The debut feature of former ad-man Kurt Jones, Waking Ned entitled Waking Ned Devine in the States, where it has done phenomenal box-office business is something of an extended sitcom, best described as Grumpy Old Men by way of Father Ted.
Good-natured and gently hilarious, if a tad Oirish , the film chronicles the comic capers of two elderly rural rustics who try to defraud the National Lottery of a #6 million cheque, the fruits of a winning Lotto ticket which belonged to their inconveniently dead housemate (the Ned Devine of the title). Played entirely for laughs, the film manages to hit the funnybone more than it misses, and though hardly a cinematic masterpiece, it makes for pleasantly entertaining viewing.
The sly old codgers at the centre of the tale are played by Ian Holm and David Kelly, the home-grown actor who has already attained immortality for his performance in Fawlty Towers as O Reilly, the shit-thick Irish builder who reckoned that if the Good Lord wanted us to worry, he would have given us things to worry about .
Kelly is a veteran of the scene, but can t recall ever enjoying a shoot as much as Waking Ned.
It was incredible fun, he enthuses. It was really hard work because we only had six weeks to film, but it was enjoyable, every day was fun. We were dealing with this magic, and we knew that from the start, but nothing prepared us for the reaction we ve had. We knew we had a good film, but I don t think anyone had any conception in their wildest dreams that it would do as well.
Although the film is basically an easygoing lightweight comedy, it takes a couple of unexpectedly black turns en route . . .
Ahh, we were aware of the edge (grinning), and a bit of menace is always a great help in comedy. But mostly, it was just great fun, and there wasn t a hiccup, not even one which was all thanks to Kurt. Even the weather.
Jones, who wrote and directed the project, is equally positive.
I can t believe it ll ever be that good again. I think I was so lucky. It was such an unstressful shoot, everything went like clockwork, and everything since then has gone like a dream. People seemed to react really well, it s won awards I worry now about the next one, cos I know it will never be like that again.
It was strange the way we ended up there (the film was shot on the Isle of Man) I d always imagined we d end up shooting in Southern Ireland. I did all of my research there, he continues. I went to a friend s cottage in Dingle and sort of based myself there, and we d travel around to Tralee and stuff, just meeting people, talking to them, videoing them. I did a lot of drinking in pubs, listened to stories and started to put the script together, and as far as I was concerned that was the way we were going to shoot. Then a couple of things happened.
We were offered money to shoot the film two years before we actually shot, but it involved re-writing the script, the lead actors were much younger, and I was convinced that the charm in the characters and the presence of Ian and David was a really important part of the film, so I said no to that.
Subsequently, we were offered money to make it as an American film with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau to take the lead roles, and I thought it s just going to be another Grumpy Old Men film, and they re not even Irish . The film could have easily been made that way, but that wasn t the point. By this time I d spent so long working on the script, I wanted to hang on and get this right.
Then when it came about that we could shoot on the Isle of Man, I wasn t sure about that, I d never been there to be honest, and then the producer said take a look at the island and see if it ll work . I was dubious about it, but I went up there, and I saw the most stunning location. I looked around and realised this could actually work .
Then I discovered this village. I d looked for the perfect village in Southern Ireland and we could probably have found it if we d continued to look. But this was one of those self-contained villages where you keep going down the road and it just leads you back to where you started from. So I thought this is incredible , it was exactly like the village I d had in my mind. And suddenly there were too many reasons why we had to shoot there. I thought hang on a minute, no-one s coming in to change the script, I ve got a completely Irish cast, which I always wanted, the money s in place, we can shoot it in six weeks time, and we ve got the whole village .
The only sacrifice was that it wasn t Southern Ireland, but I thought, well, it s my first film, you ve got to give in on something . And if I d shot in Ireland, I would have been obliged to use an Irish crew, which would have been fun but they were taken up on much bigger projects like Saving Private Ryan, so all the really great technicians were obviously drawn to stuff like that, rather than our little two-million-quid six-week shoot. So I ended up using my normal crew who I m used to working with on commercials, and on your first picture, it s nice to be surrounded by your own gang.
David Kelly takes up the theme: But looking at it (the Isle of Man), it couldn t be anywhere else than Ireland. It s even, to some extent, Gaelic-speaking. And it s like the way we were, these beautiful thatched cottages which aren t crumbling at all. We shot there, and there was no set at all the church was the church, the beach was the beach, and the people involved were the people of the village.
Kurt Jones precise future plans are unclear, but we can expect to see him behind the camera for some time to come:
I ve been approached with a lot of scripts that other people have written, but I really enjoy the process of writing and then directing, so I think that s probably what I should do. Cos we ve already had offers to fully finance the next picture, so it s literally down to me to sit and write a film. I ve also had offers from studios in America who are very keen to sign a contract and give me money to write. Which is lovely, it s great, but as soon as I do that, they then own my work and I m not independent. If I finish a project which I feel really strongly about, and they say we d like you to use Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau , I m almost obliged to do that. And if I d done that with Waking Ned, I would have felt really bad about it, it wouldn t have been the same film and we probably wouldn t be sitting down now because you wouldn t want to talk to us.
I m so wary of that that I m just saying no to everyone and I ve gone back into commercials to get some money in the bank, cos I m getting married in May. n