The buoys are back in town!
Fisherman’s Friends is set to reel you in all over again …with a VERY familiar face in her first acting role
The first film was box office gold when released in 2019, now the
utterly charming Fisherman’s Friends is back to tug at our heartstrings all over again.
Based on the real story of a group of English fishermen (the film focuses on Jago, Jim, Leadville and Rowan, fictional versions of the group’s real members), whose lusty recitals of old sea shanties won them a £1m record contract in 2010, turning them into the world’s oldest ‘buoy band’, its warmth, wit and poignancy reeled us all in. And the follow-up film, Fisherman’s Friends:
One And All, is every bit as moving as the Cornish fishermen try to deal with fame and that ‘difficult second album’ syndrome. Particularly as they’re in mourning and, deep down, they feel more comfortable at sea than in an auditorium full of people.
It’s a few months after the last film ended and the band are on the crest of a wave but struggling to cope (a scene where they’re forced into media training is very amusing). They’re also grieving for Jago, who died at the end of the first film, and his son Jim (played again by James Purefoy) is at his lowest ebb. He’s drinking and falling out with his colleagues and his behaviour results in the band being dropped by their record label. To earn the chance to release their second album, dedicated to Jago, Jim’s indomitable mother Maggie (Ten Percent actress Maggie Steed) hatches a plan for them to play at Glastonbury. Meanwhile, Jim finds unlikely solace with a former wild child singer – played by Imelda May in her first acting role.
‘We wrote the script during lockdown and suddenly we all had this shared experience of being isolated and people struggling,’ says the film’s writer, producer and director Meg Leonard. The delve into grief and mental health is based partially on the real band’s story. In 2013, singer Trevor Grills and promoter Paul McMullen were killed in a freak accident when a heavy door collapsed on them before a concert. The band didn’t perform together for a year after the tragedy.
‘This band’s had its fair share of grief,’ says Steed, who got to know the band and their FWAGS (Fishermen’s Wives And Girlfriends) while working on both films. ‘For a long time they stopped singing, touring, everything. By then the film had been mooted, but they put that on hold too. This is a very tight-knit community. They all worked together and were in each other’s lives, so it’s a desperately important part of the Fisherman’s Friends story.
You have this band of men who need each other, but men often don’t talk about these things. It explores that feeling of being lost and not knowing how to cope.’
Help for Jim comes from singer Aubrey Flynn, played by Dubliner Imelda. ‘It was difficult having to kiss James Purefoy, but somebody had to do it,’ she laughs. ‘I was delighted that formed part of my day’s work – who wouldn’t be? I’m just hoping there’s a Fisherman’s Friends Three!’
Once again filming took place in and around Port Isaac, home of the original Fisherman’s Friends, and in the evenings the cast would join the real group to sing. ‘I can’t tell you what a beautiful experience making this film was,’ says Imelda. ‘One minute you’d be singing with the real group by the quay or in the pub, and the next we’d be filming one of their songs on a beautiful cliff top. It was like being in a very happy bubble.’
Imelda sang with the group at Glastonbury this year when they found they were both on the bill. As for more films, Imelda might get her wish as ideas are already being floated for a third, maybe taking the group to Australia.
IT WAS DIFFICULT HAVING TO KISS JAMES PUREFOY BUT SOMEONE HAD TO DO IT