Some British film-makers never give up and Shane Meadows is one of them. He’d make a movie of a custard pie if he could. And generally there’s entertainment to be had from even his most hand-to-mouth efforts.
This very low-budget, improvised comedy, made in five days with a little help from his Nottingham friends, stars Paddy Considine as a somewhat grudging roadie called Le Donk helping his rapper lodger, Scor-Zay-Zee (Dean Palinczuk), get a gig supporting Arctic Monkeys.
Meadows follows the pair with his camera, as if this were a documentary, encouraging Considine’s character to make as much of a fool of himself as he can.
This he proves entirely capable of. Le Donk has got his girlfriend pregnant but, as she is about to have the baby, she has sensibly left him for another. This irks the roadie and some of the best sequences have him pushing his way into his ex-girl’s house and going on and on about being a responsible father while decrying the length and breadth of sexual equipment of her new boyfriend (Richard Graham, the film’s editor).
Meanwhile he finally manages to get his lodger a spot on an Arctic Monkeys’ programme where a large crowd of fans at least give him a cheerful hearing.
The film makes the best of its five-day, no budget restrictions, so that you don’t expect much more than you get. That amounts to a fine comic riff from Considine (a Meadows regular), a nice portrait of a lumpen rapper from Palinczuk, and direction that cheerfully gives the impression that anyone can beat the financial rap of the recession if they try hard enough. Meadows, we know, always does that.
Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee
Cert: 15
