Buoy band on the crest of a wave
It puts the corn into Cornwall, but the Fisherman’s Friends sequel has plenty of heart... and sole
Fisherman’s Friends: One And All (12A, 112 mins)
Verdict: Sentimental seaside singalong ★★★☆☆
I Came By (15, 109mins)
Verdict: Half-baked horror ★★☆☆☆
FISHERMAN’S Friends: One And All brings the corny back to Cornwall in an enjoyable, sea-shanty-fuelled film based on the true story of a group of folk singers.
The first musical comedy in 2019 featured the journey of the Fisherman’s Friends from their home village of Port Isaac to top-ten international fame. This second instalment is less about ‘hoo-ray and up she rises’ and more about ‘ what shall we do with the drunken sailor?’
That’s James Purefoy, who once again plays Jim, the gruff, charismatic leader of the singers. Jim drowns his sorrows on a regular basis, traumatised by the death of his lobster-fisherman father Jago (David Hayman) who formed the original band.
The rest of the Fishermen are also struggling with fame on tour. We see a rumbustious night at the Grimsby Docks Social Club where one of the older singers asks a female journalist whether she likes ‘meat in her pasty’ and gets a glass of wine in his face.
Meanwhile, Rowan (Sam Swainsbury), the handsome married barman from the village, is almost suffocated by ladies in pink at a Northern hen night.
The lads return, hungover and shamefaced, to Cornwall, and as Jim’s mum (Maggie Steed) puts it: ‘ I’ve seen dressed crabs look more lively.’
THuS the oldest and most politically incorrect ‘ buoy band’ in the charts find themselves in trouble and are sent for ‘ media training’ by their record company before the launch of their second album. Much fun is made of the contrast of metro versus retro when the music executives visit from London.
There is also a search for a new band member — who turns out to be more of a farmer than a fisherman, to Jim’s disgust.
It’s all rollicking entertainment and the soundtrack milks the traditional songs for emotional power, too, as Jim and Rowan battle with their demons — and have to dress up as giant fish fingers for an advert. Will the band ever get back on track?
From a silly start, the story manages to find surprising emotional depth with Jim’s struggle with alcohol, grief and commercial exploitation. He meets another singer who turns up at his mum’s B&B, a mysterious Irishwoman called Aubrey (Imelda May), who is also on the run from her past.
No spoilers here, but they do spar over a couple of scones and clotted cream, with Jim revealing that in Cornwall the strawberry jam goes on the scone first, followed by a dollop of cream ( in Devon it’s the opposite, apparently).
Of course, the biggest character on screen is Cornwall itself, with breathtaking shots of cliffs above turquoise sea, and the charming nooks of Port Isaac.
The choir belts out: ‘For this is my Eden, and I’m not alone/ For this is my Cornwall and this is my home.’ Surely a karaoke version of the film must be in the works?
There could not be a greater contrast with I Came By, a grim urban tale about radical graffiti artists who tag the homes of the rich in London. They meet their match in the form of a distinguished judge, played by Hugh Bonneville.
Bonneville’s character, Sir Hector Blake, is leaner and meaner than Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey and makes your skin crawl when he seems to be grooming a young male asylumseeker with the offer of a G&T at his magnificent house.
The graffiti artists are Toby (George MacKay) and his friend Jay (Percelle Ascott) and their invasion of the judge’s home plunges them into an underworld of perversion and privilege.
unfortunately, the script ticks every cliché along the way, and it wasn’t hard to guess the next line each time. The street slang is also unconvincing (‘You know da feds have me on their radar and I’ll have to go back in da pen,’ says Jay at one point).
Kelly Macdonald does her best, as always, as Liz, Toby’s mother, sick with worry at his erratic behaviour; and Bonneville is clearly enjoying his stroll on the dark side.
The film was co-written and directed by British-Iranian Babak Anvari, whose previous films have gone in for the gruesome, but I Came By seems to have been sanitised for its Netflix audience.
All the chain-sawing and clubbing is off- screen, and the most dangerous weapon we see is a cricket bat. This is a horror movie with the horror gone AWOL.
FISHERMAN’s Friends: One And All is in cinemas from today. I Came By is in some cinemas now and on netflix from August 31.