Spinal Tap get into the stones

The comic pinnacle of the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap is the sight of a bunch of puffed-up rock stars performing onstage with an 18-inch Stonehenge stage prop. In yesterday’s Observer Harry Shearer, who played Tap’s bass player, recalled driving back from Glastonbury years ago and coming face-to-face with the real thing.

“At 6.45pm we drove in and they said no, we’re closing at seven,” says Shearer. “Christopher [Guest] and I are fairly shy but our keyboard player, God bless him, is fairly forward so he just walked up and said, ‘You’ve gotta let these guys in, they put this place on the map’.” Apparently the gates duly opened. It seems even prehistoric monuments are nobody till they’ve made it in the movies.