It must have taken considerable courage for Jerry Rothwell to film a documentary about a punk rock group with learning disabilities. He filmed them on tour and recorded their album, The Queen Mother’s Dead.
There are times when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry but Rothwell avoids any charge of patronising them.
We see their first try in a pub where their anarchic rendering of Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head surprises the customers into applause. "We like to take a classic song and crucify it," says one. And so they do, with raucous abandon. The Troggs’ Wild Thing is no longer just a love song when they sing it.
No one could say they were exactly talented. Just to see them, however, under the careful but not over-protective charge of their carers and social workers, making the most of their huge enthusiasm, is a moving sight — though it might be wise to block your ears, as one of their girlfriends does.
There is one sad moment when they perform to fellow patients at their day centre and are mortified when carers pack the audience off for their 9pm bedtimes. Clearly not all the mentally disabled are given the same freedom as Sussex’s answer to the Ramones.
Heavy Load
Cert: 12A
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