Drummer And The Keeper film brings understanding of mental health issues
A review by Jackie Hayden
The imminent debut album by the band MUDA, led by Gorey vocalist Dave Lavelle, lyrically addresses issues that have been covered across all media, but are not so easy to find in our rock music, with some exceptions. So I welcome musician Nick Kelly’s graphic and sensitive film The Drummer and The Keeper as it embeds those issues firmly in a rock world that has bequeathed us a trail of broken lives.
The film asks whether deep-seated emotional matters can be successfully tackled through creative activity, and while the depiction of a naive rock band heading for the top has been much overdone, it serves as a suitable background against which the issues can be played out. The bi-polar Gabriel, the Drummer in the band and of the title, is played convincingly by Dermot Murphy. His fellow musicians and sister Alice (Aoibhinn McGinnity) are rapidly losing patience with his erratic behaviour, unreliability, and penchant for setting fire to things. But he loves the band so much he reluctantly agrees to be medicated and to play football with some disabled guys as part of his treatment. He falteringly develops a friendship with The Keeper Christopher (Jacob McCarthy) who has Asperger Syndrome and is obsessed with goalkeepers and Lego. Christopher becomes a highly efficient roadie for the band, but things fall apart when they dump Gabriel for a new bloke. But it’s not over yet ...
Unlike Nick Kelly, who has an autistic son, I have thankfully had no immediate experience of such matters, so his film helped me understand the trials and pressures on those who have. Others expressed the exact same response. It might seem crass to see it also as a hugely entertaining work with lots of the kind of rock noises I like, but maybe that’s one way to break on through to the other side. Mental health matters are not easy to make fun of but The Drummer and The Keeper is played with such sympathy that you laugh with the characters. So maybe we’ve come a long way since John Lennon’s gauche parodies of those with disabilities. Maybe.