers a blackly comic and fiercely intelligent study of the media’s obsession with and complicity in modern criminality. So authentic is the film’s recreation of the modern documentary style, and so plausible is its gangland milieu, that when lead actor Joe O’Byrne appeared in character as the gangster Tommy Morghen to introduce a screening at the BBC in London, somebody actually called security. And anyone who has ever questioned the morality of Reality TV will recognise the attitude of Barry Lick: “We can do anything we like - you signed a release!” Bad Lad was the film that ushered in what its writer and producer Jonathan Williams has termed the North West Underground, so it seems appropriate that it be screened here at the beginning of a festival strand exploring the phenomenon.

 

Screening as part of our NORTH WEST UNDERGROUND strand.

STARRING…THE PEOPLE OF SALFORD

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STEVE BALSHAW INTERVIEW

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INNOVATE, DON’T IMITATE!

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THE ORSON WELLES OF SALFORD

He was Salford's Welles and King of Manchester Exploitation movies. He was a pioneer of independent filmmaking in the region. And now there's a book. You should own it.

UNDERSTANDING THE PAST

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